The bee is back with a Buzz

The Buzz is back on afaqs! In its fourth year now, the Buzziest Brands of the Year poll, instituted by afaqs!, will be open for entries from January 28, 2009. The last date to submit entries is on February 5, 2009.

A total of 60 brands have been nominated in this year’s list. These include the 55 most searched brands on afaqs!, and five more that have been added even though they didn’t figure in the top searches. These five include The Times of India and Happydent – which were among the top 10 winners last year – and three digital brands (Facebook, Google and Yahoo). The names of the digital brands were arrived at by an afaqs! committee of six members who voted on the most talked about digital brand in 2008 within the marketing communications community.

To validate the vote, a link will be sent immediately to the voter’s email id. A user’s vote will be considered valid only after he or she has clicked on the mailed link and validated the vote. If users arrange their chosen brands in a way that resembles the order of brands which are finally voted as the top five, they can take home some interesting gift vouchers.

An independent jury will also cast its vote on the shortlisted 60 brands. Visitors to afaqs! as well as the jury will have an equal weightage in determining the winners.

For the record, 2008 had afaqs! organising the Buzziest Brands of the Year awards, at a glittering awards ceremony that had Airtel claim the top spot as the buzziest brand of them all (a Gold trophy), followed by Kingfisher (Silver) and Reliance (Bronze).

2007 had Airtel, Nokia and Hutch, respectively, as the top three, while 2006’s top trio were Airtel, Hutch and SBI, in that order.