Qantas has lost its number-one spot as Australia’s most trusted brand and dropped to fourth position, beaten by a supermarket chain, a motoring association and – believe it or not – a bank.
Supermarket brand ALDI is now the most trusted brand in Australia, beating its established competitors Coles and Woolworths. ALDI is the store you can enter to buy groceries and emerge toting a circular saw and a couple of road cones along with your bread and canned tomatoes.
Improvements in ALDI’s Net Trust Score lifted the supermarket retailer from third to first in the latest Roy Morgan Net Trust Score survey.
ALDI is the common brand of two German discount supermarket chains with over 10,000 stores in 20 countries, and an estimated combined turnover of more than AUD 78 billion.
In Australia, ALDI distinguishes itself by combining quality with low prices and by using real people on the checkouts. It’s the human touch. Rather than trying to get shoppers to use automatic checkout machines (and avoiding having to hire checkout staff) ALDI prides itself on being the supermarket where you “start with low prices and end with a real person”. It works. People like people. ALDI is highly profitable.
Conducted by Roy Morgan, the latest survey reveals ALDI has come in just ahead of insurer NRMA, with Bendigo Bank, Qantas and Bunnings also performing well.
ALDI’s main supermarket rivals Woolworths and Coles are rated highly when considering trust but fell behind ALDI on Net Trust Score (NTS) due to their much higher levels of distrust.
Despite ALDI’s strong performance with the top NTS of any brand, supermarkets as a category have a minus NTS falling behind other industries such as Automotive, Consumer Product Brands, Travel, and Technology.
According to Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine, the importance of trust to a brand’s sustainable future is increasingly recognised as a key metric and “Nowhere is a high level of trust more important than when it comes to the provision of the food we eat.”
“The success of ALDI’s entrance to the Australian market has been built not only on discount prices but also a reputation for reliability and meeting the needs of consumers.
“ALDI’s ability to excel at its core competencies has built a level of trust in the Australian market without at the same time attracting the degree of distrust seen by its rivals.
“Measuring trust alone is never enough – we need to measure distrust and then subtract if from trust to reveal the accurate health of a brand.
Pushes out Qantas as Australia’s most trusted brand
“Although ALDI’s larger rivals both have high levels of trust, it is the number of Australians who express distrust in the two market leaders that they should be worried about.
“To rise to meet the challenge presented by ALDI, and other newer entrants into grocery category such as Amazon Fresh, Costco and Kaufland, traditional market leaders Coles and Woolworths need to develop strategies to reduce their growing levels of distrust,” she said.
Top brands in Australia ranked by positive NTS:
- ALDI
- NRMA
- Bendigo Bank
- Qantas
- Bunnings
- Kmart
- ABC Network
- IGA
- Australia Post
- ING
Important drivers of trust include reliability, customer focus, knowledgeable staff, ease of contact and previous good experiences with the company, in addition to other key performance indicators.
Whereas drivers of brand distrust revolve around perceptions of self-centredness, greed, and dishonest and deceitful business practices. Drilling into the data reveals several examples that fit into these broader definitions.
Why is distrust so important?
According to Levine:
- Distrust triggers customer churn
- Distrust kills critical customer engagement
- Distrust kills supplier engagement
- Distrust is the tipping point for reputational damage
- Distrust is the bellwether for an unsustainable future
The Roy Morgan Net Trust Score derives from a survey in which about 4000 Australians were asked which brands they trust and which they distrust.
Written by Peter Needham
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