Covid – a nuclear drive for business

Poznań, 2 November 2020

PRESS RELEASE

Covid – a nuclear drive for business

Uncertainty, unpredictable consequences for companies, the need to quickly adapt offers to the needs of the clients, safety requirements for the customers and staff… can such pandemic challenges be a POSITIVE impulse for business development and image building for companies? As shown in the Top Brand 2020 report prepared by the “Press” magazine and PRESS-SERVICE Monitoring Mediów, in the case of many brands these struggles brought amazing results!

The pandemic has led to significant changes in customer behaviour and that resulted in the need to urgently verify the method of communication with the buyers of products and services and develop new strategies. In happened in all the industries but for those directly involved in healthcare, e-commerce and electronic payments, it resulted in record turnover as well as increased media coverage.

Shipping included

During the pandemic, the demand for courier services increased enormously while the trend concerning entities which use such services turned around – the number of parcels delivered to individual recipients soared and orders from business declined. The companies themselves introduced many groundbreaking facilitating solutions and changes in sending and collecting parcels.

According to Joanna Skrzypek, a media analyst with PRESS-SERVICE Monitoring Mediów, the pandemic and lockdown were a kind of a nuclear drive for e-commerce. This resulted in a sharp increase in the demand for courier services and boosted journalists’ interest in them, increasing the number of mentions about the industry in social media.

Poczta Polska won the first place in the “Courier companies” category in the Top Brand 2020 ranking. The final strength of the brand, i.e. 3,364,018 points, results from its wide impact (1,019,093,168). Runner-up InPost was awarded 1,841,482 points. DPD came third with a score of 1,721,580 points. The fourth place in the industry ranking went to DHL with 520 899 points. Behind it was GLS with 392,433 points.

The top 10 courier companies also included Paczka w RUCHu (213,431 points), FedEx (163,691), UPS (87,657), Geis (18,954) and TNT (18,759).

Chart 1. Top 5 brands in the “Courier companies” category, Top Brand 2020

An industry with WHO recommendations

“Electronic payment systems are an industry for which the past year was certainly exceptional. The pandemic caused not only increased demand for online shopping but cashless payments began to be preferred also in brick and mortar stores and service outlets,” comments Martyna Martynowicz, a media analysis expert with PRESS-SERVICE Monitoring Mediów. Most of the mentions about payment systems concerned the options that customers have and were posted next to descriptions of marketplaces, transactions or charity campaigns.

Blik turned out to be the Top Brand among electronic payment brands collecting 534,411,211 points, getting ahead of PayPal which scored 465,836,422 points and DotPay which got 435,057,622 points. Visa was fourth with 395,928,529 points. The strength of the Mastercard brand which occupied the fifth place was estimated at 370,016,203 points.

Top 10 electronic payment systems in the Top Brand study also included Google Pay (313,908), PayU (301,579), Przelewy24 (153,104), Apple Pay (102,633) and Express Elixir (19,728).

Chart 2. Top 5 brands in the “Electronic payments” category, Top Brand 2020

Social commitment

Covid-19 cases and restricted access to free medical care contributed to increased demand for paid services. The development of digitization in healthcare and telemedicine accelerated. The pandemic has significantly changed the way healthcare traditionally worked. According to Natalia Maćkowiak, senior analyst at PRESS-SERVICE Monitoring Mediów, as much as 20 per cent of all press and online publications mentioning healthcare brands had the word “coronavirus” in their title.

As in the preceding year, Medicover turned out to be the leader of the study in the ranking of private healthcare chains. It happened both thanks to a big number of publications and a high impact rate of the information, estimated at 492,990,200. As a result, the brand’s strength was awarded 1,220,555 points. The Lux Med Group kept its second position with a score of 1,116,396 points and an impact close to the leader (490,829,512) as well as the highest number of publications (53,299). These entities were clearly ahead of the remaining brands in the top five. With a score of 369,694 points and the highest sentiment (3.14), PZU Zdrowie was awarded the third place, up by one position. The positions behind it were taken by Enel-Med with a score of 248,803 points and Centrum Medyczne Damiana with a brand strength of 225,410 points.

“In the context of the coronavirus, PZU Zdrowie stood out thanks to a big percentage of publications about the brand’s social commitment which were mainly devoted to the support it provided to healthcare and security personnel,” adds Natalia Maćkowiak.

The second five strongest brands in that industry included Alab Laboratoria (place 6) with a result of 133,688 points, followed by Rehasport – 90,477 points, EMC Szpitale – 73,029 points, Polmed – 43,777 points and Falck Medycyna with 17,375 points.

Chart 3. Top 5 brands in the “Healthcare Chains” category, Top Brand 2020

Health above all

In the ranking of pharmacy chains and drugstores, Rossmann once again turned out to be the strongest brand with 907,420 points and nearly twice as many publications (140,496) as the runner-up brand Hebe (73,122) whose strength was estimated at 436,201 points. Rossmann also had the highest impact (258,831,557) and sentiment index (3.51). The 3rd place was taken by Sephora with 369,199 points and impact at the level of 126,333,694. The Dbam o Zdrowie chain, which came fourth, scored 147,948 points. Douglas took place five with a brand strength of 104,712 points.

“The mentions about pharmacy and drugstore chains were much more often devoted to corporate issues, including the impact of the lockdown on their results,” says Monika Gierczak-Jabłońska, media analyst at PRESS-SERVICE Monitoring Mediów.

The top ten brands also included Super-Pharm (100,329 points), Yves Rocher (86,156 points), Natura (57,959 points), Notino (55,071 points), Kontigo (52,836 points).

Chart 4. Top 5 brands in the “Pharmacies and Drugstore Chains” category, Top Brand 2020

An exam for pharmacy

In the spring, there was increased demand for various types of drugs and supplements which Poles bought from pharmacies in mass numbers wanting to boost their immunity at an accelerated pace and protect themselves against infection. The biggest challenge faced by the pharmaceutical industry in connection with the pandemic involved inventing a vaccine and a cure for the coronavirus.

“Almost half, i.e. as much as 47 per cent, of mentions about Adamed in the analyzed period were connected with the coronavirus. Also in the case of Polfa Tarchomin, the percentage was high, coming to 30 per cent. The share of that topic in the content concerning Polpharma was slightly lower (19 per cent). On the other hand, only 3 per cent of mentions about Celona Pharma and Aflofarm concerned the coronavirus,” says Natalia Maćkowiak.

Polpharma was once again the winner in the pharmaceutical industry with 256,325 points. Its high impact (127,979,515) largely contributed to the result. Polfa Tarchomin was ranked second with 189,341 points and a record number of publications (173,872). Adamed came third with a score of 118,374 and the highest level of the sentiment index at 2.39. The strength of the fourth brand in the sector, i.e. Aflofarm, was estimated at 70,909 points. It was just slightly ahead of Celona Pharma which got 70,167 points.

The top 10 in the sector also included Mabion (44,048 points), GlaxoSmithKline (37,850 points), Biofarm (30,835 points), Polfarmex (25,712 points) and Bayer with brand strength of 14,121 points.

Chart 5. Top 5 brands in the “Pharmacy” category, Top Brand 2020

In the 13th edition of the “Top Brand” report, the study covered press, internet and social media content published between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020, i.e. in total over 97 million pieces of information including 2 million press texts, 15 million online texts and 80 million social media posts. The analyzed materials concerned 10 strongest brands from the 50 industries with the strongest media coverage. In total, the report describes 500 brands. The study used the same indicators for all types of mentions, taking into account the specificity of the press, web portals and social media such as impact, sentiment index and brand strength.

Infographics “Courier companies” – brand ranking 2020
Infographic “Electronic payments” – brand ranking 2020
Infographic “Healthcare chains” – brand ranking 2020
Infographic “Pharmacy and drugstore chains” – brand ranking 2020
Infographic “Pharmacy” – brand ranking 2020

More about the results of the Top Brand 2020 study

Top Brand 2020 ranking methodology

Indicators used in the “Top Brand 2019” study

Impact – the impact of a mention about a brand based on data on the consumption of the media outlet.

Sentiment index – a factor based on sentiment; it reflects the share of positive, neutral and negative publications in the overall communication about a given brand: the higher it is, the better.

Brand strength – the final value determining the position in the ranking; is an index of several variables reflecting both the number of recipients’ contacts with the brand and the qualitative assessment of the communication.

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Marlena Sosnowska
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mob: +48 697 410 980
tel. +48 61 66 26 005 ext. 128
msosnowska@psmm.pl

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