Nikkei Business (13 April) ran the results of its annual consumer survey, rating corporate brands engaged in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) activities.
The surveys were conducted at the end of 2014 under the auspices of Nikkei BP Consulting, Inc. The results of the B2C survey are based on 32,000 responses from people over 18 years of age, while the B2B survey, with total choices limited to 500 corporate brands, is based on responses from 22,001 employed people over 18 years of age.
In 2014, the top-rated brand was 7-Eleven, which rose 10 places from the previous year, when it was rated 11th. Other brands among the top 10—in descending order with the previous year’s rating shown in parentheses—are YouTube (seventh); Nissin Foods (17th); Studio Ghibli (third); Amazon (fourth); Häagen-Dazs (15th); Google (20th); Disney (first); Apple (sixth); and Kewpie (29th).
The magazine also compiled a separate list to indicate which brands had risen most sharply in the ratings over the past year. At the top was Universal Studios Japan, which soared from 147th place to 12th.
It was followed by 7-Eleven (11th to first); the iMac desktop computer (not rated to 227th); Co-op Seikyo (322nd to 88th); LoFt (294th to 82nd); mont-bell (not listed to 237th); Japan Railways (179th to 50th); iPad (59th to 16th); Nissin Foods (17th to third); and JR Kyushu (427th to 152nd).
Two UK brands also registered impressive gains since the preceding year: Burberry (236th to 80th) and Dyson (76th to 25th).
A 45-year-old male customer at an in-store Seven Café in Tokyo’s central business district explained why he liked 7-Eleven: “I tried an iced coffee, and was pleasantly surprised, thinking ‘This is a good deal for just ¥100’”.
Nikkei Business quoted Toshifumi Suzuki, chairman and chief executive officer of Seven & I Holdings Co., Ltd., as saying, “Even if we feel we have produced something good, customers’ preferences are changing increasingly rapidly. As we constantly have to juxtapose our product development with customer needs, it’s all we can do to devote relentless efforts to find out what those needs are”.
In a separate survey, rating the B2B performance of brands, Toyota was in first place for the fourth consecutive year. Second was 7-Eleven (previously 14th), followed by All Nippon Airways (previously 12th), Google (previously 24th) and Panasonic (previously 27th).