What are the most popular brands in Sri Lanka? Wait for Slim-nielsen People’s Choice Awards 2013

The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) is a professional body that caters to the promotion of marketing and elevating the status of marketing within Sri Lanka. SLIM has been engaged in achieving this vision since 1970, subsequently in 1980 SLIM was incorporated through an Act of Parliament. SLIM’s mandate is to uplift the standards of marketers and marketing in Sri Lanka thereby adding value to the economy and the nation. Thus SLIM has aimed to get closer to this objective by pushing the boundaries and developing innovative events and programmes that works towards this common goal.

As the national institute for marketing, SLIM focuses on two main areas – the proliferation of knowledge and rewarding good marketing practices. The latter is done through the brand excellence awards and also the People’s Choice awards.

Partnering with A.C. Nielsen, one of the largest research companies, the awards reach in to a diverse cohort of consumers to identify the brand reach within the communities.

“These accolades are very distinguished by the mere fact that they can only be conferred on the lucky recipients who are nominated by the people themselves. Therefore the accolade recipients of SLIM Nielsen are true reflection of the pulse of the people” said Upul Adikari, the project chair for SLIM Nielsen People’s awards 2013.

Keeping in line with modern challenges and developments, the People’s Choice Awards has modified the award categories, “in the past we had banks and financial institutions in one category, however, we saw that the 2 industries have performed well and could stand on its own and also public is able to differentiate between the two and hence we decided to create two separate categories for banking and finance institutions. At the same time, with the growth of internet usage in the country we spoke to consumers on their preferred internet service provider as well their preferred website” said Adikari.

Speaking on significance of these awards Adikari said “this is the people’s judgement. There is no application and judging procedure here, the customer’s power of recall of the brand and the reputation associated with it; reflects the strength of the brand and the brand marketing strategies as well” said Adikari.

Not revealing the top contenders for the categories Adikari said “we will announce all the winners only at the award’s ceremony on the 19th of March at the Water’s Edge”.

The enthusiasm, anticipation of knowing these results is clearly reflected in the fact that all tickets for the event were sold out in just two days, “so we are expecting a good turnout for the event” said Adikari.

The SLIM-Nielsen People’s Choice Awards is currently in its seventh year, and this year will mark the launch of a magazine on the power of research. “the magazine will feature articles from leading marketing professionals and will highlight just how much marketing research has helped their own brands to flourish over the past years” said Adikari.

Selection of peoples awards are done using modern research methods and for this one of the world’s leading market research agencies has joined hands with SLIM. The research is carried out covering the entire Island and including, for the last two years, the north and east of the country. At the peoples awards even if you compete or not, people vote for the category that your brand most closely represents. The difference in other awards shows is that you can claim that “you did not compete so your competitor won” but in people’s awards even you compete or not people will give the verdict on the category in which you are competing.

The research data will be available for sale, in category form and also in whole, after the event and can be obtained through the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing.

In conclusion Adikari said “the people’s awards reflects the people’s choice in its true sense, the awards do not solely focus on consumer goods alone but also recognises the most popular personalities, preferred media outlets, service providers etc”.