Some surprises at 2009 Sunday Times Top Brands Awards

The big brand names were there among the winners but small brands also shone at the Sunday Times Top Brands Awards for 2009, which was held at a glamorous ceremony in Johannesburg at Lexus Fourways on Thursday 20 August.

According to the Ogilvy press release, some of the fascinating shifts in winners of the awards included First National Bank edging out last year’s winner, ABSA, to claim the top spot for retail banks in the business-to-consumer category and smaller air carrier British Airways ousting South African Airways to claim first place for airlines in the business-to-business category.

Other surprises on the night saw the smaller Apple Mac computer brand leap from seventh position to second place in the business-to-business category proving that brand size doesn’t mean the brand is necessarily better. Hotly contesting HP, the winner in this category.

“Smaller brands holding their own amongst the more heavyweight contenders this year is a result of us commissioning TNS Research Surveys to provide a new and innovative research model that would let loved brands whether big or small stand out,” says Enver Groenewald, Avusa Media General Manager: Advertising Revenue and Strategic Communications.

“The results also indicate that smaller competitors that decided not to cut their marketing and advertising budgets during these tough economic times have reaped the rewards and might be gaining some market share.”
 
To get the results for the awards a combination of face-to-face and telephonic interviews were conducted with 3 500 adults and 400 business people to make up 3 900 in total.

For the grand prix categories of consumers top brands, Pick ‘n Pay stole the show by winning two out of the four awards despite Coca-Cola once again winning overall favourite brand followed by Vodacom and then Koo and Nike tied in third position. The leading South African supermarket jumped four spots from fifth position to first place for the company doing the most to uplift the community and claimed first prize as the company doing the most to promote environmentally-friendly behaviour.

The only award that might not have been that unexpected was the announcement that Nelson Mandela was named the favourite South African personality for both consumers and business people.

But what was interesting about this category was that consumers chose political rivals as the next favourite SA personalities after Mandela with Jacob Zuma as the second most popular person followed by Helen Zille in third position. 

“This is possibly an indication of how important this year’s elections were for the South African public. We were also pleased that Sunday Times once again grabbed the top spot for South Africa’s most popular weekly newspaper,” points out Groenewald.

Over and above aligning the research with the latest brand thinking, more exotic and modern categories were also included for this year’s award. The new categories included social and digital networks and new exciting brand categories such as sunglasses, watches and fashion.

See list of winners below.

SUNDAY TIMES TOP BRANDS 2009 WINNERS LIST