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Customers who participated in a comprehensive research survey conducted by Milieu Insight and Campaign rated Samsung and Shopee at the top of their list. View the other 48 brands who made the cut.
Campaign Asia-Pacific has revealed an authoritative list of which brands are leading in Southeast Asia in terms of consumer mindshare. The list was unveiled at Campaign360 in Singapore following an extensive survey and research from Milieu Insight in partnership with Campaign.
After more than 10,000 interviews were carried out, tracking 1,200 brands across 11 sectors, Samsung emerged on top, followed by leading ecommerce platform Shopee (2), tech giant Apple (3) and super app Grab (4).
But tech giants were not the only standouts. Watsons (5) and Lazada (6) also ranked highly thanks to their visibility and awareness across markets, ease of buying and purchase frequency among customers.
Top 50 Brands
Brands in the top 50 had to be present in at least three of the six markets involved in the survey (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam Singapore). In addition, recognised brands were ranked across nine brand attributes including awareness, purchase, quality, buying experience, customer service, trustworthiness, innovation, brand touchpoints (ease of use across all digital and offline brand interactions) and advocacy (degree of recommendation) to form their score.
Personal care and beauty brands were most represented in the regional top 50, followed by apparel, fast food, transport & delivery and electronics. This marks a shift from last year's CX-focused survey when electronics brands figured most prominently.
Among the key findings outlined by Milieu COO Stephen Tracy at the event:
1. Great brands build ecosystems: The single attribute that separated the top performers from the rest was the quality of their offline and online touchpoints. Great brands invest in and build multi-faceted ecosystems that create frictionless experiences for customers.
2. Great brands are often first movers: Being perceived as innovative correlated with the top performers. But innovation isn’t just for ‘tech’ companies. Even personal care and fast food brands saw high innovation scores. So innovation in supply chain or service delivery is not lost on consumers.
3. Great brands deliver quality: High quality scores correlated with the top performers. But quality doesn’t necessarily mean premium, as fast food brands were even viewed to deliver quality. Quality is more than just product, it’s about experience.
The top brand, Samsung, achieved the highest brand awareness score (89%) across the six countries. Samsung also achieved a top score for quality, trust and innovation. However, when it came to the buying experience and customer service categories, automotive brands stood out. Toyota had the highest buying experience and customer service scores overall among the top 50, with Honda following closely behind it.
While Toyota was the leader in these two categories, all brands tended to score higher with consumers in the buying experience and customer service categories compared with others, as illustrated by the chart below.
The top three brands, Apple, Samsung, and Shopee, performed well across all brand attribute categories, but what really set them apart were their leading scores in advocacy, trust, and innovation.
The latter two brand attributes were added to the index score this year. Yet as Tracy pointed out, innovation isn't just about having a more advanced product:
"The top 50 are often first movers, so they over index in terms of innovation," he told the Campaign360 audience. "But remember, innovation doesn't mean that you have to build the next chat GPT. You can innovate in small ways such as creating a really cool queue system or really, really subtle innovations in your products. So innovation can come in many different ways, including your supply chain or service delivery and this will not be lost among consumers. If they're having a frictionless experience and they see you doing something different that makes their life easier, then they will view you as an innovative brand."
Watch for more analysis from this extensive research to be published in Campaign, including country rankings and more.
Milieu offers online survey solutions to assist you in carrying out market research. Being one of the top consumer research firm in Singapore, we assist businesses in thriving in a data-driven world.
