After working at Harmonies Media Group in Ivory Coast, Kwame Senou founded Opinion & Public in 2019, a public relations agency affiliated with the BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) group. Through this entity, he represents BCW in Ivory Coast, Guinea, Benin, and Liberia.
He is also the vice president for French-speaking Africa of the Brand Africa initiative. Founded by Thebe Ikalafeng, Brand Africa is a movement that aims to promote a positive image of Africa and its diversity while fostering its competitiveness. For the past 11 years, Brand Africa has published an annual ranking, Brand Africa 100, dedicated to the most admired brands in Africa. Kwame Senou looks back at the latest edition and presents the key findings.
On May 25, on the occasion of International Africa Day, you released the Brand Africa 100 ranking. Can you tell us more about it?
Before talking about the ranking, Brand Africa is an African network based on the belief that we live in a world of brands and that African brands need to be promoted.
For the past 11 years, we have been compiling an annual "Brand Africa 100" ranking of the 100 most admired brands on the continent. Over the years, we have developed this ranking to include regional scopes. Thanks to a partnership between Brand Africa and Opinion & Public, two years ago we were able to include a version of the ranking for French-speaking Africa and Côte d'Ivoire.
This ranking is produced in collaboration with Kantar, based on data collected by Geopoll, using a single question: "Which brand do you admire the most?"
What are the major changes in this new ranking?
- The first major observation is that the big African brands have not changed and still represent 13% of the global total. We would have liked to see them better represented in this ranking.
- Among these African brands, 46% come from West Africa, 38% from Southern Africa, and 15% from East Africa.
- The most admired brand on the continent remains Nike, followed by Adidas, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Apple, Tecno, Puma, Gucci, Toyota, and Zara. It is worth noting the progress made by Zara, which ranked 16th in 2020, and Tecno, which ranked 5th due to the penetration of their phone brand and the group in general, which is now the largest seller of phones on the continent.
- The Top 100 remains dominated by European brands, at 41%, but they have lost 1% compared to 2020. North America and Asia are also very present, with Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya from an African perspective.
In terms of the most admired African brands…
- The most admired African brands are: Dangote (Nigeria), MTN (South Africa), DSTV (South Africa), Azam (Ethiopia), Ethiopian Airlines, Safaricom (Kenya), Shoprite (South Africa), Jumia (Nigeria), and Glo (Nigeria).
- In terms of media, the BBC has lost its top spot. DSTV now occupies that position, followed by the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Netflix, CANAL+, Facebook, NTV, MTN, and RFI.
This year, you also included a question focused on the pandemic, which had a major impact on 2020…
This year, we did indeed include a question related to the pandemic: "Which brands were most helpful during the Covid-19 period?"
The WHO came out on top, followed by MTN, the Vodacom SafariCom Mpesa group, Orange, the Red Cross, Airtel, Unicef, Dangote First National Bank, and Facebook.
If we focus on the most admired brands in French-speaking Africa, what are the main observations?
French speakers on the continent are very extroverted. No local brands appear in the top 10. The ranking is represented by Nike, Adidas, Tecno, Apple, Gucci, Orange, Toyota, Itel Mobile, and Coca-Cola.
We have also included a small variation this year with the most admired French brands, since we are in a French-speaking area. The ranking is: Orange, Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, Chanel, Dior, Danone, Peugeot, Renault, Givenchy, and Carrefour.
We can clearly see that what characterizes Africa is this aspirational nature. There are no Louis Vuitton stores outside Morocco and South Africa, but in the market, people want to be part of this "dream," this French "luxury" and "glamour" that these brands convey. That is why the brands that often dominate this ranking are luxury brands.
And what about Côte d'Ivoire?
In Côte d'Ivoire, as elsewhere, the population is very extroverted and consumes a lot of international brands.
So, the context is the same: local brands are in second place. Adidas, Samsung, and Nike are at the top of the list. In our analysis, we linked this to Ivorian athletes such as Didier Drogba and his time at Chelsea (Adidas being the football team's equipment supplier). Samsung has also made significant investments in French-speaking Africa recently.
When we focus on the most admired Ivorian brands, we see Dinor in first place, for example, and when we look at the most admired African brands in Côte d'Ivoire, we see MTN, Uniwax, and Dinor in the top three.
When it comes to media, there is a huge surprise: RTI retains its leading position, followed by LIFE TV and NCI. These two media brands, which were launched only recently, have finally managed to break into the top three in the rankings. The hard work has paid off!
Next come CANAL+, Afrique Media, Nostalgie, RFI, Jeune Afrique, Fraternité Matin, and France 24.
MTN, RTI, OMS, Orange, and UNICEF are the brands considered most useful during the pandemic.