Women using more brands recommended by influencers – study

More women are listening to influencers when it comes to the brands they use.

This is according to the latest survey done by research firm BSD Group and IPSOS Kenya to rank the Top 100 Most Loved Brands by Women 2023.

Senior Research Manager at Ipsos-Kenya Kui Kariuki said that with the high cost of living, women seem to be looking at what they can do to supplement their lifestyle.

"She's looking at how she can stretch that shilling. She's trying brands that her friends and her peers are talking about. It's something we're seeing, even more, this year that she's listening to influencers," she said.

She said inflation is a big issue for women today and it is affecting how they spend.

"Within the data, we saw an 18 per cent increase in women in Kenya, saying that the rising cost of living is a hamper, obviously to their economic empowerment," she said.

Consequently, she added, over the last three years, they have seen a larger share of the woman's income, go to the home.

"I've seen the prices in the cost of toilet paper, for example, skyrocketing over the past few years. So we're seeing how much more she's having to dedicate to her household shopping," she said.

"Four per cent is contributed to her household shopping"

They said that they spoke to just over 1000 women across the region and to women across different age brackets, but mostly adult women 18 years and above.

"We wanted to make sure that if we're representing a Kenyan woman, the way in which we sample her for our study is in line with the population distribution of women in Kenya," she said.

Kariuki said that from the study, they realised that a big driver of brand preference is influence.

"Women are asking what is it that my peers are using that I can trust again," she said.

The second driver, she said, is economic empowerment, which has seen heavy setbacks due to inflation and the subsequent high cost of living.