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

Insurance Overall The study attempts to identify insurance brands that best bond with the consumers on continuous basis. To achieve this objective, 1000 respondents across ages and social classes were interviewed randomly using multi-stage stratified sampling procedure. It was discovered that about six in ten respondents were not users of insurance products. They were not able to participate in the survey. However, 443 respondents claimed they had some information about the industry. The respondents who participated in the survey were asked to associate some statements with the brands they best applied to. The aggregate scores were used to compute the results. Findings were that none of the insurance companies command so much equity above the rest. This is evident in the low scores for all the brands. However, IGI was voted as the most trusted brand. 7% of the respondents mentioned the brand. 7

In the second position is AIICO insurance with 5%vote. Oasis came third with 3% vote. Corner stone and Niger Insurance received 2% each. Brands with 1% score were WAPIC Intercontinental, Leadway Assurance and Sovereign Trust. Gender The category is not gender sensitive. Both male and female voted almost the same way. Age The relationship with the brands in the category is not a function of age. The apparent lack of interest in the industry cuts across all the age brackets. Social Class Most of the votes for the insurance companies came from the respondents in the upper income class. 8

2% CONERSTONE 7%8%7%8%7%IGI 4%3% OASIS 2% Niger Insurance 1000 Base 5% AIICO 10% 11%10%11%OTHERS Don’t Know None 56% 14% 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 INSURANCE CATEGORY IGI, 7% AIICO, 5% OASIS, 3% CORNERSTONE, 2% Niger Insurance, 2% OTHERS, 11% None, 14% Don’t Know, 56%