Aldi pips Bunnings to maintain spot as Australia’s most trusted brand as big banks suffer

German discount retailer Aldi has yet again topped the list of Australia’s most trusted brands, beating out home-grown names Bunnings and Qantas for the second quarter in a row.

Roy Morgan’s Net Trust Score Survey for July 2018 revealed Aldi is number one on the list, followed by hardware retailer Bunnings and Australian airline Qantas at spots two and three. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation came in at the fourth spot, jumping three places since a similar survey was conducted in April.

According to Roy Morgan, Aldi, Bunnings, and Qantas have remained in the top five most trusted brands in every survey since October last year. In the April survey this year, the other brands to join them in the top five were Bendigo Bank and insurance company NRMA.

Roy Morgan’s brands survey is completed by more than 10,000 Australians, who are asked unprompted questions about which brands they trust and distrust.

Bendigo Bank has stayed its course in the top 10 most trusted brands since October last year, running contrary to the overwhelming level of distrust brought on by the royal commission into the banking and superannuation sector.

However, Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine highlighted in the report that Australia’s big four banks have remained in the bottom 10 for most distrusted brands, along with super company AMP, which she says moved from an insignificant trust ranking to a prominently negative trust ranking in the last two surveys.

“The banks were already deeply distrusted so any material impact on their market value is up and down. But AMP has never before been so distrusted. Seventeen years ago, AMP shares were worth more than $14. Today they’re worth less than $3.50. That’s a drop of 72 percent,” Levine said in a statement.

“AMP’s skyrocketing level of distrust has cost the household brand billions of dollars. According to financial analysts, more than $4 billion has been wiped off the company’s value as a direct consequence of revelations during the royal commission.”

Furthermore, overall trust rankings of industry sectors show that banking is the most distrusted industry, whereas retail is most trusted.

Aldi’s continued high level of trust from Australians comes after prominent local entrepreneur Dick Smith openly blamed the German company for sending Dick Smith Foods “bankrupt” and forcing him out of business.

“Aldi has a formula — they’ve come here and imported most of their products while employing virtually no staff, they have 20% of the staff of the major supermarkets. That means they can sell at a really low cost,” Smith told SmartCompany last month.

“Aldi is now the most trusted brand in Australia, and they’ve completely outmaneuvered us.”

Smith has also attacked Aldi for remaining a private company while operating in Australia, claiming the company is not distributing its “extraordinary wealth” to Australians in the same way that Coles and Woolworths do.

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