Singapore Airlines rules supreme but where’s the Tiger?
by Chris Reed
A new survey of most admired brands in Singapore reveals that Singapore Airlines is the most admired brand, just ahead of the Shangri-La Hotel and then the usual suspects of Google, Apple, Mercedes, Rolex and Ikea. Nike beats adidas. Visa beats Mastercard by some way. Chivas beats Jack Daniels which beats Johnnie Walker by a distance. Blackberry, Sony both beat Nokia but Nokia beats Samsung. Coke beats Pepsi which isn’t even on the list. Starbucks beats McDonalds by a long way, Prada and Louis Vuitton and Gucci are all high up as is Cartier and Tiffany. DBS (local bank) beats Citi and for all their marketing Standard Chartered comes in very low down. WWF comes up high and the list features the Red Cross and UNICEF which contrasts with the luxury brands that are all higher up the list. M&M’s is the number one sweet, Gap, H&M and Zara the favourite mid range fashion brands. Five star hotels dominate with Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, Banyan Tree, Four Seasons and Intercontinental all high up the list. MTV and CNN are the most admired TV brands and SingTel is almost bottom which considering that virtually all Singaporean’s have a SingTel mobile/TV/web account and that they spend so much money on marketing (including sponsoring the Singaporean F1 Grand Prix) doesn’t say much for their customer service, brand messaging and creative. Health and beauty brands like J&J, Dove, L’Oreal and Colgate come up reasonably high but there is still one cigarette brand in the top 100, Marlboro. The biggest surprise though is that Tiger Beer is only 83rd and is behind Heineken (owned in Singapore by the same company) and Guinness but just in front of Bud. Considering that massive amounts of money it spends in Singapore and globally marketing itself, the fact that this is its home and you see the brand everywhere and its locally recognized as being a global standard bearer for Singapore I would have thought it would be more admired but trying to be all things to all men in its marketing has clearly confused its brand values. It’s meowing rather than roaring!
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