Top 10 best-perceived brands in the UAE this year

Emirates tops the YouGov ranking for the second time in a row

by Aarti Nagraj

July 17, 2016

Dubai airline Emirates is the most positively perceived brand in the United Arab Emirates, according to the 2016 mid-year BestBrand rankings released by market research company YouGov.

The rankings are compiled using the ‘Buzz score’ from YouGov’s daily brand tracker – BrandIndex.

Emirates, which knocked off Samsung from the top spot last year, scored the highest among the 400 brands measured in the UAE this year. The airline launched a refreshed ‘Hello Tomorrow’ global advertising campaign in 2016, increasing its awareness among consumers.

Meanwhile, both Apple and iPhone dropped in the rankings to fifth and 10th respectively.

“Following the launch of the largest ever Apple outlets in travel retail at Dubai International Airport and the re-release of its global ‘Shot on iPhone’ advertising campaign this year, it will be interesting to see if Apple can claim back its share of positive Buzz in the later part of the year,” YouGov said.

Tech giant Google saw the biggest drop in rankings, falling from fifth to eighth place.

The brands that saw the biggest improvements in the first six months of the year include Global Village and LEGOLAND – which is slated to open within Dubai Parks and Resorts in October this year.

The rankings also found that YouTube was the only brand to appear among the top 10 in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the Middle East region.

“Digital and social media are becoming increasingly prominent as marketing vehicles to generate positive appeal amongst consumers with the likes of Emirates, Almarai and Etihad Airways fully integrating these elements into major campaigns,” said head of Travel, Tourism and Leisure Research at YouGov Scott Booth.

“Over the last five years technology brands have been the primary movers in terms of Buzz—Samsung, Apple, Google, Facebook and YouTube have all featured heavily—and at one stage it looked like they would fully dominate the top 10 UAE rankings.

“Now we are seeing other businesses begin to capitalise on the effectiveness of these technology brands in heavy digital, multi-channel campaigns to reach core regional audiences efficiently and in vast numbers.”