Brand Influence League - May08

Properties rules the names roost

Compared to February's total local and global citations of 68 and 177 for the 20 companies that the Brand Influence League tracks, the first quarter of 2008 ended on a slow note - the total number of citations this month closed at 45 and 96 respectively. As dramatic as February was with many upheavals, March was a month of little changes and quite a few slides. Locally, 13 companies saw a decrease in press citations leaving a handful such as CDL, StarHub, and CapitaLand and DBS to lead the charts. Last month's chart-topper CapitaLand gave its crown to competitor CDL as it dropped to third place with a 50% decrease in citations while CDL remains at eight.

Globally, StarHub grabbed hold of its long-awaited seat at first place as it doubled its figures to 18 mentions. This is probably due to its announcement of several new products to its mobile and cable line up - Shareplus, a family friendly mobile plan, and new channels such as Indonesian channel MNC, and Eurosport.

Interestingly, for both local and global citations, StarHub seems to be leading the telecommunications fray this year as MobileOne sniffs close behind leaving SingTel at third place. At its current global total press citation of 27 this quarter, if it keeps things up, StarHub might soon surpass the figures it set for 2007 (42) and 2006 (65).

SingPost needs to work harder at being featured in the press as its figures remain at zero for the past three months in both local and global charts.

Venture Corporation's Wong, last month's ‘star-player', must be grateful for the lack of publicity as his all time high local mentions dropped to two this month from 10.