Saudi fast food favorite Al Baik is the top brand in the 2018 YouGov BrandIndex Buzz Rankings

The fast food chain leads the rankings, becoming the brand with the most positive buzz amongst Saudi consumers

Al Baik tops the charts in the annual YouGov BrandIndex Buzz Rankings 2018. The fast food restaurant chain jumped to first from fifth place last year. WhatsApp remains in second position, while Almarai slides down two places from the top and settles in third after a year of difficult headlines.

YouGov BrandIndex measures the public’s perception of brands on a daily basis across a range of metrics. The annual Buzz rankings are compiled using Buzz scores from the entire year’s worth of data. Buzz scores measure whether people have heard anything positive or negative about a brand during the previous two weeks.

Saudi Arabia's national flag carrier, Saudia, has improved its score (+4.8) and also made a re-entry into the rankings at fourth this year, after dropping out last year. Alrajhi Bank is a brand new entrant at tenth. Samsung moves up one position to fifth this year, as does Dettol, from tenth to ninth.

The past year was not a promising one for mobile and technology brands in terms of Buzz scores. Samsung Galaxy lost its spot in the rankings, while iPhone and Apple saw a drop in their ranks, from third and fourth in 2017, respectively, to sixth and seventh in 2018. Even YouTube fell one place to come in eighth.

YouGov BrandIndex has also revealed which brands noted the most improvement in their Buzz score in 2018. mada is the “most improved” brand of the past year in Saudi Arabia, with a rise of +8.1 points to its Buzz score, going from +24.0 last year to +32.2 this year. Huawei comes in as the next most improved brand, with a change in score of +7.1.

Beverage brands seem to be particularly resonating with consumers in Saudi Arabia, with Coca-Cola (+5.9), Pepsi (+5.8), Red Bull (+5.1) and Diet Pepsi (+4.2) all recording good improvement in their Buzz scores over the past year, and making the top 10 improvers list.

The 497 brands in YouGov BrandIndex were ranked using the Buzz score which asks respondents, “If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?” Scores are net scores, calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.

The Buzz Rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average Buzz scores between January 1 and December 31, 2018. The Buzz Improvers chart ranks the brands with the highest increase in Buzz comparing scores from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018.

Both scores are representative of the general population. All Buzz scores listed have been rounded to a single decimal place, however, we have used additional precision to assign ranks. All brands must be tracked for at least 6 months to be included in the rankings, and must have been tracked for at least 6 months in the prior year’s period (as well as being currently tracked) to appear in the movers tables.