Consumers deliver the goods on Asia's best brands

Hong Kong consumers prefer Watson's water to Evian, the Peninsula Hotel to Hyatt hotels, Nissin instant noodles to Maggi and Sony digital cameras to Canon, a Reader's Digest survey of Asia's top brands said.

Shoppers from the territory voted Cathay Pacific, Nokia, Sony, Visa, Coca-Cola, Lipton, Nescafe and Campbell's as their first choice in the 2001 SuperBrands survey carried out by research company Taylor Nelson Sofres.

Other top performing brands in 38 categories ranging from luxury goods to everyday necessities included Parker pens, Watson's water, Nissin noodles, Johnnie Walker whisky and Johnson & Johnson baby care products.

The survey is the third to be carried out by Reader's Digest and measures consumer preferences for product brands in six major Asian markets: Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Anne-Louise McWilliam, from the research team at Reader's Digest Asia, said: 'The many purchasing decisions that we, as consumers, are confronted with daily is overwhelming. We hope this survey helps people to sort through the myriad products on the market and helps them make wise purchasing decisions.'

Consumers were asked to nominate their favourite brands based on product quality, value, image, trustworthiness and satisfaction. Platinum status is awarded to brands that achieve a score three times greater than the nearest rival brand, while Gold SuperBrand status is reserved for those 'significantly' better.