Philippines' top 100 brands for 2018

This look at The Philippines' Top 100 brands is part of Campaign Asia-Pacific's Asia's Top 1000 Brands report. For more on The Philippines and the status of Filipino brands according to our research, see the full Philippines market report.

The Philippines continues to be a consumer market on the rise and also values many of the same brands as its Asian neighbours.  The top ten brands in the Philippines closely mirror those across APAC with only a few minor exceptions.

The top 10

FMCG brands rank higher

While the economy is among the fastest growing, earnings and household spending power still has catching up to do.  With more household income spent on food and other everyday consumer goods, FMCG brands tend to rank more highly, with Nestle the number three brand and both Colgate and Dove cracking the top 10 brands in The Philippines compared to the rest of APAC where the latter two sit at 21st and 22nd overall respectively.

Some global FMCG brands enjoys an inordinate amount of appeal, such as Del Monte, ranking 16th overall in The Philippines versus 95th in Asia-Pacific. This is partly due to Del Monte’s presence in farms and plantations but also due to Filipino-ownership after Del Monte Pacific bought Del Monte’s consumer foods business for US $1.7 billion in 2014. Pauline Fermin, managing director at brand consultancy Acumen Strategic Consulting in Manila also credits Del Monte with being very disciplined in understanding their target customers and evolving with them. 

Gatorade is another, ranking 27th in The Philippines compared to 119th across APAC. Fermin notes that Gatorade has benefited from first mover advantage as the pioneer sports drink in the country before health, fitness and sports was as well developed as now. 

The brand that jumps through hoops

Filipinos love basketball, so it makes sense that the NBA scores highly here.  It ranks 35th in The Philippines, a remarkable achievement for a sports league.  “It’s treated the Philippines as a priority for many years and it’s paying off for the brand,” says Juan Manuel De Borja, strategic planning director for Campaigns & Grey Philippines, noting how the league has reciprocated the Filipino’s love for the game and Filipinos have loved them back for it.

“What I really like is how they’ve made the most of those touchpoints that no one but the league owns,” De Borja says. “So they organize visits by NBA stars, have Junior NBA basketball clinics, NBA stores, an NBA café, and tie ups with the Philippine Basketball Association for events,” he notes, adding the NBA has set up official Twitter and Facebook accounts dedicated for the Philippines.

Lazada the online shopping favourite

Another brand with exceptional appeal to Filipinos is regional ecommerce site Lazada, ranking as the 11th top brand, beating out the huge global brand names like Starbucks, Coke, Adidas and Shell.  Arthur Policarpio, CEO of Mobext Philippines chalks this up to Lazada’s investment in local logistics and distribution along with its mobile-friendliness in a market that has benefited enormously from a flood of affordable smartphones on the market. Indeed, as we note in the Philippines' top mobile-friendly brands Lazada ranks third overall, beating out the likes of Apple and Filipino social media favourite Facebook.

Brands less popular with Filipinos

Given socio-demographics and lower household incomes, credit card penetration is lower in the country.  Mastercard ranks 20th in Asia-Pacific but only 47th in The Philippines.  The divergence with VISA is even wider at 60th spot in The Philippines despite placing 15th across APAC.  Expensive cosmetics brands like Shiseido and Chanel also ranked lower in The Philippines where more affordable foreign and local brands do better. McDonald’s is another outlier here, whose 55th ranking in The Philippines compared to 25th across Asia has little to do with affordability and more to do with a stronger local fast-food rival in Jollibee.

Strong Filipino brand performance

As we note in Philippines’ top local brands Jollibee is entrenched as the huge fast-food favourite here.  But this past year their brand appeal soared, pushing them from 67th to the country’s 41st top brand overall. Fermin points to the success of its  “Kwentong Jollibee” (Jollibee Stories) video series campaign, which came out before Valentine’s Day.  “It took social media by storm as they depicted through powerful storytelling very real emotions that ordinary Filipinos have,” Fermin says. “Everyone could relate to at least one character portrayed in those short stories.” More importantly though, Fermin says, the campaign scored real business impact for Jollibee because it integrated their product so successfully and effectively into each of those stories. 

Jollibee may be the local brand Filipinos feel fondest about, but plenty of other local brands ranked higher overall, including the banks Banco De Oro (17) and BPI (18), food brands Magnolia (24), Lucky Me (29) and San Miguel (32) along with retailers Mercury Drug (23) and SM Supermarket (33).  In all, 14 of the top 50 brands in the Philippines were local brands.

BDO in particular, saw the biggest gain this year, jumping from 76th to 17th overall. It’s “I’ll Never Miss out” campaign successfully targeted millennials’ need for adventure, notes Fermin, while continuing to feature popular celebrity Pia Wurtzbach.