It’s time to retire that old “Rip the Band-Aid off” idiom. Seems nobody is in a huge rush to get rid of their Band-Aids.
The first-aid aider topped decision intelligence company Morning Consult’s annual Most Trusted Brands report.
The Johnson & Johnson-owned bandage brand stuck it to all other US brands for a second straight year, besting other top-five finishers UPS, Amazon, Lysol, and Kleenex.
Band-Aid wasn’t a hit with everyone…
… The exception being Gen Z; they don’t trust a damn thing.
The survey calculated net trust ratings — the share of people who say they trust brands “to do the right thing” minus the share who don’t — for 1.5k+ popular companies.
On average, Gen X and baby boomers were the most trusting (~22%), with millennials slightly less trusting (~19%). Those low numbers would’ve been wounding enough.
Then Gen Z lifted those Band-Aids right off and poured salt right on: Their net trust rating was ~11%.
Are the kids alright?
A generous view here suggests they’re new consumers who haven’t had time to build trust with companies yet.
But we’ll take a colder, more realistic track: This is a generation that distrusts, well, nearly everything — from higher education to state and local governments. They barely even trust doctors.
- Nonprofits were the only category of brands Gen Z responded well to. This checks out; they also volunteer at the highest rates of any generation.
Translation: Institutions of all kinds, including corporate America, have a lot of trust-building work ahead if they want to unlock Gen Z’s spending power.
BTW: Who else has customers’ faith? (At least among older Americans.) Rounding out the top 10: Cheerios, Visa, Dove, The Weather Channel, and FedEx.
Trust