Retail heavyweights continued to lead the way in the latest Roy Morgan ‘Net Trust’ rankings. For a fifth straight quarter, Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, ALDI and Kmart were the top five ‘most trusted’ brands. Sitting in sixth, seventh and eighth spots were Myer, Apple and Big W.
However, following a data breach, the scoreboard for Optus suffered and it was the second ‘most distrusted’ brand in the December quarter, with only Facebook/Meta now more distrusted than Optus.
Other big movers in the ‘Net Trust’ rankings include Twitter, which has moved from the 16th ‘most distrusted’ brand to the 11th ‘most distrusted’ brand in this quarter, following the purchase of the social media giant by billionaire Elon Musk.
Roy Morgan data scientists analysed nominations from more than 22,000 Australians to identify the nation’s most trusted and most distrusted brands.
Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine said brands need to be aware of the dangers that distrust presents in the wake of major scandals.
“What we see with brands that suffer major scandals is that once distrust takes hold, it is very difficult to curtail. We saw it with AMP and the big four banks following the Royal Commission. We are still seeing it with Harvey Norman and more than two years after the JobKeeper scandal they are still ranked in the top 10 most distrusted brands in the country,” she said.