Trust and Brands - UK - February 2016
Overview
 
What you need to know 
Mintel’s research shows that the most trusted brands are not necessarily those that get pulses racing; instead they are the brands that consumers have become familiar with over time, and the ones they feel that they can rely on, particularly in the household and personal care sectors. The likes of Johnson’s, Fairy and Pyrex might not be seen as particularly glamorous, but they are time-tested brands that help people care for their home or family.

Finance brands get the toughest ride from consumers, evidence of the challenges facing companies operating in that sector, and of the impact that repeated scandals and crises have had on consumer perceptions of the industry as a whole. 

Trust cannot be viewed in isolation. It is closely correlated to usage, and it is those day-to-day brands that really engender high levels of trust, although a few prestige brands are able to stand out from the crowd despite relatively low levels of use. Levels of trust also tend to correlate with people’s opinions on other key brand attributes, such as customer service, reputation, quality and perceived value. Few brands are able to sidestep these broad links. Trust is not built in isolation: people need to feel they can rely on a brand to deliver on every front before they truly trust it.

Report scope
Over the last two years, Mintel has conducted brand research on over 700 brands. As well as consumers’ attitudes towards brands, we investigate how many people have used those brands, how good their experience of the brand has been, and whether they would recommend that brand.

Research is run at a brand level, rather than based on a particular product. So rather than asking specifically about people’s perception of Barclays’ current accounts, or of Tesco’s ready meals, for example, we ask about their overall perception of the Barclays and the Tesco brands. 

Data in this report is drawn from fieldwork conducted between January 2014 and December 2015. Many brands have been covered on multiple occasions and, unless otherwise stated, Mintel’s data refers to the most recent wave of research in which a given brand featured. Please refer to the report appendix for details of the reports from which the brand data have been taken. 

For the purposes of this report, Mintel has collated and compared consumer data in regard to trust in major brands operating in the UK across the following sectors:

●	Travel
●	Technology
●	Household Care
●	Retail
●	Beauty & Personal Care
●	Food 
●	Drink
●	Finance
●	Foodservice
●	Fashion
●	Automotive
●	Energy
●	Media.