For the first time in the history of Corporate Ghana, companies said to have the strongest brands are to be recognized according to their specific sectors of operation. The brand excellence awards, slated for January next year is the second and revised edition of Super brands Ghana awards which saw JOY FM emerge the best brand for the year. Now dubbed “Ghana’s Premier Brands”, it involves 100 categories as opposed to the 35 in the maiden edition. This will constitute the top 100 strongest brands in Ghana. The Chief Executive of the Centre for Brand Analysis, the organizers, Eric Affaidu threw more light on this JOY BUSINESS at the launch of this year’s nominations. “We are now using broader criteria to select premier brands. This is a step ahead of being a super brand and therefore consumers would connect with the brand for it to be translated into sales for the companies. We would come up with the strongest brand in each sector. For example there would be only one exceptional brand in the telecoms sector, mining etc” he said Ghana’s Strongest Brands will be selected based on seven criteria - awareness, innovation, goodwill, customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand performance (sales volume), overall market acceptance and social responsibilities. The Premier Brands awards would however be preceded with Emerging Brands Awards in August this year. Mr. Affaidu further explains the criteria for the selection of the companies in question. “An emerging brand does not necessarily mean its below average. A company could have been on the market for many years and still not be recognized as expected. So if a company must have existed even before a premier brand and its now that people are appreciating the brand, it could be described as an emerging brand. This largely depends on a company’s strategy” he said. In addition, the “Most Innovative Brands” nomination is a quarterly recognition awarded to companies that introduce innovative products or service in the year. This is primarily aimed at identifying businesses and brands for their innovation in product improvements and development. Mr Affaidu said nominations for the first quarter of the year included Artilin Intelligent Paint-Vinymat Ultra insecticide and acaricide paint, UT Bank UT-Bank on wheel and Latex Foam- Anti-stress Memory foam mattress. He noted that identifying brands for their innovation every quarter would separate well-managed brands from those that only existed to copy what their competitors did.