120M NIGERIANS RATE MTN,COKE ETC AS FIRST STRONG BRAND

The process of unveiling Nigeria’s top 50 brands, in commemoration of the centennial of the amalgamation of the country’s former southern and northern protectorates in January 2014 was climaxed at the weekend.
Giant brands such as MTN Nigeria (telecommunications), Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited (carbonated soft drinks) and First Bank of Nigeria Plc (Nigeria’s oldest surviving financial institution), were named the country’s most healthy and top-of-the-mind brands through a poll involving 120 million Nigerians.

Top 50 Brands Nigeria is an annual selection and critical analysis of 50 most popular and healthy brands (companies) in Nigeria.
According to the organisers, it is a medium for reviewing business performance, measuring healthiness, classification and rating.
While mega brands such as MultiChoice, owners of Digital Satellite Television (DStv), Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Conoil, Wema Bank (Nigeria’s oldest indigenous banking institution), Kia Motors, The Guardian (newspapers), Arik Air, Aero Contractors (Nigeria’s oldest surviving airline brand) and Channels TV were conspicuously missing. Meanwhile, the Dangote Group had two brands on the list (Dangote Cement and Dangote Sugar), just as four mobile telecommunications companies made the list, along with The Punch (newspapers), DAAR Group (broadcast media owners- Raypower and African Independent Television), Silverbird Group (television), and Thisday (newspapers), are the media brands in the list.
Besides First Bank, there are also Access Bank, Berger Paints, Cadbury (confectioneries), Chevron Nigeria (oil exploration and production), Diamond Bank, Dufil Prima Foods (Indomie), ExxonMobil, Forte Oil, Friesland WAMCO (dairies), Golden Penny (pasta), GSK (medicals and healthcare), GTBank, Guinness Nigeria (alcoholic and malt beverages), Honeywell Group (foods), IEI Plc (insurance), Julius Berger (construction), Lafarge WAPCO (building materials), Nestle Nigeria (food beverages and confectioneries), Zenith Bank, Samsung (electronics and household products), Promasidor (beverages), Nokia (telecoms), Nigerian Breweries (alcoholic and malt beverages), Stanbic IBTC (banking and finance), Toyota Nigeria (automobiles), UBA (banking group), UACN (conglomerate) and Unilever Nigeria (household and body products makers) amongst others.

Speaking at the media presentation of the list and launch of **The Brand Nigeria Journal** in Lagos recently, the Project Coordinator, Top 50 Brands Nigeria, Taiwo Oluboyede, said the activities leading to the emergence of the brands started with a nomination process, where entries were accepted and reviewed.
“We received entries from both home grown and multinationals. After thorough evaluation of brand promises and equity, we were able to reduce the volume to the 100 most popular in Nigeria,” he said.
For the popularity test, Oluboyede said that “we created shuffling online evaluation software which allows members of the public to select their preferred brands. Each of the brands was represented by their logo for ease of identification. We also have a phone system in which you could just dial a brand’s assigned unique code to select it.”
This allowed over 120 million phone users in Nigeria to participate in the survey.
Other criteria considered were brand visibility, clarity of vision, market acceptability, values, customer service, healthiness, and contribution to national development.