(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Emirates airline maintained its top position for the second consecutive year by creating the biggest buzz and emerged as the UAE's most 'positively perceived' brand, according to the 2016 mid-year BestBrand rankings released by market research company YouGov.
The rankings, which launched across 26 countries globally, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are compiled using the Buzz score from YouGov's daily flagship brand tracker - BrandIndex. The brands that saw the biggest improvements in the first six months of the year include Global Village and Legoland. Since knocking Samsung off the top spot last year, Emirates has continued to create the highest brand Buzz scores of over 400 brands in the UAE this year, and has also made a comeback into the Saudi Arabia Mid-Year Rankings in ninth place. Last week, Emirates airline was named the best airline in the world for 2016 at the Skytrax World Airline Awards 2016. This year has seen the brand launch a refreshed 'Hello Tomorrow' global advertising campaign embracing film, digital, print and outdoor assets to further showcase its in-flight experience to the masses. Last year, Emirates also spent $20 million for a marketing campaign featuring Jennifer Aniston. "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 Scott Booth, head of Travel, Tourism & Leisure Research at YouGov. WhatsApp and Samsung and also maintained their previous rankings of second and third respectively. Mobile messaging phenomenon WhatsAppopened up its services to businesses in 2016 which attracted Dubai Municipality to use the platform to engage its customers. Samsung meanwhile continued to create hype with the launch of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in the Middle East region. Social media favourite Facebook, ranked fourth, reported by YouGov last month to be the most popular social media platform in the Emirates, YouTube (sixth), and home-grown property developer Emaar (seventh) are this years' Mid-Year Rankings climbers - all successfully gaining positive share of voice and improving their Buzz scores since this time last year. YouTube is the only brand to appear in the top 10 Rankings in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the Middle East region. On the other hand, both Apple and iPhone fall down the rankings to fifth and tenth 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. Google witnesses this years' biggest rankings descent from fifth to eighth place. After debuting in the Mid-Year rankings last year, Etihad Airways also slips to ninth but new investments in social and digital display advertising to launch its latest global "Flying Reimagined" campaign starring Nicole Kidman could turn it around for the brand as we move into the second half of 2016. -
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