Coca-Cola shows it still has all the fizz

Brand Africa survey reveals there is nothing flat about drinks giant

BRAND Africa (an initiative of the Brand Leadership Group) and TNS, the global research group, have just released the findings of the 2014 Brand Africa 100, which ranks the most admired brands in sub-Saharan Africa.

It was no surprise that global soft drink giant Coca- Cola again emerged as the most admired brand in the region.

Coca-Cola’s products and symbols are some of the most recognised images on the continent.

An indication of the growing importance of technology, and particularly in the communication sector, was the fact the cellular network MTN was runner-up and followed into third and fourth places by Samsung and Nokia.

The rest of the Top Ten were: Toyota in 5th spot, Glo 6th, Adidas 7th, Tigo 8th, LG 9th and Nike 10th.

From the commissioning of the research to completion of data analysis, TNS and surveying partner GeoPoll took only eight days, delivering a blueprint-case study of the power and reach of cellular in Africa as well as the pace of cellulardata collection.

The data was collected by GeoPoll, a leading cellular survey platform with a database of nearly 200 million users in emerging markets.

The research was conducted in eight countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and South Africa.

Responses were gathered from 2 674 people across all eight countries in four days. The minimum sample size in a country was 200.

This SMS-based cellular methodology was also significantly faster than the face-to-face approach that is usually adopted for surveys of this nature.

TNS calculated the scores of each brand and Coca-Cola emerged as the most admired brand in subSaharan Africa.

GeoPoll’s cellular surveying platform allows for surveys to be taken on any device, and can reach even those without internet access.

For the Brand Africa study, surveys were sent through SMS to individuals aged 18 and older, who ranked their top three most-admired global or local brands.

Due to the rise in cellular ownership across Africa, the technology has fast become a medium of choice to conduct research.

However, simplicity of design is fundamental to ensure it matches the research need and in this instance it was a perfect fit.

“Mobile is faster. It ensures a wider reach and it penetrates far deeper into target populations,” said Annalise Enslin, innovation partner at TNS.

“These advantages, supported by an experienced TNS research team for analysis and coding this data, delivered a truly winning formula.

“The power of research is in having access to data accurately and speedily… across countries to make decision-making faster and easier,” said Enslin.