Kantar: Brand familiarity no longer enough for Filipinos

Brand visibility alone is becoming less effective in winning Filipino consumers as businesses face a more selective market where relevance and a clear point of difference increasingly influence purchasing decisions, according to Kantar BrandZ 2026.

The latest Kantar BrandZ Spotlight on Philippine Brands found that brands with stronger growth prospects are those that remain relevant to consumers while giving them a compelling reason to choose the brand over competitors.

The study highlighted three key findings: salience without relevance can become noise, relevance must evolve through meaningful value, and relevance without differentiation can limit growth.

“Growth is not just about being present. It’s about making deliberate choices—staying consistent in your positioning, responding to emerging opportunities, and focusing resources on what really matters,” Kantar chief client officer Jose Mari Villabroza said.

The research examined six categories — banking, general retail, communications, beer, healthcare supplements and automotive — where consumer expectations and competitive pressures are reshaping what makes a brand valuable.

Kantar said digital challengers are changing the banking landscape, while communication providers face the challenge of differentiating themselves as connectivity becomes an essential service. Retail brands are competing through both online and physical channels, while automotive brands need to combine differentiation with consumer trust and desirability.

BDO, Shopee, Globe, Red Horse, Centrum and Toyota emerged as the Most Meaningfully Different Brands in their respective categories based on Kantar’s Demand Power metric, which measures consumer preference and indicates potential market share.

Maya, TikTok and GAC were identified as Breakthrough Brands based on Future Power, Kantar’s measure of a brand’s potential to grow value share.

“All the learnings that we’ve gotten across those different categories is that relevance is essentially not owned. It is earned, it evolves, and it is also distinguished,” Kantar associate director and client partner Briggs Bondad said.

The Philippine study surveyed 400 respondents in each of the six categories. Globally, Kantar BrandZ draws on more than 4.6 million consumer interviews covering 22,392 brands across 545 categories in 54 markets.