Lack of proper research reason for collapse of local banks - Fatima AliMohamed

Superbrands UK representative for Ghana and Nigeria, Ms Fatima AliMohammed has observed that lack of proper research on part of both regulators and marketers in the country has been a major cause of worry, leading to the collapse of local banks including non-performance of brands, businesses and institutions among others in recent times.

She averred that most often due diligence was not employed by marketers and regulators in taking critical decisions which pertains to smooth running of local banks, businesses, institutions and building of brands among others, a situation contributing to significantly to failure and loss of consumer trust.

Highlighting on importance of research to growth of businesses, she posited: "Research is crucial because it gives you the pulse otherwise you walking into market very blindly with blindfold, you don't know who to target and why you're targeting them" she stressed.

Ms. Fatima Alimohamed was addressing a media briefing in Accra on Thursday to present a research result on performances of various brands and institutions in the country.

Superbrands Ghana has conducted a research aimed at analyzing consumer behavior and perception about brands in Ghana (both local and International).

The exercise involved 36 categories, and 750 brands comprises Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) such beverages, foods, toiletries, to Government bodies, insurance, finance, supermarkets, pharmaceuticals, electronics, automobiles hospitals, among others.

The exercise which lasted for 2 months period witnessed sampled views of 785 consumers collected across Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi representing the
golden triangle of the country.

Addressing the media, Olufemi Laoye, Senior Research Manager at Nielsen Ghana, a global leading research firm that has been awarded the project, explained the golden triangle sampling gives an impeccable representation of all Ghanaian users under categories of brands.

“In terms of demographics, we picked the age brackets that we know are going to give us a representation of the various users. This year we did it in 3 key regions; Accra, Kumasi to Takoradi, hopefully next year, we would broaden the scope and keep tracking the performance of brands and institutions in the country”.

Mr. Laoye expressing excitement at the outcome of the exercise said: “very healthy growing economy and very exciting results and when we see Ghanaians interacting with several categories, with Telecom, Financial Pharmaceuticals, Hotel Industries, Fast Moving Consumer Companies(FMCG) and others”.

The much awaited results witnessed Indomie Noodles emerged as the leading brand in Ghana for 2018 beating all categories in terms of Top Mind Awareness, Last usage also deemed by the consumer as a super brand while Infant Malaria came out tops on the Special projects categories.

In summary, it highlighted the telecommunications sector, followed by toothpaste then immediately by tomato paste as the top 3 most patronized categories in Ghana.

Within the banking sector, GCB leads followed by Ecobank then came Fidelity and Barclays bank all featuring among the top 5 brands in Ghana.

Interestingly, ECG also emerged as the top service brands followed by NHIS and SSNIT among the government institutions whereas Ghana Water Service trailed in the top 120 brands.

“We have noticed that the top 200 brands have cut across various categories covering Telecom, Health, Food, Drinks, Paints, Biscuits, Automobiles, Mines, Retail, Insurance and so on. This clearly shows that consumers are very aware and engaged with these sectors on a daily basis” said, Ms Alimohamed.

Ms Fatima Alimohamed who also doubles as the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of African Brand Warrior further maintained: “We intend to showcase and award those brands that have a history and stood up to their ethos and propositions to become not only trusted, but loved and admired brands.

She indicated that the full list of all leading brands who emerged as the top 200 in this year’s Superbrands Ghana’s recognition would soon be published and the individual brand owners awarded to use the Superbrands seal for the 2018/2019 period adding, “the consumers have spoken and we are raising the bar for investors into Ghana”.

Touching on recent worrying trends within the Ghanaian banking sector, Ms Alimohamed said: “We didn’t need to see performance or financial results to known which banks were going to go down, our research results that spoke directly to consumers prior to the announcement by BOG shows that all those collapsed banks albeit for one at the bottom never featured in the Top of Mind Awareness list or in the last 3 months’ use-age or even deemed as a Superbrand”! “This clearly shows where the people bank and who they trust with their money’ she added.

She therefore called on all regulators and marketers in the country to endeavor to thoroughly research on consumers and gather enough intelligence to decide whether or not to engage in any business venture.