Source: YouGov. 2019 Women’s Choice Rankings, top 10 for the UAE.

For the third consecutive year, Emirates secured the top spot in the UAE YouGov BrandIndex Women’s Rankings. The airline achieved the highest positive “Impression” score, reaching +70.0 among women in the UAE. WhatsApp maintained its second-place position, while Carrefour climbed to third place, surpassing Apple, which descended to fourth.

These rankings were determined using data from YouGov’s BrandIndex, a daily brand tracker. Over the past year, respondents were asked, “Which of the following brands do you generally have a positive/negative feeling about?”. This data was used to calculate the “Impression” score.

Last year, Emirates released a video titled “Superwomen flight” for International Women’s Day. This tribute to the airline’s female employees showcased an all-female crew operating a flight from the UAE to San Francisco, USA. The video generated significant positive attention and discussion.

Samsung also significantly improved its “Impression” score among women in the UAE, rising from eighth to fifth place this year. Almarai also saw positive perception change among women, moving up from its debut position of tenth last year to ninth place this year.

Baskin-Robbins continued its steady year-over-year improvement, reaching sixth place this year. However, Facebook dropped off the list entirely in 2019.

The past year proved challenging for technology brands, with those in the top 10 experiencing declining scores. Google and iPhone both fell two places from the previous year, landing in seventh and eighth place, respectively. YouTube experienced a consistent downward trend, moving from sixth in 2017 to seventh in 2018 and finally settling at the bottom of the list in tenth place for 2019.

YouGov also highlighted the 10 brands that showed the most significant positive changes in their “Impression” scores over the preceding 12 months. Coca-Cola emerged as the most improved brand among women over the past year. Its score increased by +10.1, rising from an “Impression” score of 7.4 in 2018 to 17.5 in 2019.

Netflix’s original content may be a contributing factor to its success as the second most improved brand among women in the UAE, achieving a score of 23.4 this year, a +9.9 increase from 13.5 last year. Fast-food chains KFC and McDonald’s also resonated well with women, demonstrating improvement in their scores.

Other notable improvers include the recently opened entertainment venue Warner Bros. World, fabric softener Downy, and Chinese mobile giant Huawei. Finally, food brands Lacnor and Sadia rounded out the list as the ninth and tenth most improved brands, respectively.

* 586 brands in the UAE, tracked by the YouGov BrandIndex, were ranked using the “Impression” score. This score is calculated by asking respondents, “Overall, of which of the following brands do you have Positive/Negative impression?” Scores are net scores, determined by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.

The Women’s Rankings chart showcases the brands with the highest average “Impression” scores between February 1, 2018, and January 31, 2019. The Impression Improvers chart ranks brands based on the most significant increase in “Impression” scores, comparing data from the 12 months ending January 31, 2019, to the 12-month period ending January 31, 2018. To be included, the year-over-year variance must be positive. These scores are representative of women’s opinions.

All listed Impression scores have been rounded to a single decimal place, though YouGov used additional precision for ranking purposes.

To be included in the rankings, brands must be tracked for a minimum of six months. Furthermore, brands must have been tracked for at least six months in the previous year’s period (in addition to being currently tracked) to appear in the movers tables.