Woolworths has been named Australia’s most trusted brand – despite a year in which it was accused of price-gouging by cash-strapped consumers, and even as it steps up action against aggressive customers.

The supermarket giant took the title in Roy Morgan’s annual survey for the third consecutive year, consolidating its position as a customer favourite.

It came as another household name, Qantas, took another hit – beaten out of the top slot in airlines by rival Virgin Australia.

Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said that despite the challenges of a once-in-a-century pandemic transitioning into high inflation and rising interest rates, Australia’s most trusted brands had backed up their performances from last year.

“The supermarket industry finds itself navigating an increasingly volatile landscape with cost-of-living pressures, and aggressive, even violent customer behaviour,” she said.

“Trust is not a static achievement; it is continually tested, particularly in supermarkets.”

The importance of trust

The annual Roy Morgan Trusted Brand Awards survey about 25,000 Australians to collect data on trust and distrust of market-leading companies.

Levine said trust was often under-appreciated.

“The consecutive victories for Woolworths are a demonstration to other businesses about the value derived from building trust and enhancing a company’s standing in the wider community,” she said.

“High levels of trust and low-to-negligible distrust are both key factors in attracting new customers, which inevitably flows directly through to the bottom line.”

Woolworths took the top spot from Bunnings three years ago and has maintained its position as Australia’s most trusted brand despite accusations of price gouging.

It remained a customer favourite, despite announcing a record full-year profit of $1.62 billion in August as consumers continued to be battered by inflation.

On Thursday, chief executive Brad Banducci told the retail giant’s annual meeting it was beefing up support measures for its employees after more than 3000 acts of violence, threats and abuse were reported in the past year.

They mean customers will soon be shopping alongside CCTV upgrades, staff in two-way radio headsets and will include those who have had the benefit of virtual-reality training to cope with violence and aggression.

Winning trust

University of South Australia marketing professor John Dawes said brands often won trust by simply delivering consistent service and having a large market share.

“What drives loyalty is largely the same thing that drives how big those players are, which is how easy they are to buy from and how readily they come to mind,” he said.

“We find this consistent pattern where the biggest brands in the category, more people buy them and they get more loyalty from their buyers than little brands.”

Companies with smaller market share struggled to gain consumers’ trust because people thought of them less frequently when they were asked, Dawes said.

“Will Aldi ever be as big as Coles or Woolworths?” he said.

“No, because it will never have the same number of stores.”

Dawes said smaller brands like Aldi struggled on trust surveys because they had fewer customers. Photo: Aldi

Qantas has dominated the airline category in previous years. But this year, Virgin Australia has gazumped it after a bruising year for the Flying Kangaroo.

The one-time national carrier’s woes include questions over its COVID flight credits, its role in the federal government’s decision to deny rival Qatar Airways extra flights to key Australian capital cities and – most crucially – a High Court ruling that it illegally sacked more than 1700 workers at the height of the pandemic.

It has also faced controversy of the $21.4 million annual salary package paid to outgoing boss Alan Joyce in the 2022-23 financial year.

Finally, there is the Federal Court action launched by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. It accuses Qantas of engaging in false and misleading conduct by advertising tickets for thousands of already cancelled flights.

Dawes said Qantas’s hit showed that negative media coverage and perception of wrongdoing could also affect public opinion of a business.

“Doing things that are widely reported in the news as a poor practice, like Qantas and withholding people’s refund points, plainly your reputation is going to take a hit,” he said.

“Boards and senior executives, they have to have that in mind before they make fairly selfish decisions like prioritising earnings over customer interests.”

The winners

The other winners in each category included:

• Bunnings (retail)
• Kmart (department and discount stores)
• Samsung (consumer products)
• Australia Post (services )
• Salvation Army (charities)
• Apple (technology)
• Cadbury (food and beverage)
• Toyota (automotive)
• PayPal (non-bank financial services)
• Australian Super (superannuation)
• NRMA (insurance)
• HBF (private health insurance)
• Synergy (utilities)
• CSIRO (government services)
• ABC (media)
• Fortescue Metals (mining and petroleum)
• Bendigo Bank (banks)
• Aussie Broadband (telecommunications)

Dawes said when interests were too one-sided in a company’s favour, it could affect public trust. But it rarely had any impact on market share.

“By next year that will have blown over, and there will perhaps be some other corporate anomaly in the news that people will pay attention to,” he said.

“You win people as customers, then you win their trust. People rarely say they don’t want to buy from a company because they don’t trust them.”

See the full details of Roy Morgan’s annual trust brands report here.