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FILIPINO
consumers have remained loyal to and satisfied with
brands they grew up with and trusted for years,
according to the 10th Reader’s Digest Trusted Brands
Survey.
Brands
like Coca-Cola, Canon, Nokia, Sony, Pilot and Ajinomoto
are on 10-year winning streaks to receive consumers’
ultimate seal of approval, while winning brands for five
consecutive years in their own industries include
Metrobank for banking, Petron for gasoline stations,
Philamlife for insurance, General Electric (GE) for
refrigerators, Panda for pens and Minola for cooking
oil.
For
William Hamilton-Whyte, Nokia Philippines general
manager, earning the Platinum Trusted Brand award eight
times is more than brand recognition, as it entails huge
responsibility for constant customer satisfaction.
“Since
we are on the right track, we will continue the
direction of keeping our customers happy by continuously
providing them the care and services they deserve,”
Hamilton-Whyte told the BusinessMirror.
Despite
the increasing competition in the mobile/cellular-phone
category, he still believes competition is healthy and
necessary.
Hamilton-Whyte justified, “It [com-petition] keeps you
on your toes. The question is who got the best quality
and technology for the market.”
Marketing officer Evangeline Duterte of CYA Industries,
Inc. (GE Philippines Distributor), on the other hand,
shared insights on how the award has improved her
company’s performance.
“It
[Trusted Brand award] is a factor for our sales increase
last year and an effective tool to cover A to C
markets,” explained Duterte.
Under
the new card-issuing bank category, Bank of the
Philippine Islands (BPI), Citibank and HSBC bagged the
gold award.
“We’ll
work hard to aim for the Platinum award next year and
best serve our clients,” said Bea Tan, Citibank’s
current business director.
Consistent gold winners include Centrum for
vitamin/health supplement category and St. Luke’s
Medical Center
and Makati Medical Center for hospitals.
Dr.
Joven Cuanang, St. Luke’s chief medical officer, vowed
to adhere to the same quality and standards they offer
now, while adding more advanced facilities for their
future patients.
“We will
have the PET [positron emission tomography, which uses
radioactive material to treat body abnormalities in tiny
specs] scan, the first in the Philippines and [which is]
only present in Singapore and Hong Kong hospitals in
Asia,” disclosed Cuanang.
He
added, “We’ll have our soft operations by October 2009.”
The
Trusted Brand victors received theirs awards at the
Conservatory of the Manila Peninsula Hotel in
Makati.
The research covered eight Asian markets—the
Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore,
Taiwan, Thailand and mainland China—and was conducted by
Reader’s Digest with the help of Nielsen Co. through
530,000 mailed questionnaires and 109,233 phone
interviews from October 2007 to November 2007.
The
barometer of consumers’ trust, organizers said, is based
on six factors: trustworthiness, credible image,
quality, value, understanding of customer needs and
innovation.
Other
winners to join the old categories were Puregold,
Robinsons and Rustan’s for supermarket Chain; Ateneo de
Manila for University; Banco de Oro for bank; Samsung
for LCD (liquid crystal display)/Plasma TV; Dutch Boy
for paint and Golden Fiesta for cooking oil.
The
event was hosted by the award-winning tandem of Chico
and Delamar, disc jockeys of Monster Radio RX 93.1. |
