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Forbes Arabia magazine released its second Top 40 Arab Brands survey last month, and Al Jazeera comes up trumps, again. The Qatar-based television news channel was the top-seeded brand of Forbes’ last survey in 2006, and has since expanded internationally with the launch of Al Jazeera International in 2006, keeping it at the top of 1,200 minds across the Arab world.

With half of the top 10 spots in the list occupied by media, and the rest including food products, an airline, a telecoms company and a paper products producer, the list picks up where the 2006 roster left off. Rotana, LBC, Etisalat, and Melody make it into the top 10, while Americana, Burj Al Arab, Jarir Bookstore and Emaar have dropped off the leaderboard.

Researchers presented the participants of the survey with 82 brands originally, explains Khuloud Al Omian, managing editor of Forbes Arabia, broken down into categories: airlines, cosmetic and fashion products, real estate and construction, consumer products, hospitality and leisure, media and entertainment, telecommunications, banking and finance, transport and travel, luxury products and food, beverage and household products. The survey, conducted by marketing research firm TNS Middle East & Africa, posed four questions to respondents between the ages of 18 to 55 across 12 countries: How popular do you think the brand is? Does the brand meet your needs? How important are Arab brands to you? How important is each of the brands to you? The top 40 brands made it into the final list.
“Most companies in the top 40 come from the Gulf,” says Al Omian. “I think the Gulf is very interested in production, in investing in brands, and in expansion. Even though brands from the region are younger than some in other countries, they rise quickly because there is the capability for expansion, for advertising, and in most cases, the capability to ensure the quality is just as good.”
We asked Hermann Behrens, CEO of The Brand Union Middle East how much the results reflect brand strategy versus plain old right place, right timing. He says brand growth and development is complex in a region that is changing so rapidly. “Strong brands are not as a result of circumstance but rather reflective of how a brand reacts to circumstance. That is to say, changes in the market, consumer sentiment, cultural issues, economic circumstances, etcetera,” he says. “Creating brand loyalty is especially important in times of economic crisis when consumers look beyond the brand and focus more on what value the brands provide them.”
Al Omian attributes the popularity of media in the Arab world to the region’s political turmoil, while Behrens also justifies it with a growing need and desire for freedom of speech and information across the Arab world. “The Al Jazeera management works very hard to present the channel as a global brand name,” explains Al Omian.
But Behrens also uses the channel as an example of what people have called the dilution of Arab brands. “One of the greatest tradeoffs that brands need to consider is how they retain their Arabian provenance while broadening their appeal to wider audiences,” he says. “In effect, brands will need to become ‘international’ Arab. With Arabic media leading the Middle East brand charge due to increasingly free speech and demand from a young and media-hungry audience, we need to ask ourselves whether these brands could become global.”

MOVIN’ ON UP. Brands that have significantly moved up the top 40 list or made new entries into it include LBC, Melody, Etisalat, Saudi Arabian Airlines and telecommunications company Zain. “We’re surprised by Zain [formerly known as MTC,]” explains Al Omian. “A year ago, no one knew about it. Now that it has rebranded with a catchy name and colors, and has spent a lot of money on advertising and expanding to many Arab countries, it is doing very well, and it’s number 15 in our survey.”

However, other brands aren’t doing so well. Burj Al Arab moved down 17 places, and Etihad Airways was knocked off the list, as were Splash and Jashanmal. “There are some surprises,” says Behrens. “Like the entry of Saudi Arabian Airlines, who finally have some competition in the Saudi market but have not improved their standards or customer service, whereas airlines like Etihad and Emirates have dropped off the list and fallen down the list respectively, despite continued building of their services, brands, profile and routes.

“This may be as a result of a research sample change from 2006 to 2008 with greater emphasis coming out of Saudi as the major market in the region. Also, it is very surprising not to see Burj Dubai and Nakheel, as these are two iconic and much-known brands within Dubai and the Middle East. It’s also surprising to see that Jumeirah is not on that list.”
Forbes Arabia plans on releasing an annual Top 40 Arab brands survey, to keep the competition healthy.

Behrens believes that while no Arab brand has reached internationally market-leading standards yet, the region’s marketers have the potential to broaden their appeal to regional markets. “Their challenge is to clearly understand the market through real insight and to establish what value they can add to these markets before entering,” he says. “A category comparison of Arabic brands versus global brands would be good to benchmark global brands operating in Arabia, and see how and why the Arabic brands are competing and try to ascertain the big question: Who will be the first Arabic brand to effectively dethrone an existing global brand?”

2006 Forbes Arabia Top 40 Arab brands list
1.    Al Jazeera
2.    Emirates
3.    Almarai
4.    Al Arabiya
5.    Afia
6.    Americana
7.    Burj Al Arab
8.    Fine
9.    Jarir Bookstore
10.    Emaar
11.    Qatar Airways
12.    Gulf Air
13.    Aramex
14.    LBC
15.    Patchi
16.    Rotana
17.    Future TV
18.    Etihad Airways
19.    Kudu
20.    Rotana Hotels
21.    Gandour
22.    Thuraya
23.    Ajmal
24.    Al-Islami
25.    Kassatly Chtaura
26.    Gulfa
27.    Air Arabia
28.    Wataniya Telecom
29.    Mikyaji
30.    Nakheel
31.    Mecca Cola
32.    Milco
33.    Melody
34.    Al Tazaj
35.    Fayrouz
36.    Splash
37.    Jashanmal
38.    Two Apples
39.    Al Rawabi
40.    Orascom Construction Industries

2008 Forbes Arabia Top 40 Arab brands list
1.    Al Jazeera
2.    MBC
3.    Afia
4.    Almarai
5.    Rotana
6.    LBC
7.    Emirates
8.    Etisalat
9.    Fine
10.    Melody
11.    Saudi Arabian Airlines
12.    Americana
13.    L’Azurde Jewelry
14.    Mobinil
15.    Zain
16.    Emaar
17.    Mobily
18.    Damas
19.    Qatar Airways
20.    Al Hayat newspaper
21.    Rani
22.    Rotana Hotels
23.    Jarir Bookstore
24.    Burj Al Arab
25.    Gulf Air
26.    STC
27.    Arab Bank
28.    Al Wadi al Akhdar
29.    Al Alali
30.    Asharq Alawsat newspaper
31.    Al Rawabi
32.    Patchi
33.    Gandour
34.    Fayrouz
35.    Aramex
36.    Paris Gallery
37.    Damac
38.    Nayomi
39.    Air Arabia
40.    Lacnor

The 2008 Top 40 Arab brands survey was conducted by TNS Middle East & Africa. 1,200 respondents were polled in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Yemen.

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