Brand recall biggest indicator of Singaporean intermediaries’ purchase intentions

Brand recall has the strongest correlation to propensity to buy, research by Fundamental Media reveals

Key points:

• Being front of mind is the most important indicator of Singaporean intermediaries’ purchase intentions
• Familiarity is a less influential factor, yet positively impacting propensity to buy.
• Of the ten asset management brands that topped the Singapore Global Brand Index, eight of them were global asset managers while two were local brands

Financial intermediaries in Singapore are most likely to buy funds from asset managers who they can easily recall, research by Fundamental Media has found.

Brand recall is the most influential factor when it comes to purchase intentions. Familiarity is a less influential factor, yet positively impacting propensity to buy.

From September to December 2022, we surveyed 36 financial investment professionals in Singapore to measure their perception of asset management brands and to identify key drivers of their purchase intentions.

When questioning intermediaries about their familiarity with asset management brands, more than 90% of respondents were aware of at least 25 of the 35 prompted brands, while more than 35% were aware of all prompted brands.

Intermediaries were asked to mention up to three asset managers whose funds they are likely to increase the use of over the next 12 months, which was used to calculate each manager’s score for propensity to buy. We also asked intermediaries what values they attribute to those managers and what makes them want to buy these funds. This revealed that the brands with the highest propensity to buy scores had the most positive comments on ‘product/know-how’ and ‘brand’. Comments related to ‘performance’ and ‘communication’ were also positively correlated with propensity to buy but the strength of the correlation was lower compared to ‘product/know-how’ and ‘brand’.

Of the ten asset management brands that topped the Singapore Global Brand Equity Index, eight of them were global asset managers while two were local brands. Local asset managers performed well in the unprompted brand recall for global equities, Japanese equities, alternatives, fixed income, real estate and passive management. In all of these asset classes, at least one local manager was in the top five of most recalled companies.

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