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Optus tops least-trusted-brands list as scandals prove sticky
Optus’ September 2022 data breach has landed it atop Roy Morgan’s list of Australia’s most distrusted brands, taking the spot of dishonour from Facebook/Meta for the first time in the survey’s seven-year history and showing the difficulty in shaking off major scandals.
The widely publicised breach had an “immediate and sharp” effect on consumer distrust for the Optus brand, and monthly distrust readings for the telecom remain at highly elevated levels, the research firm said. Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine noted that distrust is very difficult to challenge once it takes hold among consumers and that recover from a major scandal can take a very long time.
“While distrust often peaks immediately after such an event, its levels can remain elevated for many months or years afterwards,” the report stated.
Moreover, while a brand may incrementally improve its trust levels, “residual distrust does not just vanish”, it added. “While events become less ‘top of mind’ due to new ‘distrust-generating’ events, it would be remiss to believe this means a brand has become trusted again.”
Telecoms garner high distrust
Optus’ poor performance reflects a greater trend for the telecommunications industry, which Roy Morgan surveys have shown to be the most distrusted industry in the Australian economy since February 2023. After Optus and Meta, Telstra was the third most distrusted brand in the year through June (see chart).
NewsCorp and Amazon round out the top five. The sixth spot went to private health insurer Medibank, which, like Optus, is still suffering lingering distrust stemming from its own data breach, in October. Social media giant TikTok was the eight most distrusted brand, taking the most-distrusted-social-media-brand mantle from Twitter- although the report noted the survey results predate Twitter’s controversial rebranding as X.
“Distrust makes a brand fragile and is a powerful driver in the decisions which customers make,” Levine said. “Brands need to be aware of the ongoing dangers that distrust presents, with lingering distrust a significant risk.”
Trust leaders and climbers
Major retailers, particularly supermarket behemoths, continued to dominate the list of trusted brands, with Woolworths and Coles retaining their top-two spots, followed by Bunnings, Aldi and Kmart.
Outside the top 10, brands that made progress on trust in the past year included Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which rose to 17th most trusted in June from 20th in March, making it the second most trusted bank in Australia, after Bendigo Bank. Here again the report noted that the results predated CBA’s recently posted record $10.2 billion profit.
“Risk assessments and procedures by executives and company directors across all industries need to formally factor in distrust – indeed, distrust should be on the risk register of every board in Australia,” Levine concluded.
