Most of 2019’s top buzzing brands in India were American.
Google was the most positively talked-about brand among them, according to the London-based market research and data analytics firm YouGov. Five others—WhatsApp, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook—feature in the 2019 YouGov BrandIndex Buzz Rankings, released yesterday (Jan. 22).
The list ranks brands based on the positive news associated with them in 2019.
Homegrown firms in the list included restaurant aggregators Swiggy and Zomato, travel portal MakeMyTrip, and e-commerce giant Flipkart.
“The BrandIndex report sees a dominance of global technology brands who, with their constant innovations, have managed to create a lot of positive chatter amongst Indian consumers. Hence, they lead the race when it comes to brands with the most positive buzz in India. It also shows that the Indian consumer is very engaged with online brands and technology,” said Deepa Bhatia, general manager at YouGov India.
Despite its place in the top 10, MakeMyTrip slipped two places from 2018 as hotels in the northeastern state of Sikkim boycotted the portal, along with peer Goibibo. The portal was accused of unfair and discriminatory business practices.
Food aggregators UberEats (now sold to Zomato), Swiggy, and public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) showed the biggest improvement in scores from 2018.
Four other financial services firms featured in the list of top 10 brands that improved their Buzz scores—State Bank of India, SBI Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, and HDFC Life Insurance.