Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands Methodology

Now in its 12th year, Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands is a consumer-led survey which seeks to establish brand preferences across Africa. Conducted in 28 countries covering all economic regions in Africa and collectively accounting for more than 85% of the continent’s population and GDP, it is the most comprehensive survey on brands in Africa. The research, which yielded more than 180,000 brand mentions and over 3,000 unique brands, was conducted independently by Brand Africa partners during the second quarter of 2022. GeoPoll (www.geopoll.com), the world’s leading provider of mobile-based market research solutions in Africa with a database of more than 250m respondents in emerging markets, used their sophisticated digital survey platform. Kantar (www. kantar.com), the globally respected consumer knowledge and information company, and Brand Leadership (www.brandleadership.africa), Africa’s leading branding, strategic communications and intellectual property advisory firm, provided strategic analysis, rankings and insights, taking into account the sample and population sizes of each country covered.

Brand Africa has elected to use mobile for data collection since 2015 due to its high penetration, convenience and effectiveness for research across Africa compared to face-to-face methodologies. Individuals aged 18 and older in the sample countries were asked to report on their top three most admired brands, irrespective of country of origin or domicile. Considering the acceleration of AfCFTA to drive intra-Africa trade, the rise of African brands, and the internal focus of nations and regions due to the pandemic, in 2022 Brand Africa added a question to highlight the brands and businesses perceived to symbolise pride in Africa.

Because of their catalytic impact or influential role, in 2017, Brand Africa introduced specific questions for respondents to identity their most admired media and financial services brands. As an Africa-focused survey and ranking and given the growing number of African brands, since 2017/8 Brand Africa has produced rankings for the most admired African brand. The first ranking is an extraction of the African brands recalled spontaneously out of the top 100 brand rankings. The second ranking is based on a specific recall of African brands to produce the top African brands. Finally, in the analysis and ranking, since 2021 Brand Africa has highlighted the top French brands in Africa, due to the significant size of the Francophone region, and the top brands in Francophone Africa.

The lists are analysed to ensure there are no duplications and no generic categories and focus primarily on consumer brand mentions. Where the brand operated under different names in different markets, such as Stanbic/Standard Bank and Vodacom/ Vodafone/Safaricom, or where the brands were sub-brands of a dominant brand, such as Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad, the results were consolidated under a single score for the brand group. In identifying the list for the most admired African brands, where the brands had a dominant African residual equity or identity derived from their origins in Africa - such as Safaricom, M-Pesa and Tusker from Kenya or Castle from South Africa - irrespective of its ownership or shareholding, the brand was recognised as an African brand.

To make the list of the Top 100 most admired brands in Africa and the most admired African brands, the brands had to be available or recalled in at least one country other than their domicile market. Given the fragmentation and proliferation of local media, the overall pan-African media list is based only on media with reach across a significant number of African countries.

Finally, in recognising the impact of brand reputation on the value of brands, since 2019, Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands has been identifying the most admired brands listed on leading African bourses.

Overall, since the first rankings in 2011, the Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands has been based on the most rigorous consumer-led methodology consistent with global best practices. Over the years, despite the significant increase in the sample number of countries, the survey has yielded relatively consistent results and has become a trusted barometer of brands in Africa.