Telecommunications giant Optus has been named as the most distrusted brand in Australia after it left the door open for hackers to steal the data of millions of its customers.
Survey firm Roy Morgan announced the results of its 2023 brand trust rankings on Friday, with chief executive Michelle Levine saying the Optus’ data scandal had an immediate negative impact.
Ms Levine said that once distrust in a brand takes hold, it can be difficult to rebuild relationships with consumers.
“Distrust makes a brand fragile and is a powerful driver in the decisions which consumers make”, Ms Levine said.
“Brands need to be aware of the ongoing dangers that distrust presents, with lingering distrust a significant risk.”
Optus angered Australians after the data of 10 million current and former customers was stolen by an apparent amateur hacker in September last year.
The scandal worsened after Optus opted to muddy the waters with inaccurate information about the hack, sparking a public fight with Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil about its culpability.
The saga weakened trust in Optus so much that it eclipsed Meta – which has also had a series of data breaches – as the most distrusted brand in Australia for 2023.
Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) is second on the distrust list, while Telstra – a company that routinely breaches consumer protections – is third.
Other brands on the distrust list include Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (4) and Medibank (6) – a company which has recently navigated its own massive hacking scandal.
Extraordinarily, when the scandal-ridden records of Optus and Telstra are combined, they’ve made telecommunications into the most distrusted industry in the economy, Roy Morgan said.
Trusted brands
The Roy Morgan trust research uses routine survey panels of consumers to generate a net score between trust and distrust.
That means there’s also a list of Australia’s most trusted brands in 2023.
Woolworths maintained top spot over the 12 months to June, while Coles came in second place. Australia’s largest hardware store chain, Bunnings, kept hold of third place.
Aldi, Kmart, Apple, Big W, Myer, Toyota and Australia Post round out the top 10 most trusted brands.
There wasn’t much movement at the top of the trust rankings, indicating many of the companies on the list are enjoying a rusted-on perception about their businesses.
The top 10 lists themselves shadow some of the more interesting movements in the middle of the list, however, with Commonwealth Bank on the upswing while Qantas continues to suffer.
The national carrier has endured a turbulent few years that saw it rely on taxpayers to survive during COVID-19 only to fire thousands of workers and begin posting gigantic profits.
TikTok worse than Twitter
Twitter, interestingly, edged down in the distrust list, though the survey was taken before erratic new owner Elon Musk rebranded the platform to “X”.
In fact, Roy Morgan said Twitter is no longer Australia’s most distrusted social media brand – that title now belongs to TikTok.
TikTok has been the subject of heated public debate over the past year over its ownership ties in China and questions from officials in Washington and Canberra that it may send data to Beijing.
This has always been an issue for the company, but the situation has worsened amid troubled relations between Washington – Australia’s foundational security partner – and Beijing.
Despite that, however, Roy Morgan said TikTok remains popular among Generation Z as one of the biggest social media platforms for young people across the country.
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