Campaign Asia-Pacific, a magazine that provides insights and intelligence into ideas and the personalities shaping the region's marketing communications industry, released its final 2014 listing for Asia's brand rankings on Thursday.

The listing includes its China Country Report, which ranks Asia's top 1,000 brands.

Samsung has again taken the top spot in China this year, completing its near sweep of Asia as the number one brand, said Jason Wincuinas, managing editor of Campaign Asia-Pacific.

He said it has sat atop the ranking for a third consecutive year, having emerged as the top brand in all markets except Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Partnering with Nielsen, a global information and insights company, Campaign compiles an annual ranking of the strongest brand names across Asia. The consumer-focused study measures the brands that are top of mind with consumers across 13 countries, 14 major categories, including alcohol, financial services, automotive, retail, restaurants, food and beverage, and 73 subcategories.

According to the study, in terms of categories, smartphones remain its strongest point. Samsung dominates the rankings in the majority of markets, but notably has not yet conquered China, where Apple still has the edge.

"The insights in Campaign's China Country Report cover areas ranging from social media to e-commerce and taken as a whole, the collection of research shows that China is rapidly becoming a mobile-first market," said Wincuinas.

Creative leaders, media specialists and major executives at the brands themselves all referenced the importance of digital communication as a cornerstone to building positive consumer impressions, he said.

"Our annual marketers survey showed that the only area where marketers planed to spend more money in 2014 versus 2013 was on digital channels. That's clearly come to pass in China," he added.

In its 11th year running, Asia's Top 1,000 Brands is the region's most anticipated top-of-mind brand study. It covers consumers in 13 key regional markets across Asia-Pacific and to be representative of the market populations, survey quotas target age, gender and monthly household income.

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