Philippines' Most Chosen Brands 2018

Lucky Me, Nescafe, and Surf - the most chosen brands in the Philippines

Lucky Me continues to be the most chosen brand in the Philippines for the 3^rd straight year. According to Brand Footprint, Kantar Worldpanel’s annual report and its ranking of most chosen brands across the world, Lucky Me managed to be chosen by shoppers on the shelves 812 million times. Number 1 brand, Lucky Me, has the most number of buying households, reaching 98% of Filipino homes. At the same, it is being purchased 36 times a year. The brand is followed by Nescafe and Surf that are also the most chosen brands in beverage and home care, respectively.

The Top 10 most chosen brands in the Philippines also include Silver Swan (#4) and Palmolive (#5). Bear Brand gained presence in 87% of Filipino households and climbed 2 positions to become the 6th most chosen brand in the country. The rest of the Top 10 positions are secured this year by Great Taste, Milo, Kopiko, and Ajinomoto.

Table 1. Most chosen brands in the Philippines

Source: Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint Report. Access to the complete Top 50 ranking: www.kantarworldpanel.com/brandfootprint

The Brand Footprint ranking measures how many times any FMCG brand is bought in the point of sale. It measures how many households bought each brand and how many times they did it within one year. The most chosen brands on the shelves globally and in any region or country make up the different rankings included in the report. In the Philippines, the study analyzed a total of 17 billion shopper decisions of 23 million Filipino households, covering 530 brands in 2017.

Although many of the most chosen brands purchased by Filipinos are food and drink products, there are also health and beauty and homecare brands in the ranking. Palmolive, Creamsilk, and Safeguard are the three most chosen brands in the health and beauty sector whereas the Top 3 brands in home care are Surf, Downy, and Champion.

Meanwhile, 20 local brands secured their spots in the Top 50 this year. Local brands take 28% of the top 50 spend vs. global brands that own 72% share. Leading the top local brands in the country are: Lucky Me, Silver Swan, Great Taste, Datu Puti, and Champion.

The Brand Footprint ranking shows that most of the growing brands enlarged their shopper base. “Strategies aiming to get new consumers are consistently more successful than those ones aiming to increase loyalty and frequency of consumption,” Alex Duterrage, General Manager of Kantar Worldpanel Philippines said. “Brands wanting to grow have to prioritize finding new shoppers to buy the brand.”

17 global brands in the billionaire club

According to the 2018 edition of Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint report, there are 17 FMCG brands that are chosen by consumers more than one billion times a year globally. Coca-Cola is the world’s most chosen brand, picked from the shelves 5.8 bn. times in a year. Colgate and Maggi both achieve podium positions, being also the world’s most chosen personal care and food brands. Colgate is the only brand chosen by more than half of the global population—with 62% penetration globally[1]. Maggi is the fastest-growing Top 50 brand with a global presence—with 14% growth in Consumer Reach Points (CRPs)[2], which has helped the brand to rise one position to become third in the ranking this year.

Six out of the 17 brands chosen more than one billion times in a year are owned by Unilever, which leads the manufacturers ranking with 36 bn CRPs per year. Unilever’s portfolio includes Lifebuoy in 4^th position and Sunsilk and Knorr among the Top 10. Dove, Lux, and Sunlight are also Unilever’s brands in the billionaire club. Two Pepsico brands, Lay’s and Pepsi, jointly with Nescafé and Indomie – Indofood’s very successful brand in Asia and Africa – made the remaining positions in the Top 10. Nestlé, P&G’s Downy, Palmolive, and Sprite are the other brands that join this year the exclusive club of global brands chosen by consumers more than one billion times annually.

Table 2. The 17 billionaire brands in the global FMCG brands ranking revealed by the Brand Footprint report.

Source: Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint Report

Josep Montserrat, CEO Kantar Worldpanel, explained, “A lot has been said about the FMCG market being more challenging in recent times, and despite all this, 22 among the Top 50 global brands managed to be chosen by consumers more times in the last 12 months. Growth opportunities are there to be taken, and brands will need to dive deeper to find them because they may not be in the old well-known spots. Our data shows that out-of-home and growing channels such as e-commerce, discounters, cash and carry outlets and convenience stores are growing faster than the overall FMCG market and it is time to invest more decisively in what consumers are asking for.”

Local brands and global brands

The study also shows that local brands grew in 2017, taking 64.6% of all brand spend, versus global brands’ 35.4% share, with every 0.1% gained now worth $500 million. This highlights the continued march of local brands winning share from the global players. 

Global brands are stronger but still losing share in the homecare, and beauty and personal care categories, taking 47% and 58.4% of global spend per sector respectively. It was only within the beverages sector that global brands are winning, having gained share from local brands three years in a row (38.3% global versus 61.7% local in 2018, compared to 38.1% global vs. 61.9% local in 2015).

Table 3. Global and local brands market shareSource: Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint Report