CAIRO: The National Bank of Egypt captured a "Top Brand award at the close of a two-day marketing conference this week, despite competing with several multinational banks and a credit card company. The recognition, based on a survey of 1,200 Egyptians, was announced at the end of the Consumer 360 Conference, a marketing forum sponsored by the Nielson Company. The National Bank of Egypt was the only public sector brand to win one of the Top Brand awards, which were designed to reflect the most recognizable and effective brands in Egypt. The 110-year-old bank beat out HSBC, Commercial International Bank, Visa and Barclays in the finance category. Pepsi, Google and the Egyptian developer Talaat Moustafa Group also captured "Top Brand awards. Into the second day of the conference, talk centered on product development, consumer trends and how retail banks might "tap into the masses. Markets' diversity makes it tricky to track global shifts in retail buying, said Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, an analyst at the Nielson Company, in one of the most statistics-laden presentations. "Out there is a global mosaic, he said. "The major trends are far too many to tell. The world population is heading toward 9 billion in 2050, he said. By that time, Western and Eastern Europe will have 37 million fewer people, while Africa will have one billion more. Add to this that two-thirds of the world's people will be in Asia, while the United States and Europe will account for 17 percent. Egypt's population could be as high as 160 million in 2050, according to a recent United Nations projection. Vandenheede pointed to a map of the world with countries' sizes altered to reflect their gross domestic product, a common metric of national wealth. Much of the Southern Hemisphere, including the Indian subcontinent and Africa, shriveled; North America swelled. Readjusted for population density, the countries' sizes flipped. Vandenheede used the charts to segue into a graph illustrating the rise of the middle class. Based on "what people can buy, the middle class comprised 30 million people in 1950, he said. Today it includes over 1.5 billion. Defining the middle class included calculating how much people spend on food. In Egypt, 45 percent of household income goes to food, he said. In Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, this figure is less than 15 percent. "The more this number declines, the better it is, he said. How people buy their food is also changing, he said. In the United States for instance, the number of hypermarkets, big retail sellers, has almost doubled since 2001. Due to this rise, fewer than 100 percent of American households recently reported going to a supermarket within the last year, a first since such metrics have been recorded, he said. So what does this mean for Egypt? Predictors such as population density and real estate costs have failed to forecast whether hypermarkets will be successful in a given country, Vandenheede said. The only factor that can account for success is the "phenomenal execution of retailers. This means understanding the local culture, he said. When Wal-Mart entered Germany, it suffered many missteps, including an attempt to use "greeters, employees that welcome shoppers. Greeters are common in the US but unnerved German shoppers, he said. Any hypermarket brand in Egypt will have to be sensitive to similar issues, he said. Though the conference was generally upbeat - it featured, among other novelties, Congolese drummers and a crane camera that broadcasted images of the audience and panelists onto two large screens - signs of a global slowdown did seep in. One audience member asked the product development panel if they had seen any drops in business resulting from the financial crisis. "I'll be brave and say we have, said Bassil Abu El Ata, of Cadbury. "October was not such a great month.
