Search for top 50 Nigerian brands begins

The search to give Nigerians the most market acceptable top 50 brands to commemorate the Nigeria Centenary celebration has commenced. The criteria for selection of these brands include popularity, good corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, customer service delivery, innovation, market acceptability and loyalty.

Other criteria include brand value, sustainability and brand healthiness, to adjudge the best 50 brands in the country in January 2014, when the government would be celebrating the country’s centennial. The project is powered by APT Brand International Limited and in partnership with VConnect Global Service and the Certified Board of Administration of Nigeria (CBAN).

Taiwo Oluboyede, project co-ordinator of Top 50 Brands Nigeria, says the initiative is to present a critical analysis of brands (companies) rating, which test healthiness, values and productivity of the brand.

Oluboyede, who is passionate about the project and its values, says further that the project will create healthy competition among brands, enhancing customer driven delivery with insatiable desire for excellence, good corporate citizenship, and thereby setting standards for minimum performance for brands in Nigeria.

“Our objective is to use the evolution stories and achievements of these brands as a reference point and inspiration for the populace,” he says.

Speaking on the process to get brands and companies selected, Joseph Okonmah, CEO of Jasek Communications Limited, says activities leading to the selection of the top 50 companies started with a nomination process in which a total of 100 popular companies were nominated out of which 50 are being selected for celebration.

For popularity test, Okonmah says: “We have created evaluation software where we represented each of the 100 nominated brands with their logos. This software allows you to click on a particular company’s logo to select it. You could select between 2 and 50 brands per time,” he says.

There are about 40 million Nigerians who use the internet, and according to Nigeria Communication Commission, over 120 million presently have mobile phones.

In view of this, the project is developed as a phone-based selection system called ‘Flash to Choose.’

By: Hope Akorowhe