Singapore Airlines (SIA) has emerged as the brand with the most positive image among Singapore consumers, according to a new survey released yesterday.

The Apple iPhone, messaging app WhatsApp, online retail platform Qoo10 and DBS Bank rounded out the top five.

The survey was conducted by independent Hong Kong-based market research firm YouGov, which polled about 200 consumers daily from January to December last year.

The firm, which tracked 259 local and global brands across 10 sectors here, started monitoring brands in Singapore for its BrandIndex Buzz rankings last year.

For the brand image survey, YouGov had sent the survey via e-mail to a number of its 30,000 recruited respondents daily. After a respondent sends in the answers, he or she would not get the same survey until three months later.

Respondents were asked if they have heard positive or negative things about the brand in the previous two weeks.

The scores, which range from -100 to 100, were compiled by subtracting the negative feedback from the positive. A score of zero means there was equal positive and negative feedback.

SIA had a score of 48.7, while Apple, which was ranked 10th, scored 29.9.

An SIA spokesman said its strong brand "needs to be supported by high-quality customer offerings".

She added: "We continue to invest heavily in the further development of our products, services and network, which are the three main pillars of our brand promise."

Dr Benjamin Kartono, a senior marketing lecturer at SIM University, said such rankings can help companies get a quick picture of their brand's health.

"If your brand has a poor score, it would make sense to do your own market research to find out what negative things are being said about your brand," he said.

"This is particularly important in today's digital age because such negative information can go viral, if left unchecked, and further damage your brand equity."