Jio is India's Buzziest Brand

In the 13th edition of India's Buzziest Brands, Jio has emerged as the No. 1 brand, followed by last year's topper, Patanjali, at No. 2 and mobile-led brand, Paytm, at No. 3.

It's that time of the year! Ad campaigns, marketing efforts, sales strategies, high profile hires - no matter what companies do to put their best foot forward in the market, at the end of the day - or year, rather - it all boils down to one four letter word really i.e. 'Buzz'.

We at afaqs! are ready with our latest list of India's Buzziest Brands. This time, mobile network operator, Jio, has dethroned last year's winner, Patanjali, to top the list. If you recall, Jio finished third last year; 2017 was Jio's very first outing at the Buzzies. In second place this time, is last year's winner, Patanjali, a brand responsible for bringing about an Ayurveda tsunami in the market over the last 12 months. Mobile-first tech brand, Paytm, is at No. 3 this year.

On this year's list of top 10 brands, eight are directly or indirectly mobile-related; one brand (Patanjali) belongs to the FMCG segment; and one is an auto brand (Maruti Suzuki).

The eight mobile-driven names include smartphone brands OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo, consumer electronics/smartphone brand Apple, telcos Jio and Airtel, e-commerce player Amazon, and mobile wallet-turned-e-comm-brand-turned payments bank, Paytm.

Methodology

This year there were 10 jurors for the Buzzies (last year we had eight; traditionally, we've had around five). A flight from Buzzy tradition, this time the jury and popular votes got equal weightage - 50/50. Usually, the jury vote only gets 30 per cent weightage.

The number of valid voters for the Buzzies 2018 was around 4,000. This year, the brands were classified under 25 product categories.

Click on the image to see the complete list

Of the 25 categories, voters chose three brands that they deemed to be the Buzziest, from a list.

The votes our jurors (listed below) cast helped us create both, the main list of Buzzy Brands as well as separate category-specific lists of buzzy brands. Last year, the jury did not weigh in on the category voting leg of the process.

For the category voting process, voters were required to select three brand names from a list, the length of which varied from category to category. They also had the option of adding a name they felt was missing from the list.

No shortlist of brands was made in the case of the main Buzzy Brands list. The process was entirely unprompted. While there was a prompt to help participants get the spelling of the brand right, they were free to type the name of absolutely any brand they wanted.

The Jurors

1. Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network

2. Gayatri Yadav, President Consumer Strategy & Innovation, Star India

3. Kunal Jeswani, CEO, Ogilvy India

4. Mehraj Dube, Head of Marketing, Zee Media

5. Raj Nayak, COO, Viacom 18

6. Ritu Gupta, Marketing Director, Dell India

7. Samar Singh Sheikhawat, CMO, United Breweries

8. Saurabh Varma, CEO, Publicis Communications India

9. Tarun Rai, CEO, J Walter Thompson South Asia

10. Vineet Sehgal, CMO, Quikr

Note: A special award was given to TVS - Buzziest Brand on WION.

And now for the fun part: a slightly more detailed look at the Top 10 Buzziest Brands of 2018. The awards were given away at a glittering function at Le Meridien, Gurugram, last night.

1. Jio

Reliance Jio Infocomm, a telecom brand from the stable of Reliance Industries, has topped the buzz list by a decent margin. Last year, when we wrote about Jio (it stood third) we asked our readers whether the brand would be able to retain its buzz or whether it was just a case of 'beginner's buzz'. Jio sure seems to have kept its buzz going. Though the brand's initial popularity was largely due to its 'free data' carrot, its top-of-mind recall continues to be high.

Jio

Outside of its voice and data related offerings and the freebies therein, other popular segments of the Jio universe include JioTV, JioCinema and JioMusic, among others.

A few months ago, Jio inked a long-term deal with Siddharth Roy Kapur's media production venture 'Roy Kapur Films' that will curate, develop, commission, and produce original digital video content for the Jio platform.

Just last month, Jio was in the news for issuing a defamation notice to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) accusing the industry body of discrimination and unfairly supporting other telco brands. This came on the back of a recent statement the body issued about its view that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) latest tariff order appears to favour Jio at the expense of other telecom operators like Vodafone, Idea and Airtel. But buzz, after all, is neither positive nor negative; it's simply buzz.

Note: Last month, this publication profiled Jio Studios, the creative communications arm of Reliance. The firm was born in 2015 when a young marketing consultancy called Business of Ideas was merged with Reliance Jio and christened Jio Studios.

2. Patanjali

Baba Ramdev-led FMCG marketer, Patanjali, has been riding a wave of popularity this past year. It has been in the news consistently... it's the reason that keeps changing.

Patanjali

Earlier this year, Patanjali was in the news for its plans to up its distribution game by increasing its investment in its e-commerce presence and partnering with e-retailers and aggregators as well as. Patanjali is also looking to diversify into newer segments including apparel and solar energy.

Brand experts deem Patanjali responsible for rival FMCG companies' Ayurveda push most visible on the advertising and marketing fronts. Examples include Colgate's Cibaca Vedshakti and Hindustan Unilever's Ayurvedic Care variant for Fair & Lovely. Shots of Ayurvedic ingredients amalgamating in a forest-like setting to form soaps and shampoos have now become commonplace in commercial videos by personal care brands. Recently, direct selling company Amway, launched dietary supplements made of Indian herbs like tulsi and amla among others.

Over the months, Patanjali has also been in the news for its lack of transparency, reported breaching of export rules and most importantly for its products, their ingredients and allegations against them for not meeting the required quality standards.

3. Paytm

Very close on the heels of Patanjali is Paytm. The brand finished fourth last year and has since climbed up the buzz ladder. Recall that Paytm debuted at the Buzzies in 2016 - it was at No. 53! In a year, the brand climbed up to No. 4 in 2017 and has managed to retain its buzz and then some.

Paytm

Speaking of buzz, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's recent appearance on Forbes' list of billionaires certainly helps matters. Sharma's share-of-headline went surging recently thanks to his pow-wow with the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) over WhatsApp's foray into the digital payments space - a very real threat to Paytm.

Psst: As we file this report, we can hear Paytm users grumble about its compulsory KYC layer. Aadhar linking, silly.

4. Apple

The gap between the top three brands and brand No. 4 is markedly vast. Apple has been climbing the buzz ranks steadily over the past two years. In 2015, it was at No. 15; in 2016 it jumped to No. 7 and then rose to No. 5 last year. This year, Apple has climbed another rung and has found itself at No. 4. Interestingly, Apple has never left the Buzzies since it first made an appearance in 2011.

Apple

How can we miss mentioning the buzz-generating statement Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, made at the recently held event in Delhi? Wozniak said Indians, hard-working and studious as they might be, lack creativity. The culture here, as per him, doesn't foster original thinking and innovation. Of course, everyone had an opinion about his statement and the collective buzz this generated on and off social media, is noteworthy.

In the smartphone segment, Apple is the most polarising of the lot; between the die-hards who go nuts every time a new variant of the iPhone is launched and the Android-loving Apple haters, this brand sure does generate a whole lot of buzz.

5. Amazon

Quite some distance below Apple is Amazon. After being dethroned from its No. 1 spot by Patanjali last year, Amazon has slid down the ladder yet again to No. 5. This is Amazon's fourth year at the Buzzies. In case you're wondering, in 2015, Amazon was ranked No. 25 after which it rose to the top spot in a matter of 12 months (it dethroned then buzz champ, Flipkart).

While Amazon's initial buzz was related to its e-commerce platform and compelling prices, today, the brand name is mentioned just as frequently for its video on demand platform - Amazon Prime Video. In fact Amazon's marketing efforts for its shows, for instance, Madhavan-starrer 'Breathe' - are at par with big-ticket television properties like Bigg Boss and Kaun Banega Crorepati.

6. OPPO

Very close to Amazon, in terms of its relative rank, is Chinese smartphone brand OPPO. The brand has not just managed to sustain its buzz quotient over the last 12 months but has climbed three steps upward on the ladder; in 2017, OPPO was at No. 9 and guess what, in 2016 OPPO was at No. 42.

OPPO

One of the reasons OPPO managed to jump onto the buzz-wagon so quickly in this market is its timely and strategic association with cricket. Sometime around last February, OPPO out-bid rival brand Vivo to win the sponsorship rights for the Indian cricket team for five years. It has since been more about keeping this (very costly) buzz going over the months. Actors Siddharth Malhotra and Deepika Padukone have been endorsing the brand in the recent past.

7. Xiaomi

What a year it has been for this brand! Xiaomi beat Samsung to become the top-selling smartphone brand in India in the last quarter of 2017. Big surprise - last year at the Buzzies, Xiaomi was ranked No. 51 and in 2016 it was at No. 59. The brand has leapfrogged into the top 10 list this year with a promise to stay there. We'll be watching this one closely.

Xiaomi

At the moment, the brand is raking in the buzz on two fronts, outside of its triumph over Samsung: its foray into the smart TV market in India and its recent association with Katrina Kaif as ambassador for its Redmi Y series of handsets.

Recall that when Xiaomi entered this market four years ago, it built its brand on the back of an interesting online-only sales strategy, executed through a tie-up with e-commerce player Flipkart. Around a year later Xiaomi tiptoed into the offline retail space. On the advertising front, in a segment driven by brands trying to out-shout and out-spend one another in the media, Xiaomi was fashionably and confidently late to the TVC party.

8. Maruti

Flanked by a handset and a mobile operator and very close to both in terms of relative score, auto brand Maruti Suzuki is at No. 8 this year. Good ole Maruti has had an interesting outing at the Buzzies so far: first of all, it has managed to find its way into the Buzzies every single year, right from the first year of the listing (in 2006 it was ranked No. 18). Steadfast in its presence, the brand typically lurks around the 20s and 30s. Its best performance was in 2016 when it hit No. 6. The only other time Maruti was in the top 10 was in 2007 when it was at No. 9. Last year, Maruti was at No. 14.

Between the success of its sub-compact SUV Vitara Brezza and speculations about the company's plans to expand the Vitara range in this market, in the months ahead, brand Maruti sure did gather a lot of buzz over the past year. Another recent source of brand buzz for Maruti has been its Nexa showrooms, an effort to both 'premiumise' and contemporise its image among the youth.

9. Airtel

Ah, Airtel. There's a lot of history here. This telecom brand has fared extremely well at the Buzzies in the past. A quick recap: Airtel has topped the charts five times (2006-09 and 2012), has stood second once (2016) and has stood third once (2013). Last year, narrowly missing the top 10 bracket, the brand looked on from the No. 11 spot. This year it has clawed its way back into the buzz-light.

Airtel

We're really going to track Airtel's journey at the Buzzies in the years to come. Will it stay in the top 10 zone next year? That's just the thing about buzz, isn't it? It's unpredictable and effervescent. Well, at the moment, the Airtel Payments Bank has run into some bad luck with the Reserve Bank of India.

Meanwhile, in a move to strengthen its viewership data, Broadcast Audience Measurement Council (BARC) India has inked a deal with Airtel Digital TV, Airtel's DTH arm, a few days ago. Last month, Airtel announced a strategic partnership with Hotstar that brings digital content from the latter's portfolio onto the Airtel TV mobile app.

10. Vivo

Smartphone brand from the same Chinese company that markets OPPO (namely, BBK Electronics), Vivo has slipped from No. 9 last year to No. 10 this time. Vivo debuted at the Buzzies a couple of years ago at No. 37 and quickly jumped into the top 10 range in the following year on the back of its strategic association with the BCCI as title sponsor for the IPL in 2016-17. Will it slip out of the top 10 next year? Not if it plays its cards right.

Vivo

For starters, the team could leverage the interest around the Vivo V9 - a concept phone that is said to rival the iPhoneX in terms of design - slated to be launched in India later this month.

Vivo is endorsed by Ranveer Singh, a buzzy name in Bollywood.

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