New research from Millennial Future shows trust in large Australian brands has increased among young Australians for the second consecutive year.
Most trusted were large supermarket brands, but the biggest gains in trust in the past 12 months have been by energy providers, banks, and insurers.
Report author Tom McGillick said, “while media brands remain the least trusted among the six categories we test each year, even they had a significant boost in trust in the last 12 months.”
“We’ve tracked this across three years now, and while trust for these brands was increasing prior to 2020, those increases were marginal compared to those we’ve seen in the last year, so this appears to be (at least in part) attributable to COVID.”
The results are in line with a general positivity among young Australians.
“It’s not just trust in brands that has increased,” said McGillick.
“Individual media channels are considered as more trustworthy than a year ago, we’re seeing increased optimism around the attainability of financial goals, and trends showing declining personal and national optimism have actually reversed for the first time since we started tracking them in 2018.”
The report shows it’s not all good news for young Australians in 2021. Unemployment is up, particularly among women, as is anxiety around job insecurity for those who are employed.
Commenting on the increase in trust for brands, McGillick added, “it’s a good thing to have trusted local brands operating in these important categories, but I don’t think we’re seeing these increases in trust because they all wowed us over the last 12 months. Maybe it’s people looking for a bit of familiarity and stability.”
The Australian Millennial Report is published annually with a nationally representative sample of +1200 Australians currently aged 21-38. The Australian Generation Z Report is published biennially with a nationally representative sample of +1000 Australians currently aged 16-20.
Both reports are now available to download here: https://millennialfuture.co/
