Emirates tops the 2019 Women’s Choice Brand Rankings in the UAE

Dubai’s flag-carrier airline is the most impressive brand amongst women in the country

Emirates tops the UAE women’s rankings for the third time in a row, and has received the highest positive Impression score of +70.0 among women in the UAE. WhatsApp also holds on to second position this year, while Carrefour moves up one place in the list to third, replacing Apple which has dropped one place to fourth.

The rankings were compiled using the Impression score from YouGov’s daily brand tracker, BrandIndex, by asking respondents, “Which of the following brands do you generally have a positive/negative feeling about?” over the past 12 months.

Last year Emirates paid a tribute to its female employees on the occasion of International Women’s Day through a video, entitled “Superwomen flight”, showcasing an all-female crew operating the flight from UAE to San Francisco. The video created a lot of noise and was received positively. The brand has dominated the YouGov BrandIndex Women's Rankings since 2017 and continues to appeal strongly to the women of the country.

Another brand that has managed to boost its Impression among women in the UAE is Samsung, which has moved up the list from eighth to fifth this year. Likewise, Almarai has improved its perception among women since its debut in tenth last year and has moved up one place to ninth.

It is also interesting to note the steady improvement made by Baskin-Robbins year-on-year, leading to its impressive entry into the list at sixth in the Women’s Choice rankings this year. Facebook, on the other hand, exits the list this year.

The past year has been difficult for technology brands, with each of those present in the top 10 list showing declining scores year-on-year. Google and iPhone both move down two places from last year to seventh and eighth, respectively, and YouTube has seen a consistent slide down the list, from sixth in 2017 to seventh in 2018 and now at the bottom of the list in tenth for 2019.

YouGov also revealed the 10 brands that made the largest improvement to their Impression scores over the past 12 months. Coca-Cola is the most improved brand of the past year among women with a change in score of +10.1, going from an Impression score of 7.4 in 2018 to 17.5 in 2019.

Netflix’s original content may be one of the factors impressing women in the UAE as it has become the second most improved brand with a score of 23.4 this year (up +9.9 from 13.5 last year). Fast-food chains like KFC and McDonald’s seem to be resonating well with women and have also registered improvement.

Newly opened entertainment venue Warner Bros. World, fabric softener Downy and Chinese mobile giant Huawei are some of the other top improvers. Finally, food brands Lacnor and Sadia complete the list as the ninth and tenth most improved brands.

The 586 brands in the UAE in YouGov BrandIndex were ranked using the Impression score, which asks respondents, “Overall, of which of the following brands do you have Positive/Negative impression?” Scores are net scores, calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.

The Women’s Rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average Impression scores between February 1, 2018 and January 31, 2019. The Impression Improvers chart ranks the brands with the highest increase in Impression comparing the scores for the 12 months ending January 31, 2019 and the 12-month period ending January 31, 2018. To be included the year-over-year variance must be positive. Scores are representative amongst women.

All Impression 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.