Optus is officially the nation’s most distrusted brand according to the latest Roy Morgan Most Trusted and Distrusted Brand Rankings, released today.
The telecommunications company is at the top of the list, followed by Facebook/Meta, Temu, Woolworths and Coles.
The two supermarkets are ranked fourth and fifth respectively, with Coles being recently found by the Federal court that it deliberately misled customers.
The mining and petroleum industry overtook the government to become the third most distrusted industry. Ride-sharing company Uber moved 10 places to rank 34th on the distrusted list.
Interestingly, leading ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) company OpenAI (including ChatGPT) has entered the top 20 most distrusted brands in Australia for the first time.
OpenAI (including ChatGPT), experienced one of the biggest declines this quarter – down seven spots to enter the top 20 most distrusted brands in 19th place – which Roy Morgan reports is “driven by suspicions around profit motives and ethics.”
Australians are “astute judges” of brands
The report found that the top seven most trusted brands stayed the same: Bunnings, Aldi, Kmart, Commonwealth Bank, Apple, Big W and Myer.
Toyota, JB HiFi and Australia Post made up the top ten of the nation’s favourites.
Speaking on the most distrusted brands list, Roy Morgan chief executive Michelle Levine said, “Distrust isn’t just the absence of trust. It’s an active, and often toxic response to a brand letting you down, particularly when it matters most.
“Trust is the social glue and a stabilising force in an increasingly unstable world.”
Levine added that Australian consumers “are astute judges of what is fair and what is not, and trust is the new currency of fairness.”