mada tops the 2019 YouGov Brand Advocacy Rankings in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi payment network is the most recommended brand among consumers in the Kingdom

mada has topped the list of Saudi’s most recommended brands and has moved up six places from last year to become number one in the 2019 rankings.

Emaar which topped the list last year has fallen down one spot to second and Emirates has fallen down two places to fourth this year.

But the greatest decline year on year has been witnessed by iPhone and its parent brand Apple. While iPhone declined from third in 2017, to fourth in 2018 and now seventh in 2019, Apple fell from second to sixth in 2018, and now places ninth in the 2019 rankings.

The Saudi Arabia Advocacy Rankings, produced by YouGov’s daily brand tracking tool BrandIndex, considered how much current and former customers endorsed brands over the past year by asking respondents, "Would you recommend the brand to a friend or colleague?" or “Would you tell a friend or colleague to avoid the brand?”.

Almarai seems to be winning back consumers after the price rise debacle last year and has moved up one place in the rankings to eighth this year.

Majid Al Futtaim, Sentosa Island (Singapore) and IMG Worlds of Adventure (Dubai) are new entrants in the top 10 list of 2019- at fifth, sixth and tenth, respectively.

YouGov also revealed the brands that have the most improved level of customer advocacy in Saudi over the past 12 months. Mobily has seen the greatest improvement of 10.5 points in its Recommend score this year, increasing from 23.6 last year to 34.2 this year.

Mentos and Snapchat are the second and third best improvers of 2019, with a change in score of 9.5 and 9.4, respectively.

Bin Laden Group (change in score of 9.1), Mazda (8.9), Huawei (8.7), Finish (8.3), Saudi Telecom (7.7), Coca- Cola (7.7) and Pepsi (7.7) are the other brands that complete the list of top 10 improvers of 2019.

Methodology

YouGov BrandIndex screened all of its 499 brands in Saudi Arabia for their net Recommend score, which asks respondents "Would you recommend the brand to a friend or colleague?" and “Would you tell a friend or colleague to avoid the brand?” Only respondents who are current or former customers of a given brand are considered. Rankings data was collected between November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2019 and Improvers data was collected between November 1, 2017 and October 31, 2019. All brands must have a minimum N of 200 and have been tracked for at least 6 months to be included in the rankings and at least 6 months in the prior year's period (as well as being currently tracked) to be included among improvers.