New Research Shows That Gen Ys Don’t Trust Media Brands

According to a study from a team of former agency strategists, millennial distrust in media brands has reached a new low, plummeting beneath that of insurance providers and banks.

The Australian Millennial Report 2019 asked 1206 Australians between the age of 19 and 36 to rate their trust in the Australian brands operating within a number of key categories out of a possible 10.

Despite being released in the wake of the Financial Services Royal Commission — in which the big four banks were implicated in 24 cases of civil and potentially criminal breaches of the law — it seems as though millennials are still wary of the advent of ‘fake news’, stating that media brands were the least trustworthy.

In contrast, supermarkets were considered the most trustworthy, earning an average rating of 7.2 out of a possible 10.

The scores for the rest of the categories were as follows:

Energy providers: 6.03
Phone and internet providers: 6.09
Banking and finance: 5.79
Insurance providers: 5.69
The media: 5.53

The study, spearheaded by Tom McGillick and 2014 B&T 30 Under 30 winner Mark MacSmith, is in its second year.

MacSmith said of the report: “We undertook our first annual survey last year and we have just released our second, the Australian Millennial Report 2019, which is the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken in Australia of the millennial cohort.

“It includes representation across every state and territory from cities through to regional areas and provides extraordinary insight into the attitudes, views and wants and needs of all millennials”.

Among the findings, it was also revealed that YouTube had overtaken Facebook as the number one app for Australian millennials, with 34 per cent saying that they can’t live without YouTube in 2019.

Despite this, Facebook’s impact on the news scene was also apparent — 19 per cent of young Australians said that they get most or all of their news from Facebook, compared with 21 per cent from television.

Mark MacSmith Tom McGillick

McGillick (pictured, right) commented: “The concerning thing about Facebook growing so much as a news source is that we found that it strongly correlated with lower levels of personal optimism.

“People who get their news from more traditional media sources like TV and newspapers tend to be significantly more optimistic.

“In particular these increases are being driven by young women”.

MacSmith (pictured, left) added: “A lot of consumer brands are already working hard to engage with millennials and are relying on our annual reports to sharpen their focus.

“Big data sliced into micro insights is the way of the future for any brand seeking to engage with the market — and our specialty is millennials”.

The Australian Millennial Report is the largest annual survey of Australian Millennials and covers millennial attitudes and behaviours around family, the environment, media, finance, health, politics, and sex.

The Australian Millennial Report 2019 is available for purchase from Millennial Future.

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