BRANDING : How could BMW be a better loved brand than Maggi Noodles or Lion Beer in Sri Lanka?

Disclaimer : Author(s) have no interest or affiliation with any of the brands mentioned here other than academic curiosity.

Last April (2018), brand valuation company, Brand Finance in partnership with the business magazine LMD unveiled the highly anticipated brand report. Among the report, there are "Most Valuable Brands" and "Most Loved Brands" rankings.

Page 9 of the LMB Brands Annual 2018 issue helpfully describes the methodology and the processes they undertook to create the rankings. They describe a 7 step process which starts with "brand strength calculation". Brand strength is calculated using a number of variables. While the full list of variables used is not shared, "brand equity", "financial performance" and "sustainability" are listed as variables used.

According to the methodology, brand equity is measured using market research. The page 9 of the 2018 Brands Annual states that the brand equity is an important indicator of Brand Strength Index (BSI) and this is established using market research data collected by an independent research company. According the data supplied, they surveyed 1750 persons from Colombo and Gampaha for this purpose. 

SAMPLE SIZE

Sri Lanka has 21 million people and 5 million households. According to Department of Census and Statistics , In 2017 Sri Lanka had a total of 8,583,082 economically active (a.k.a gainfully employed) persons and out of which 6,732,711 persons or a whopping 78% lives in rural areas.

How statistically significant would be a sample size of 1750 from Colombo and Gampaha to measure the brand choices of 8,583,082 economically active people, out of which 6,732,711 lives in rural areas of the country? Of course there is conventional wisdom among the FMCG and Market Research fraternity that Gampaha is the most representative district. It is not clear how this conclusion was arrived but this has been the consensus since the author was a student of CIM decades ago. Whether anyone in the market research fraternity done any research to validate this assumption is not clear at all.

How could BMW be a better loved brand than Maggi Noodles or Lion Beer (in Sri Lanka, not Dubai..) ?

The above shows the best loved brands in the country. While the writer would not contest the top 5 in the list, it seems almost beyond belief that a brand like BMW, the luxury German car managed to get into number 44, while Maggi, one of the staple snacks of the Millenials and Gen Z is at a distant 85. Could this be right? How many of the surveyed 1750 respondents drive a BMW or had any meaningful interaction with the brand for them to rank it way higher than Maggi which I am sure almost everyone tucks in at least once in a while.

How could all time favorite Lion Beer go down to 113 as in terms of "brand love" in a country of record alcohol consumption?

Sony at number 6 is another surprise. In a country where most people buy Samsung (which is at number 35), LG or some other Chinese brand, Sony, the 80's favorite occupies number 6! Baby Cheramy, Pears Baby are 33 and 36 positions respectively when the much more expensive Johnson's Baby which is beyond reach for most young families get the number 8 position? Does it mean that mothers use Baby Cheramy on their precious babies but love Johnson's Baby? Is that brand equity?

Does it mean that people who drive Suzuki Alto's actually love BMWs and Honda's? Does it mean that people buy Samsung, LG or Singer but they love Sony? 

We really don't know. 

Hopefully the brand managers of these companies would start questioning the results because they don't make a lot of sense.