A recent online survey to identify Papua New Guinea’s most recognisable brands suggests that traditional marketing techniques still hold sway in PNG. But for how much longer? asks Andrew Wilkins.

Earlier this month, Papua New Guinea website Skerah ran a survey on its Facebook page asking its followers to identify the country’s ‘most recognisable’ home-grown brands.

While the survey wasn’t especially scientific and was understandably limited in scope (you might recognise a brand you loathe, after all), it nevertheless threw up some interesting results.

Winner of the survey was S P Brewery, market-dominating manufacturer of the nation’s favourite beers, with the country’s largest bank, BSP, in second place.

‘The recognition afforded to the top 10 could be tied at least in part to the amount of money the brands were spending on community-based activities, especially sport.’

Third was a brand ever-present in the nation’s supermarkets, Trukai, while national airline Air Niugini was fourth (an encouraging sign for a PNG Government planning to sell off 50% of the carrier by the end of the year?).

Brand factors

Naturally, the prominence of the top 10 brands in people’s everyday lives is key, hence the strong presence of major retail brands. Many of the top brands have also been around for a long time.

Several also have sizeable marketing budgets. The editors of Skerah made the observation that the recognition afforded to the top 10 could be tied at least in part to the amount of money the brands were spending on community-based activities, especially sport. Sponsors of the nation’s major sporting codes and events were prominent in the top 10.

While getting your logo on a team shirt is a time-honoured marketing ploy, many of the brands listed had strong corporate social responsibility programs too, suggesting that the rewards for charitable works are not just in heaven.

Online challenge

It’s worth bearing in mind too, that this survey was conducted 100% online and respondents could therefore only participate if they were connected to the internet, which most Papua New Guineans are not. Yet.

If PNG’s growing internet-connected population and the trends from overseas are any indication … a credible online presence is going to be vital for PNG’s brands in the future.

How do these top 10 brands present themselves online? It’s a very mixed picture. While several have a strong presence on the web, with Air Niugini notable for conducting e-commerce on its site, some have no consumer-facing website at all. Some, like BSP and Stop N Shop, are busy on Facebook, while others do nothing at all on social media.

BSP’s online presence

An online presence for a PNG brand may not be as critical as some other factors for now, but times are changing.

More than a million Papua New Guineans now have at least some access to the internet, mostly via their mobile phones. There are now 190,000 Papua New Guineans on Facebook, making it by far the nation’s favourite social network. Both numbers are growing daily.

If PNG’s growing internet-connected population and the trends from overseas are any indication (digital advertising spend is now larger than print and radio advertising spend combined in the US), a credible online presence is going to be vital for PNG’s brands in the future.

Given the online environment provides opportunities for early adopters and first movers to disrupt markets, it will be interested to see what Skerahs’ top 10 list looks like in five years’ time. It might be very different.

Andrew Wilkins is Publishing Director of Business Advantage International, publishers of businessadvantagepng.com.

Skerah’s Top 10 ‘most recognisable’ PNG brands

1. SP Brewery
2. BSP
3. Trukai
4. Air Niugini
5. Ramu Sugar
6. Stop N Shop
7. Brian Bell
8. Telikom PNG
9. Agmark
10. Post-Courier

Credit: Skerah