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Image: Phando Jikelo
In today’s trust economy, brand loyalty is increasingly built on experience, not advertising.
A new data-powered ranking reveals which brands South Africans are most likely to champion, and how technology is making that advocacy visible in real time.
For the first time, KLA, a South African consumer insights agency, has partnered with YouGov, the global analytics powerhouse, to launch South Africa’s Top 10 Most Recommended Brands for 2025. This isn’t your typical retrospective survey; it's a real-time tracking study powered by continuous consumer feedback.
What makes this ranking stand out is the methodological muscle behind it.
Using YouGov’s BrandIndex, the platform captures daily consumer sentiment across 150+ respondents per brand, totalling over 200,000 interviews annually in South Africa alone.
Each day, South African consumers answer a core question:
“Which of the following brands would you recommend to a friend or colleague?”
This is measured only among current customers, defined as those who have interacted with a brand in the past 30 days to 12 months.
1 Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) 90.1%
2 Samsung 88.9%
3 Woolworths Food 88.1%
4 Woolworths Clothing 86.7%
5 Woolworths Home 85.2%
6 FNB 84.2%
7 Hirsch’s 83.3%
8 Cape Union Mart 83.2%
9 Checkers 82.7%
10 Metropolitan 82.5%
Not all impact lies at the top of the list, the study noted.
Some of the biggest gains in brand advocacy come from brands that have significantly improved their customer experience.
Rank Brand Score Change
1 RMB +15.8%
2 Ultra Liquors +8.0%
3 Identity +7.5%
4 iWYZE +7.1%
5 Choppies +6.8%
6 TOTAL Bonjour +6.1%
7 Sportsman's Warehouse +6.0%
8 Hollard +5.8%
9 Sasol Delight +5.7%
10 WesBank +5.7%
This study illustrated how tech-enabled insight platforms like BrandIndex are reshaping the way companies benchmark trust and brand equity. It's a shift from static brand trackers to real-time reputation intelligence, a move that mirrors trends in agile development, growth hacking, and product-led strategy.
Companies that invest in data feedback loops like this aren’t just watching their brand; they're tuning it in real time.
“This data gives brands a new kind of benchmark, an ongoing, tech-enabled measure of trust that isn’t just about marketing spend, but lived experience,” Rakhee Naik, Managing Consultant Insights at KLA noted.
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