Supermarkets continue to top brand trust rankings

Most trusted and distrusted brands

Leading retail brands continue to lead the Roy Morgan ‘Net Trust’ rankings while distrust is highest for Facebook and leading telcos.

The top 10 list of trusted brands for the December 2022 quarter has just been released by Roy Morgan.

Despite increasing inflation, the report shows that brand trust was again dominated by supermarkets and department stores. The strength of these retail brands and their continued investment in delivering customer value seems to be holding up for now.

Once again Woolworths took the crown as the most trusted brand. Coles was just behind at 2, followed by Bunnings (3), Aldi (4), Kmart (5), Myer (6), and Big W (8).

Apple fell one place to be the 7th most trusted brand. It is notably the only tech company to make the top 10. Toyota was also the only car brand in the top 10. Australia Post was a new entry into the top 10, moving up two places to be the 9th most trusted.

brand trust report

On the other end of the spectrum, Facebook/Meta was unable to shift their unenviable crown of the most distrusted brand. Shaking distrust also seemed difficult for Telstra, Amazon, News Corp, Harvey Norman, Google, AMP, Rio Tinto, and Nestle – all in the top 10 of the most distrusted brands.

After its cyber hacking, Optus raced into the top 10 and jumped ahead of its rival Telstra to take the title of the second most distrusted brand.

Medibank also suffered significantly as a result of its own data breach. Previously ranked as a trusted brand, the private health insurer is now the 14th most distrusted brand in the country.

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, and we are still seeing it with Harvey Norman. More than 2 years after the JobKeeper scandal they are still ranked in the top 10 most distrusted brands in the country.

The first step in re-building trust is to eliminate distrust, and only Roy Morgan measures distrust.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine

Qantas also deserves a mention as a brand that experienced a dramatic decline in trust in the past quarter. Previously the 9th most trusted brand, Qantas fell 31 places to be the 40th most trusted brand in the December quarter.

Brand trust report

Roy Morgan data scientists analysed nominations from more than 22,000 Australians to identify the nation’s most trusted and most distrusted brands. See more details about the report here.

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