Consumer insights consultancy KLA, the exclusive partner for YouGov in Sub-Saharan Africa, has released the twelfth edition of The Quarterly Buzz, revealing Checkers’ rise to the number one position and MTN’s return to the top 10 in South Africa’s most talked-about brands.
The Quarterly Buzz, powered by YouGov’s BrandIndex platform, continuously tracks public sentiment across more than 200 brands in South Africa. The tool measures 16 different metrics spanning the entire marketing funnel, with the standout “Buzz” metric capturing whether consumers have encountered positive or negative brand information in the past two weeks. Scored from +100 to -100, these rankings offer a real-time pulse check on brand performance relative to competitors.
The Big Movers: Checkers’ Path Back to the Top
Checkers’ ascent to the top spot comes after continuous improvements over the last two quarters, reclaiming the number one position last achieved in Q2 2024. Checkers has steadily improved on 10 metrics throughout the funnel, from reaching consumers, resonating with them, and leading to a reaction.
The Food, Groceries and Consumables sector dominates the top 10 with five brands featuring in Q4 of 2025. Takealot jumps one spot to regain second position, showing consistency throughout the year by featuring in the top three in each quarter.
Both Woolworths’ brands have improved in rank over the last quarter with Food moving up three positions to fourth and Clothing moving up two positions to eighth. Woolworths Clothing has noted a significant increase in ad awareness. Shoprite has continued their strong performance, rising two positions to sixth place.
MTN has returned to the top 10, having last featured in Q2. The brand has improved on all 15 metrics and shown significant increases on five of them.
Sector specific results for Q4 of 2025 highlight a relatively stable top five within each sector across the eight sectors tracked.
Channel Spotlight
Digital, TV and social media remain the dominant channels across sectors, but there are clear movements beneath the top three.
Source: KLA YourView Consumer Panel, Omnibus, 1 October – 31 December 2025, n=1744
TV and digital have softened in relative importance in the clothing and footwear and food and groceries sectors, with social media gaining traction. The rankings point to strong omnichannel behaviour, which encourages a mix of broadcast, digital and human-led touchpoints to reach customers.
Banking: Channel hierarchy remains very stable, with Digital and TV leading recall. Rewards programmes improve slightly. This reinforces the importance of trusted, broad-reach formats in credibility-driven categories.
Insurance: Word of mouth softens slightly with Billboard gaining a rank. Recall in this category is tightening around broadcast and out-of-home channels, but word of mouth is still relevant.
Quick Service Restaurants: Digital, TV and social media remain consistent, whilst word of mouth improves. Radio declines slightly. Peer influence has become more successful in reaching consumers over passive radio reach.
Clothing and Footwear: The biggest change in top-tier channels, with social media now ranked number one. Magazines drop from sixth to ninth, suggesting weakening impact of traditional print channels. Rewards programmes improve from ninth to sixth, pointing to a more value and benefit-led hook becoming salient in recall.
Food and Groceries: Social media strengthens to second position, reinforcing influence of social content in this sector. Rewards programmes jump to fourth position from eighth, signalling a stronger salience of loyalty and value mechanics alongside mass channels.
Home: Magazines improve to fourth place indicating a renewed strength of more browseable and inspiration-led media in this category. Word of mouth drops to number ten, a meaningful decline that suggests peer influence is not driving recall in the same way as the previous quarter.
Telecoms: Word of mouth softens, while in-store and brand representatives are stronger. Service and interaction play an important role in building credibility.
Fuel: Generally, the category is fairly stable with word of mouth increasing from Q2 to Q3, and again from Q3 to Q4.
Three Key Takeaways for Marketers
1. Embrace omnichannel strategy.The data confirms that South African consumers engage with brands across multiple touchpoints. Different categories are leaning towards different supporting channels beneath digital, TV and social media. The winners are those who understand how to orchestrate them.
2. Invest in loyalty and value mechanics. Rewards programmes are rising in salience across multiple sectors, particularly in clothing and food and groceries. Consumers are responding to value-led messaging and loyalty benefits.
3. Don’t underestimate social media’s momentum. Social media has claimed the number one channel position in clothing and footwear and risen to second in food and groceries. Brands that master social content creation will have a competitive advantage in 2026.
Q4 2025’s results confirm that the marketing landscape continues to evolve towards a genuinely omnichannel approach. Consumers don’t see channels; they see brands. The brands winning the Buzz battle understand this fundamental truth: in today’s fragmented media landscape, presence isn’t enough. You need orchestration, integration, and above all, a clear understanding of how each channel contributes to your brand story.