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

GSM Network Overall Everybody that took part in the survey were users of GSM Networks The respondents were told to associate five questions asked them to the available GSM Network in Nigeria. Each respondent had opportunity of associating a statement with only one network. The aggregate of the scores for the five statements produced the results. About a half of the respondents associated MTN with all the five statements presented to them about GSM Networks in Nigeria. This makes MTN the most trusted network in the Lagos Market. A fourth associated Zain with the statements. This make Zain to be the second most trusted brand. 18% of the respondents chose GLOMobile as the most trusted brand Etisalat was nominated by just 1% of the sample. 7

Gender The choice of brands in this market as the most trusted brand was not gender sensitive. The votes were evenly distributed. Age There was no significant difference in the choice amongst various age categories. Social Class The upper and middle income classes chose MTN better than those in the lower income class. Respondents in the Lower income class nominated Zain more than respondents in the upper income classs GLOMobile had more votes from the lower income class than other classes. 8

1%Mtel 24%26% ZAIN 1000 Base 47%50%49% 51%MTN 18% 19% 18%Glo Mobile 1% Etisalat Don’t Know None 4% 5%2% 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 GSM NETWORK CATEGORY MTN, 49% ZAIN, 25% Glo Mobile, 18% Etisalat, 1% Mtel, 0% None, 2% Don’t Know, 4%