Bunnings replaces Woolworths as Australia’s most trusted brand
Bunnings has again been crowned the most trusted brand in the 12 months to December 2023, dethroning Woolworths and breaking the supermarket’s 3-and-a-half-year stronghold. Coles has fallen from 3rd to 5th place.
Bunnings lost its title as Australia's most trusted brand to Woolworths in May 2020. However, since October 2022, Bunnings has shown a strong recovery, achieving the largest improvement in trust among all trusted brands.
According to Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine,
‘Bunnings is a brand with a vast reservoir of goodwill and reputational strength fed by dramatically more trust than distrust… its trust has been climbing steadily over the past year while its minimal distrust remains fairly stable.’
Australians' distrust in companies has grown in the last year, with reasons including corporate greed, poor customer service, unaffordable prices, dishonesty, unethical practices, and poor privacy practices.
Bunnings has managed to buck the trend against an economic environment where trust has eroded. Ms Levine explains that:
‘Bunnings has harnessed many of the foundational pillars of a trusted brand including great customer service, communicating what it stands for and delivering, being an active part of the community, solving customer’s problems and expertise and product knowledge.’
Australians have told us in their own words why they trust Bunnings:
“Great customer service. Love their welcoming staff. Whether it’s nuts and bolts or a new toilet seat, they have it all value for money.”
“Reliable with low prices. Have always been able to exchange products even if the issue was my mistake (e.g. misread the label and bought the wrong thing), or if I found an issue it was never denied (e.g. box was missing a part).”
“They employ a lot of tradies who can give worthwhile advice.”
“Have been there over 700 times in last 23 years. For building, renovations etc and the staff KNOW where stuff is and are good with the advice.”
“LOVE Bunnings one of my favourite shop’s huge variety of home care products plus the garden section I love best of all can’t resist buying something for the garden every time I visit.”
“Great products and price and have a no quibble refund policy.”
“Great stock range, help is there if you need it and it is my go-to for my gardening and tool needs. Really convenient trading hours, and their return policy is good.”
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia). Risk Monitor, 12 month average to December 2023. Base: Australians 14+, n=25,863. Arrows with numbers show ranking change since September 2023.Green shading highlights ranking improvements for trusted brands, and red shading highlights ranking deterioration for distrusted brands.
Trusted Brands
Both major supermarkets have fallen among trusted brands, with Woolworths (2nd) slipping one place and Coles (5th) two places. ALDI (3rd), Kmart (4th) and Bunnings (1st) each rose by one place.
Within the top 20, Bendigo Bank (15th) was the only brand to move up two spots, widening the gap against ING (18th) and Commonwealth Bank (19th). The ABC (17th) dropped two rankings and QBE (128th) and SBS (93rd) dropped 26 and 23 places respectively.
Speaking on QBE, Michele explains that:
‘QBE has been accused of lifting premiums while simultaneously locking in so-called ‘lowball’ pandemic payouts. The insurer is also facing the Federal Court for allegedly telling brokers to ignore a court ruling to contact clients to ask if they needed to lodge a claim for pandemic loss.’
Distrusted Brands
Telecommunications company Optus remains the most distrusted brand in Australia. It is followed by social media giant (and former and long-standing most distrusted brand) Facebook/Meta, embattled airline Qantas, private health insurer Medibank and media giant News Corp. All four have faced significant scandals in recent years including content policies and moderation, widespread data breaches and allegations of profiteering.
In positive news, technology companies Google (20th) Huawei (60th), and Uber (39th) improved their positions by 7, 11 and 8 places respectively. Qantas (3rd) is showing signs of recovery despite deep distrust.
Michele Levine notes that:
‘The Big Four banks were showing significant improvements in their trust and distrust scores, but by year’s end, we saw dramatic declines. ANZ is the biggest loser, jumping 18 distrust rankings to land at number 15 on the top twenty list of most distrusted brands in Australia. NAB jumped 19 places, but as the nation’s 71st most distrusted brand is in much better shape than ANZ’.
Trust in banks has deteriorated due to successive interest rate rises and rising cost-of-living concerns. Australians cite excessive profit motives and unaffordable prices as reasons for their distrust, with banks bearing much of this criticism.
CEO Michele Levine elaborates:
’Soaring distrust from executives behaving appallingly and even corruptly has brought the entire economy into Net Distrust territory. The Moral Blindness exhibited has contributed to a kind of national fragility.’
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia). Risk Monitor, 12-month average to December 2023.
Base: Australians 14+, Latest 12-month average n=25,863.
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The Roy Morgan Risk Monitor surveys approximately 2,000 Australians every month (around 25,000 per year) to measure levels of trust and distrust of around 1,000 brands across 26 industries. Respondents are asked which brands they trust, and why, and which brands they distrust, and why. The survey is designed to be open-ended, context-free, and unprompted. Roy Morgan Risk Monitor data is available in a variety of formats, from snapshot overviews to detailed tracking of individual brands and competitors. Industry Trust and Distrust Deep dive Surveys are also conducted (e.g. Telco, Utilities, Insurance, Life Insurance, Banking, Agribusiness, Media, Retail, Real Estate, etc.) for deep insights into brand health, perceptions of, and customer experience (CX) with brands.
To learn more call (+61) (3) 9224 5309 or email askroymorgan@roymorgan.com.
About Roy Morgan
Roy Morgan is the source of the most comprehensive data on Australians’ behaviour and attitudes, surveying over 1,000 people weekly in a continuous cycle that has been running for two decades. The company has more than 80 years’ experience collecting objective, independent information.
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
