Aldi is named UK's top brand

Warc, 18 July 2014

LONDON: Aldi, the German discount supermarket chain, has been rated as the UK's top brand for the first time in the latest YouGov BrandIndex 2014 mid-year Buzz rankings.

Also entering the top ten for the first time is Lidl, another German discount supermarket, which YouGov ranked fourth, suggesting a trend towards consumers valuing brands that can save them money.

Based on analysis of 850 brands in 32 categories, the survey based its 'buzz score' on whether respondents had heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth.

Retailers made up half of the UK's top ten brands, the report found – Aldi achieved a buzz score of 25.9, department store John Lewis came second (20.5), Lidl came fourth (18.2), upmarket supermarket Waitrose was joint fifth (14.4), while Sainsbury's came tenth (11.5).

The remaining top brands were BBC iPlayer, which dropped from first to third place (19.6), vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson in joint fifth (14.4), the BBC website in seventh (13.4), MoneySavingExpert.com in eighth (12.1) and technology giant Samsung in ninth (11.6).

"Consumers want to do their weekly shops affordably while losing nothing in terms of quality and they believe these German brands do this," said Sarah Murphy, BrandIndex director at YouGov, in comments reported by Marketing Week.

"The other supermarkets in the top 10 may need to react and adapt to the challenge in order to maintain their place in the hearts and minds of consumers," she said.

Findus, the frozen food brand, recorded the best improvement after increasing its buzz score by 18.8 points to -0.3 while entertainment group HMV increased 12.8 points to -0.9.

Data sourced from YouGov BrandIndex, Marketing Week; additional content by Warc