February 10th, 2022, Sonika Choubey
YouGov’s Best Buzz Rankings reveal the brands that generated the most NET positive Buzz in 2021
YouTube has dethroned its parent company Google to become the top-ranked brand in YouGov’s Best Buzz Rankings 2021 in India (51.4). Google, which had previously held the top spot (in 2018 & 2019) dropped down one place to second (50.1) in the 2021 rankings.
YouGov’s 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 years’ worth of data. Buzz scores measure whether people have heard anything positive or negative about a brand during the previous two weeks and the scores are reported as NET scores.
Amazon climbed up two places to third (46.7) and its video-subscription platform- Amazon Prime made a new entry into the list in fifth (38.1).
Amidst a tough year with global backlash for its new privacy policy, WhatsApp recorded a decline in its Buzz scores and dropped down two places to fourth (44.7). On the other hand, Instagram strengthened its position in the Indian market and climbed up three places to sixth (36.5) in the 2021 rankings.
Online delivery app Flipkart also recorded an improvement to its Buzz scores, moving up one place to seventh (36.3), while Zomato slipped down from seventh in 2019 to ninth in 2021 (35.0).
Air India’s successful acquisition by the TATA group generated a lot of noise, placing the national carrier in the list of buzziest brands of the year- in eighth (35.4). Lastly, MakeMyTrip moved down to tenth place (35.0), completing the top ten list in India.
YouGov BrandIndex has also released the ten “most improved” brands of the past year. In 2021, growing concerns over privacy gave a huge boost to encrypted messaging services. Telegram emerged as the most improved brand of the past year in India, with a change of +7.0.
Tata Motors is the second most improved brand, with a change in score of +4.5.
Along with being one of the top ten brands of 2021, Air India is also the third most improved brand of the past year (+3.5). Indigo is another airline that appears on the list of improvers this year, in fifth (+3.0).
With stay-at-home restrictions during the pandemic accelerating the adoption of online retailing in India, it’s not surprising to see online fashion brand Myntra feature as the sixth (2.8) most improved brand of the past year.
The improvers list also features leading banks like YES Bank (3.2) and Punjab National Bank (2.7), consumer electronics giant- Samsung (2.2), and smartphone brands such as Vivo (2.2) and Realme (2.1)
Methodology:
The brands in YouGov Best Buzz Rankings 2021 were ranked based on 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 1st and December 31st, 2021. The Buzz Improvers chart ranks the brands with the highest increase in Buzz comparing scores in years 2020 and 2021, to be included in the Buzz Improvers list, the variance must be positive.
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 have been tracked for at least 6 months in the prior year’s period (as well as being currently tracked) to appear in the Improvers tables.
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