Maruti Suzuki, Honda Activa and Hyundai in top 10 of TRA’s most desired brands in India

TRA (Trust Research Advisory), a brand strategy and actionable brand insights company, has published its listing of India’s Most Desired Brands for 2020. Topping the list is Samsung mobile phones, followed by Apple iPhone and Samsung televisions. India's passenger car market leader Maruti Suzuki is fifth in the list while the Honda Activa and Hyundai Motor India are ninth and 10th respectively. TRA’s Most Desired Brand 2020 lists 1,000 brands across 326 categories and 39 super-categories.

The Top 50 includes Royal Enfield at No. 17, Honda Two-Wheelers at No 25 and Hero MotoCorp takes 28th position. Mercedes-Benz India is at No. 36, BMW India at 37, Audi India at 38, Tata Motors at No. 41 and Honda Cars India at 42nd position.

India’s Most Desired Brands 2020 is the fifth in the report series. TRA claims that the report is a result of primary research based on the proprietary 36 attributes of ‘Desiredness’ that have been studied and identified by it. This year’s research is said to have been conducted among 1,454 consumer-influencers across 14 cities and generated nearly 3 million data points and 5,000 unique brand mentions, out of which the top 1,000 brands have been listed in this year’s report. TRA confirms that the fieldwork was conducted between October 2019 and January 2020 by more than 135 field personnel, who took a total of over 2,500 hours to compile this report.

Indian brands dominate the top 100 of India’s Most Desired list featuring 42 brands, followed by 15 American, 12 Japanese and 11 South Korean brands. Six German brands also feature, of which three luxury car brands dominate the list. Four UK brands make it to the Top 100, and the three Chinese brands  in the list are from the mobile phone category.

The Food and Beverage category has 159 brands in the report and FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) features 129, totalling 28.8 percent of the listing. The Automobile features 75 brands, out of which, 11 are in top 50. Consumer Electronics lists 59 and BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) and personal accessories have 56 brands each. The fashion-to-financial services conglomerate, Tata Group, leads with 29 brands featured, of which ten are category leaders. Godrej Group has 11 brands listed with three category leaders and Amul gets 9 brands included in the report of which eight top their respective categories. The 192-page, hardbound report is available for Rs.14,000.

N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, at the unveiling of TRA's India’s Most Desired Brands for 2020 in Mumbai

N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, said at the launch of the report, “Desire is a longing for a brand irrespective of its need, and the success of a brand is highly dependent on the desire quotient it emanates. The brands which feature in this list have been able to exude a deep magnetic pull that impacts the consumer at a subliminal level. TRA’s syndicated research is based on our proprietary ‘Brand Desire Matrix’ which measures consumers’ expressions of desire on 36 intangible attributes of a brand.”

Why Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda Activa sell?
Chandramouli gave Autocar Professional a customised comparison of the two brands - Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai - and as per TRA’s survey, the reason why people desire to buy these two brands is because both showcase good levels of ‘self-control’ and ‘creativity’ in their products and the overall manner in which they conduct business processes with the consumers, be it the products, sales or the services. However, the factors that differentiate the two brands among their respective loyal consumers is ‘trust’ for Maruti Suzuki and ‘charisma’ for Hyundai.

TRA also showed us a comparison of brand equity of the Honda Activa and TVS Scooty scooters. According to the TRA survey, Honda Activa rides into the Top 10 of the MDB 2020 list because it scores high on ‘oration’, ‘relevant utility’ and ‘trust’. According to the survey, people are preferring to buy the TVS Scooty on the basis of ‘positivity’, ‘relevant utility’ and ‘trust’. The TVS Scooty is ranked 278th in the list.

As per TRA’s ‘Brand Desire Matrix’, the Honda Activa and TVS Scooty as brands are ticking the right boxes with their ‘rational appeal’ to the masses with high scores in relevant utility. Both the brands, however, lag behind in the emotional and aspirational appeal with very low scores in emotional maturity, self-control and social maturity.

The story is quite different in the Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai analysis where it shows that both the brands are doing well in the emotional, rational, aspirational and communication appeal to the consumers with Maruti Suzuki scoring a bit higher in most of the 12 behavioural attributes than Hyundai.