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The COVID-19 pandemic has crept into almost every aspect of our livelihoods and impacted everything from the personal to the public.

Many businesses have struggled to stay afloat, but there are those that have weathered the storm, remaining popular with the South African public.

We know this because of Brand Finance’s recently released 2021 annual report, which showed the most valuable and strongest brands in South Africa.

According to this report, the strongest and most valuable brand in South Africa is MTN, a brand that has held on to this title for 10 consecutive years, nogal.

In second place was Vodacom, with FNB, Old Mutual, and Standard Bank taking third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

Clearly, South Africans are loyal to the industry that holds our money for us.

According to Brand Finance, South Africa has some serious resolve and resilience (via IOL):

“The top 50 most valuable South African brands were initially forecast to lose over R65 billion in cumulative brand value (15%) during the pandemic.

However, resolve and resilience – attributes that arguably define South African culture – have meant the top 50 have only recorded a 2% (R8,8 billion) decrease in cumulative brand value, from R471,3 billion in 2020 to R462,4 billion in 2021.

This resilience is especially evident in the impressive recovery seen on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), which returned to January 2020 levels after just 15 months,” Brand Finance Africa said in a statement.

This might have made me smile a little bit more than that viral ‘bucket list’ travel video that showcased South Africa’s beauty.

News24 reports that Brand Finance measures the strength of companies’ brands by looking at how familiar consumers are with the brand, how often they consider it when making purchases, as well as how often it is recommended to friends and family, and ultimately how that improves the companies’ profits and margins.

The overall brand ranking also considers brand strength, including familiarity and reputation:

Brand strength is more important in the retail and other consumer-facing sectors with companies like Woolworths associated with “proof of quality” while the meaning of Capitec’s affordable banking promise resonates with its customers so strong that they frequently come out in its defence on social media.

When it comes to South Africa’s strongest brand, Vodacom was pushed down to fourth place by Capitec, FNB, and Carling Black Label.

The best-known brand was Pick n Pay, whereas Checkers came out on top as the most reputable brand, overtaking Woolworths by a small margin:

“An interesting result this year is seeing Checkers come up on top. Checkers started repositioning their brand in late 2019 to try a segment of the high-end retail, which Woolworths sort of had a monopoly on for some time. As a result, we’ve seen a significant increase in sales for Checkers. Consumers are responding positively to the brand,” said Ben Baigrie, a senior analyst at Brand Finance.

Looks like Woolworths will need to come up with something new and exciting so that it can protect its market share.

Especially when you consider the success of Checkers Sixty60.

[source:iol&news24]