Bunnings holds top spot as most trusted Aussie brand

Despite using privacy-invading facial recognition cameras, a major retailer has held its spot as the No.1 most trusted Australian brand.

Coles and Woolworths continue to plummet down trustworthiness rankings, according to a major Australian consumer survey.

Market research giant Roy Morgan polls 25,000 Australians every year on which companies they trust, offering for scrutiny 1000 brands across 27 industries.

The market research firm runs the survey year-round and publishes quarterly results.

In mid-2023, Coles and Woolworths held the top two most trusted spots. But both have tanked to become the second and third least trusted companies in the latest results, behind only Optus.

The 10 most, and least, trusted brands in Australia. Picture: Roy Morgan

Bunnings also made it one year in the top most-trusted spot this quarter despite the Privacy Commissioner finding the hardware giant had breached Australians’ privacy by collecting their personal and sensitive information via facial recognition cameras.

Bunnings, Aldi, Kmart, Toyota, Apple and Australia Post retained their respective spots – in that order – in the most trusted stakes. Big W, NRMA and Myer shuffled around in the seventh, eight and ninth spots and Samsung polled 10th.

Qantas, Meta, Telstra, News Corp, Temu, Twitter/X and TikTok round out the 10 most distrusted brands.

Aldi has benefited from a series of scandals at Coles and Woolworths. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

“A year ago, Bunnings was ranked as Australia’s second most trusted brand – splitting the two major supermarkets Woolworths (first) and Coles (third) on the podium,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.

The two major supermarkets have lost well over 200 places in the trust rankings compared with a year ago.

“Since then, the two supermarkets have fallen away significantly and are now ranked within the three most distrusted brands – just behind Optus – Australia’s most distrusted brand for a sixth consecutive quarter,” Ms Levine said.

In the top 25 of most trusted, Commonwealth Bank, RACQ, JB Hi-Fi and Chemist Warehouse were notable climbers.

IGA, David Jones, ABC, Nike and Bendigo Bank slid down the most trusted rankings.

These results come just two weeks after the Privacy Commissioner ruled Bunnings’ use of facial recognition technology breached the Privacy Act.

The retailer said it would challenge the findings at the Administrative Review Tribunal.

* News Corp is the publisher of NewsWire