The Economic Times published the list of India’s Most Trusted Brands in 2014 last week. Trust is clearly the most desirable for any brand and most brand managers will give an arm and a leg to earn that trust from everyone who interacts with the brand. However the dynamic nature of this yearly list is clearly indicative of the turbulence in the marketplace. But here are some observations to make some sense from this reasonably chaotic movement in rankings:
Brands which focus on a parent-child relationship with consumers (offering protection and nourishment as sources of trust) like Colgate, Dettol, Surf Excel, Maggi, Glucon D are big gainers and stable winners
1. The zonal rankings also throw a number of surprises : except for Dettol, most trusted regional brands are not trusted pan-India
2. Consistently well-distributed brands seem to do well. For example Colgate, Unilever (Lux, Surf Excel, Clinic Plus etc), Nestle (Maggi) and Britannia are the usual suspects. The notable exceptions are public sector brands. With the exception of State Bank of India and LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India) none of them made it to the Top 100
3. Nokia has improved it’s rankings underlying a reading that the way corporate performance has little impact on short and medium term impact over what consumers think of the brand especially in the FMCG market
4.Tenure in the history of brands is a clear attribute for winning the coveted trust of consumers
5.Most brands which had earned equity in the consumers’ mouth (foods, beverages) either improved or maintained their rankings. This is a strong reiteration of the well-known fact that consumers are very loyal and therefore brands which they eat/put in their mouths. The notable exceptions to this trend, again not surprisingly are colas (Pepsi, Rasna, Mirinda, Fanta are amongst them)
6. Amongst the biggest gainers are technology brands – Nokia, Samsung, LG have moved up significantly
Image courtesy of [ Stuart Miles ] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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