In Brands We Trust (And the winners are....)

I couldn't help smiling at the results of the Readers Digest "Trusted Brand 2009" results for Belgium when I saw them today.

Have a look who's the leading in the "Banking/Building Society" category. Fortis. Admittedly, the field work for this survey was done in August 2008, so things have changed a tad since then.



When it comes to marketing-to-women it is interesting to note that Nivea (and not Dove!) is the big winner throughout Europe and the most trusted cosmetic brand amongst Belgian consumers. Nivea has been very actively working on promoting the brand and engaging with its prospective consumers - both male and female over the past few months. (they clearly understand that if you can first convince the woman, it is then much easier to get the men along too!). You can see some of the activities they've done in Belgium recently on my friend Caroline's social media blog here.



Although there is no overall winner there are a few brands that rise above the rest across multiple countries.

The most nominated brands across the common categories are:

􏰀 NOKIA - For the 9th consecutive year Nokia is the most “Trusted Brand” of mobile phone handset in every country – no
change since the study was first published in 2001.

􏰀 NIVEA - continues to be the brand of skin care that most people trust (winner in 16 out of 16 countries).

􏰀 VISA - Similarly there is no change to the line up of trusted brands in the category of credit card. In 14 out of 16 countries Visa retained the pole position.

􏰀 CANON - remains the trusted brand of camera in 13 countries.

􏰀 KELLOGG'S - is the trusted brand of breakfast cereal in 10 Western European countries and Nestlé predominates in 4/5 of the CEER countries + Portuga.


About the Trusted Brands Survey:
The "Trusted Brands" is an annual consumer survey, involving over 23,000 people in 16 European countries. The survey’s primary objective is to find out which brands Europeans trust the most in a range of consumer product categories.

The reports per country can be found here.