Bunnings has again been crowned the most trusted brand in the 12 months to March 2024 after returning to the top spot in the final quarter of 2023, while Woolworths and Coles slide down the rankings, found roy morgan.
The hardware chain has increased its lead as Australia’s most trusted brand as previous leader Woolworths plunged from second spot in the last report, down 32 places to 34th most trusted overall.
Rival major supermarket brand Coles has continued its fall from grace, falling from the fifth most trusted brand in the 12 months to December 2023 to the ninth most distrusted brand in the current rankings—an unprecedented fall of 221 places in the rankings.
Aldi is now Australia’s second most trusted brand, marginally ahead of discount department store Kmart in third place.
Coles and Woolworths dropped out of the top 20 most trusted brands, and all brands other than ING Bank moved up in ranking. The biggest mover in the top 20 is Australia Post, which improved four spots to rank sixth, just outside the top 5 behind tech giant Apple and car manufacturer Toyota.
“The fate of Woolworths and Coles reveals how quickly distrust can gain momentum and negatively impact a brand’s reputation. There’s an old Dutch saying that trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback. In other words, trust is slow to win but quick to lose,” said Michele Levine, Roy Morgan CEO.
“The results serve as a salutary reminder for Bunnings, which has retained high levels of trust based on extensive goodwill and reputational strength combined with a fairly stable, and minimal, level of distrust”.
Australian distrust for companies has grown significantly in the last year as cost-of-living concerns and high inflation have increased concern about companies being motivated by high profits and corporate greed, excessive price hikes, dishonesty, and not being focused enough on putting the customer first.
In the March quarter of 2024, the biggest improvers in the trust rankings overall are Nintendo (up 33 places), Cotton On (up 23 places), and YOUI (up 18 places).
“Nintendo has developed a good reputation with consumers who credit the company for ‘always supporting the players’, ‘making devices that don’t break,’ providing ‘good personal service’ and ‘making great family friendly and kids’ games’ – leading to a sharp rise in the console maker’s trust rankings in the most recent rankings,” explained Michele.
Telecommunications company Optus remains the most distrusted brand in Australia for a third straight quarter. It is again followed by social media giant Facebook/Meta, embattled airline Qantas, private health insurer Medibank, telecommunications giant Telstra, and media company News Corp. All have faced significant scandals in recent years that have led to high and enduring levels of distrust in the community.
Among the sliders during the March quarter are Amazon (6th), down two spots, X (formerly Twitter) (7th), down one spot, and Coles (9th), down a record-breaking 221 places from last quarter.
Other new entrants to the 20 most distrusted brands in Australia are Temu, which deteriorated from 28th to 18th, and Tesla, which deteriorated from 24th to 17th. However, the second biggest slider during the March quarter was NAB (29th), after deteriorating by 42 spots.
“The ultra-cheap Chinese-based online retailer Temu is attracting a fair share of negative criticism after bursting onto the Australian retail scene recently with accusations that ‘their pictures are not what you get’, ‘their products seem dodgy and of poor quality,’ ‘they collect the data of their customers,’ ‘they’re an organisation full of scammers’, and that the low prices mean they must be ‘underpaying staff’,” said Levine.
