Top brands honoured

Some 102 leading brands in 35 categories were honoured yesterday with the objective of encouraging businesses to win consumer confidence by offering good products and services and building up their reputation.

The country's biggest mobile financial service provider, bKash, was recognised as Bangladesh's top brand.

Coming next were Ispahani Mirzapore Tea of Ispahani Tea and Radhuni of the Square Food & Beverage out of 15 overall best brands, according to the 13th edition of Best Brand Award Bangladesh at Le Méridien Dhaka.

Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF) organised the event in partnership with Nielsen Bangladesh and in association with The Daily Star.

The rest are RFL Houseware, Grameenphone, Closeup, Sunsilk, Shwapno, Parachute Advansed Hair Oil, Pran Frooto, Lux, Walton, Daraz.com.bd, Coca-Cola and Lifebuoy.

Of them, Closeup, Sunsilk, Lux and Lifebuoy are brands of Unilever while RFL Houseware and Pran Frooto of Pran-RFL Group.

The BBF has been honouring the most loved brands through the award for the last 13 years.

The objective is to demonstrate and celebrate the success of the brands, achieved through tough and effortful initiatives.

The award started its journey with Nielsen Bangladesh in 2008 based on a global model (Winning BrandsTM) making use of a direct consumer survey of 8,000 customers across the country that includes self-administrated reviews.

"To be really edgy, local brands need to delve into our cultural dimension," said Nazia Andaleeb Preema, director and creative editor of the BBF and founder of Bangladesh Creative Forum, at the ceremony.

They have to understand the psyche of evolution of Bangladesh's strong brands and immerse in science and arts, she said.

"Only then brands will be sustainable because it is about striking emotional chords with functionality," she said.

Khandaker Samina Afrin, commercial leader of Nielsen Bangladesh, emphasised good distribution channels to reach target consumers with quality products.

She also suggested brand managers learn how to tell the story of products. "So, brand management is very important for a company," she said.