In a recent study titled, “Beyond Trust: Engaging Consumers in the Post-Recession World,” Millward Brown, a market research firm, used a new metric (“TrustR”) to determine the top-performing brands. In order to calculate the results, consumer responses to the questions “how trustworthy is this brand” and “would you recommend this brand” were analyzed.
Amazon.com was named the top-performing brand in the United States with FedEx, Downey, Huggies and Tide filling out the remaining spots in the top 5. WebMD.com was the only other web based only brand in the top 10, coming in at number 8.
The scores were indexed and combined together to create the TrustR score, with the average score being 100. It was a very tight race (only 5 points separated 1st and 10th place in the rankings) as the scores for the top 10 brands ranged from 123 for Amazon to 118 for UPS.
The study suggests consumers are reluctant to purchase brands they don’t trust. “In fact, we found that the number one “TrustR” brand in each of the 22 countries we researched was nearly seven times more likely to be purchased and consumers were 10 times more likely to have formed a strong bond with these brands,” according to Millward Brown’s Eileen Campbell.
Amazon was able to achieve the top ranking by providing excellent customer service and their ability to deliver relevant product recommendations to users. In addition, users are able to create product reviews that aid others in making their buying decisions.
Below is the list of the top 10 most trusted and recommended brands:
