DUBAI: Research company YouGov has released its Best Brand Rankings 2021 revealing the top 10 brands in terms of overall “brand health” among residents of Saudi Arabia.
The brands were ranked based on how well they are delivering against their brand promises on key attributes and on the categories “impression, quality, value, satisfaction, recommend and reputation.”
This year’s list sees national airline Saudia at the top with a score of 51.9, dethroning dairy company Almarari, which slipped to fourth place (scoring 48.7). Despite travel restrictions and the grounding of flights for extended periods because of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents’ perception of Saudia as a brand has improved enough to see it climb two places from last year.
Local fast-food chain Albaik dropped one place to third this year, with a score of 50.3, despite seeing its brand health score improve from last year.
Apple scored 41.4 to climb four places to fifth, while its competitor Samsung moved up two places to eighth despite recording a similar score to last year (40.0).
YouTube’s score (39.8) dropped considerably from last year, meaning the popular video streaming platform dropped four places to ninth.
This year saw three new entrants in the top 10: Adidas scored 50.3 to debut in second place; Al-Rajhi Bank scored 40.3, coming in seventh; and Galaxy — the chocolate brand owned by Mars — sneaked into 10th place with a score of 38.8.
YouGov also released a Top 10 of the brands that have seen the most improvement over the last year. Saudi Telecom topped that list, having improved its score by 6.1 points to 30.9, followed by online retailer Noon, which added five points to its 2020 score of 12.8.
Several food and beverage brands also featured on the ‘Most Improved’ list, including McDonald’s (+4.6), Vimto (+3.1), KFC (+2.8), and Herfy (+2.7).
In addition to being one of the top 10 brands in the 2021 KSA rankings, Saudia and Al-Rajhi Bank also feature in the top 10 improvers, with changes of +4.4 and +4.2 respectively.
