Survey Report 1 February 2009 Wave

Background Brands’ income comes from the customers-so, brands must provide what they think is of value to the customers. It sounds obvious, yet very few brands do it well. The goal of branding is to build, maintain, and enhance relationship between brands and consumers. Relationship building is a powerful means of creating and sustaining competitive advantage. Sustainable relationship involves trust as its main ingredient. Therefore, brands must build a relationship of trust with their customers. Trust as a critical element in relationship is the focus of this survey. The Most Trusted Brand survey is an attempt to track the strength of brands relationships with their consumers. It is expected that results from the tracking would enable an environment of continual learning, continual improvement and innovation for the brand owners. 2

It is expected that it would stimulate a new way to think- seeing the customer’s input in this survey as a gift, and new knowledge that can be used to better brand planning and achieve competitive advantage. The results would serve as a reminder for the brand owners to build on- going relationships by keeping their promises and building trust. As a contribution to strong brand management initiatives in Nigeria, BrandHEALTH commences this study as a means of providing a cost effective, reliable, quick, economic and continuous source of primary data on how brands bond with the consumers. 3

Research Objectives The study has only one objective: To identify brands that best bond with the consumers. 4

Research Methodology Respondents were interviewed face to face in-home using fully structured questionnaires. Multi-stage sampling method was used in selecting respondents respondents were interviewed in various parts of Lagos. 560 of the sample were males while the balance 440 respondents were females. The study also comprised of respondents aged 18 to 24 years (29%), 25 to 34 years(43%),35 to 45(19%) and 46 years and above(10%). In terms of social class, 17% of the respondents were consumers in the upper income class, 42% in the middle income class and 41 in the lower income class. The fieldwork for February wave started on the 5th of February and ended on the 21st of February,

Research Methodology In each product category, the respondents were asked five questions relating to trust. They were asked to associate the statements read to them with brands (a single brand per statement). No brand name was mentioned to the consumers. Respondents named brands spontaneously. The aggregate scores for the five statements were then computed to determine the most trusted brand for each product category. 6

BOTTLED WATER Overall The category is very active with so many brands. Incidentally, the consumers have various levels of commitment to them. Only 5% of the total respondents did not answer questions in the category. Eva bottled water was a clear winner in the February survey with 72% of the total vote. None of the five attributes scored less than 72% for Eva water. Three brands Nestle Pure Life, Gossy and Ragolis scored 4% each as most trusted brands of bottled water in Lagos Market. Their ratings on the attributes manifested similar results. Swan was voted by 3%, Cascade and Aquadana were voted by 2% each as the most trusted brand in Lagos market. Gender The voting pattern for all the brands was almost similar for both sexes. 7

Age The largest vote for each brand came from the younger respondents than the older respondents. Social Class Eva had more votes from the middle income and lower income classes than upper income class. Nestle Pure Life, Gossy had more votes from the upper and middle income classes more than the lower income class. There was no seriously marked difference in the voting pattern for Cascade. Swan derived most of its 3% vote from the upper income class than middle and lower income classes. Aquadana was favoured more by the lower income class than the other socio economic classes. The voting pattern for Ragolis was almost ever for all the socio-economic classes 8

4% 3%4% Nestle Pure Life 4% 5%4%Ragolis 7%5%8%7%6%Others 1000 Base Don’t Know None Swan Eva Gossy 5% 1% 3% 72%73%72% 73% 4%5%4% Would never disappoint me Would make any effort to satisfy me Would be honest in attending to my needs I feel most confident in I Obtain what I look for in it BOTTLED WATER CATEGORY Nestle Pure Life, 4% Gossy, 4% Eva, 72% Swan, 3% Ragolis, 4% Others, 7% None, 1% Don’t Know, 5%