Malaysia's top 10 digital brands report

Happily for marketers, Malaysians have lost none of their interest in digital advertising and are second only to Thailand in their enthusiasm for the platform. They are also open to the opinions of others and unusually welcoming to marketing that finds little favour elsewhere in the region.

Domestic airline and telecommunications companies form the dominant categories in the country’s digital marketing scene, with Air Asia retaining its top spot and Malaysia Airlines entering the list at number five.

They are joined in the top 20 by the likes of Tourism Malaysia, CIMB Group and Proton. The food and beverage sector, however, continues to be dominated by  international brands.

Conversion rates overall are good. Even though Malaysian companies did so well in ensuring people remembered their ads, they did less well than their international rivals in translating that memory into a desire to engage.

The most recalled and trusted platforms are expert reviews and dedicated websites. Mobile advertising is also prevalent and relatively trusted. Still, with just a quarter showing approval of mobile advertising, standards clearly need to be improved if it is to become a truly compelling platform.

An interest in advertising across the board means that media that are unpopular elsewhere find favour in Malaysia. Ads in video games and virtual worlds receive their highest recall scores from Malaysians. In addition, trust in such platforms is second only to Thailand, although they award lower levels of trust than they do to other elements such as consumer opinion in blogs. Here Malays feel totally at home, awarding the medium the highest trust rate of all markets. Malaysians also place higher than average faith in opinion in chat rooms and message boards, showing that they seek information from an array of sources.

Top 10 brands

1. Air Asia
2. KFC
3. Digi Telecommunications
4. Maxis Telecommunications
5. Malaysia Airlines
6. Nokia
7. Celcom
8. Nestle
9. Sony
10. Coca-Cola

Top 10 motivating advertisers

1. 100 Plus
2. Nike
3. Nokia
4. Ikea
5. Adidas
6. Air Asia
7. Malayan Banking Bhd
8. KFC
9. Coca-Cola
10. Sony

Top 10 spenders

1. Nokia
2. Celcom
3. Maxis Communications
4. Malaysia Airlines
5. Digi Telecommunications
6. KFC
7. CIMB Bank
8. Sony
9. TM (Telekom Malaysia)
10. YTL Communications

Methodology

Research company TNS interviewed a total of 3,000 consumers, aged 15 to 39, across six Asian markets: China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore,Taiwan and Thailand.

Interviews were conducted online using an access panel provided by Lightspeed, a Kantar company.

The research had four main objectives:

• To understand consumer awareness of a brand’s digital presence in each market
• To examine the use of digital media by different brands in the region
• To assess the effect a brand’s digital presence has on influencing consumer choice
• To explore levels of consumer trust towards different media channels

Accurate representation of consumers was achieved via stratified sampling with quotas on age, gender and city in line with population distribution. The brands included in the survey comprise the top spending online advertisers in each market across all media, according to Nielsen’s advertising expenditure data.

This study therefore focuses on the digital presence of the top advertisers only. Those advertisers and brands not included in the list of top spenders are by default excluded from the study.