Bunnings, Aldi and Kmart are Australia’s three most trusted brands, while Toyota, Bendigo Bank and Nike are on the up
It’s official: Bunnings has again been crowned the most trusted brand in the 12 months to June 2024, retaining top spot ahead of supermarket Aldi and discount department store Kmart in third place.
The much-loved hardware chain has now held top spot as Australia’s most trusted brand for three consecutive quarters after previous leaders Woolworths and Coles fell down the rankings earlier this year.
There wasn’t much movement in the top 10 with the exception of Toyota moving up one place to fourth to be just ahead of Apple to fill out Australia’s top five most trusted brands.
Notable improvers outside the top 10 included Bendigo Bank, up two places to 11th, IGA, up one place to 13th, Nike, which entered the top 20 most trusted brands list for the first time at 16th, ING, up one place to 17th and David Jones, up one place to 18th.
The strong performances of both Aldi and IGA, both comfortably ranked within Australia’s top 15 most trusted brands, prove that not all supermarkets have lost the trust of Australians during the current cost of living crisis.
According to Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine: “For the first time in a year we have an unchanged top three most trusted brands in Australia with Bunnings, Aldi and Kmart again filling out the top three positions.
‘Bunnings is the only ‘survivor’ from the top rankings of a year ago, in third at the time behind then most trusted brands Woolworths and Coles. Both are now among Australia’s five most distrusted brands for the first time.
“The rapid slide down the rankings for both major supermarkets – which have each slid more than 200 spots in the rankings this year – shows how quickly distrust can gain momentum and devalue a brand’s reputation.
“The high trust ratings for Aldi, and independent grocer IGA (13th), show that the distrust for the two majors is not industry-wide, as it is their brands specifically which have become associated with ‘price gouging, high profits and corporate greed’ over the last year whereas as their closest competitors haven’t.”
Figure 1: Australia’s 10 most trusted and 10 most distrusted brands in June 2024. Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia). Risk Monitor, 12 month average to June 2024. Base: Australians 14+, n=24,682. Arrows with numbers show ranking change since March 2024.
Trusted Brands – Bunnings, ALDI and Kmart are the top three once again
Bunnings (1st) has retained top spot as the most trusted brand in the June quarter – the ubiquitous hardware chain’s third straight quarterly victory atop the rankings with ALDI (2nd) and Kmart (3rd) also unchanged in rankings.
Filling out the top five are Toyota (4th), now just ahead of Apple (5th), with these two highly respected brands swapping positions in the June quarter. The remainder of the top 10 was unchanged in the June quarter.
Within the top 20, there were several brands to increase their rankings during the quarter led by Bendigo Bank, up two places to 11th, and Nike, up six places to 16th, and entering the top 20 for the first time.
Also improving their rankings were independent supermarket chain IGA, up one place to 13th, banking giant ING, up one place to 17th and department store David Jones, up one place to 18th.
Distrusted Brands – Woolworths is the big slider, down a massive 194 places
Telecommunications company Optus is once again the most distrusted brand in Australia, an ignominy now held by the Singaporean-owned telco for a fourth straight quarter.
Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, has moved up further in the distrust rankings, into second place in the June quarter, and overtaking social media giant Facebook/Meta in third.
The biggest loser in the latest quarterly rankings was Woolworths, which slid a massive 194 places to be the fifth most distrusted brand in the June quarter – almost matching the slide taken by rival Coles in the previous March quarter. Coles is now the fourth most distrusted brand. As recently as a year ago both supermarkets were the two most trusted brands in the country.
The rise in the distrust rankings of the large supermarkets has led to many brands sliding in the distrust rankings during the June quarter including Telstra, down two spots to sixth, X (formerly Twitter), down one spot to eighth, TikTok, down one spot to ninth, and both Nestle and Amazon which both dropped out of the top ten most distrusted brands.
Notably, there were still some brands that bucked this trend and rose significantly in the distrust rankings including News Corp, up two spots to seventh, Temu, which rose eight spots to be the tenth most distrusted brand and BP, which entered the top 20 most distrusted brands in 18th place.
In positive news, those to improve their positions significantly included Amazon (12th), an improvement of six places, Medibank (17th), also up six spots from the previous quarter, Tesla (19th) and improving by five positions and ANZ (20th), up an impressive six places in the June quarter.
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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. the recent Private Health Insurance and Agribusiness Surveys, Telco, Utilities, Insurance, Life Insurance, Banking, 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.
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 |
