QF is Australia's second most distrusted brand

Melburnian1

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The latest Roy Morgan 'trusted and distrusted brands' quarterly survey (for the three months to 30 June 2024) has Qantas as Australia's second most distrusted brand, overtaking Facebook/Meta that's now in third place.

Not a 'rise' that companies like Qantas would desire.

Only Optus is worse:


The survey doesn't indicate how often (if at all) respondents use each brand, but it's a stratified indication as to community sentiment, as there were 24.682 respondents Australia wide, aged 14 plus.

It's highly likely there'll be a mix of non-flyers, occasional ones and frequent flyers as every income and age group will be represented, plus rural and city-based respondents.

This suggests Australians aren't buying the Vanessa Hudson et al lines about 'we're changing for the better'.

Companies can recover: Medibank has climbed in the rankings despite its fairly recent (within memory) PR disaster.

Virgin Australia and Rex did not rate a mention in the summary but they'll be listed if anyone subscribes to the detailed 'trust' and 'distrust' reports.
 
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WW and Coles: Big corporate profits in face of a cost of living crisis
The supermarket shop is a big contributor to the inflation figure so not only is the shop costlier but they are also keeping mortgages and rents higher for longer
Sure transport costs might be unavoidably higher but I doubt they are paying their suppliers or staff much more.
And they still raise their margin by inflation as well
(E.g let's say a pack of sausages used to cost them $5 and they sold for $10. Even if the cost had gone up to $6, why can't they sell for $11 instead of $12. They would still be making $5 a pack)
 
WW and Coles: Big corporate profits in face of a cost of living crisis

While wary of going off topic, may I point out that supermarkets typically make two to three cents in the dollar net profit after tax?

Their margins are thin and remain so. Given the benefits the big supermarkets bring to us all - lots of stores, plus for WOW and COL, online options also offered by some IGAs but not Aldi/Costco, I don't quibble with their profits. (I do not hold either COL, WOW or MTS that owns many IGAs and is a wholesaler as well).
 
I've always called inflation just a fancy economics term for greed. Somewhere along the supply chain, someone makes a decision to extract more and this just flows through to become inflation
The all groups CPI tells the tale


Food surprisingly is NOT the key factor.
When you think about it this way
One banana of 176 g sold for $1.90 per kilo or $4.90
33 cents v 86 cents feels like a

Huge % change

But in the scheme of things, it’s 53 cents. Hardly breaking the bank

Tobacco
Insurance
Private health insurance
Housing
automotive fuel and airfares
Fruit
 
The all groups CPI tells the tale


Food surprisingly is NOT the key factor.
When you think about it this way
One banana of 176 g sold for $1.90 per kilo or $4.90
33 cents v 86 cents feels like a

Huge % change

But in the scheme of things, it’s 53 cents. Hardly breaking the bank

Tobacco
Insurance
Private health insurance
Housing
automotive fuel and airfares
Fruit
I guess a house full of hungry boys makes me feel like it's a massive proportion 😀
 
The survey doesn't indicate how often (if at all) respondents use each brand, but it's a stratified indication as to community sentiment, as there were 24.682 respondents Australia wide, aged 14 plus.

It's highly likely there'll be a mix of non-flyers, occasional ones and frequent flyers as every income and age group will be represented, plus rural and city-based respondents.
I think this largely speaks to a phenomenon in Australia of amplification of media sentiment. I don't think Qantas as a brand are by any means undeserving of criticism, but I think anyone with a bit of critical thinking skill recalls a time in which Qantas were under sustained media scrutiny, the pervasive negative opinions largely started at that time, led to the CEO being ousted early, and in the absence of any meaningful change in direction have continued on to where the brand finds itself today.

I have to be honest, I think it's a bit mindless, but that's just me. I only really see value in people's opinion based on actual experience, not amplified sentiment. For those who have negative opinions based on actual lived experience, that's entirely valid. For people who repeat what they hear on TV, it's just background noise. I'd take a poll of active travelers over the general public any day, even if the outcome were the same.
 
I'd take a poll of active travelers over the general public any day, even if the outcome were the same.

Remember, some who are not travellers today may be tomorrow.

It's a constant for any organisation in this survey that some may be users (say, of Woolworths/Coles/Optus/IGA etc.) and some may not.

High distrust may be a reason why shoppers/consumers/passengers don't use company X or Y, so it's an interesting, topical metric.
 
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Remember, some who are not travellers today may be tomorrow.

It's a constant for any organisation in this survey that some may be users (say, of Woolworths/Coles/Optus/IGA etc.) and some may not.

High distrust may be a reason why shoppers/consumers/passengers don't use company X or Y, so it's an interesting, topical metric.
In reading the Senate report, it’s apparent there are points collectors who are occasional fliers at best going to family reunions or following a sports team, hobby (STATUS RUNS) etc but had been chasing the ‘tomorrow’ dream of premium class travel only to be immensely disappointed when the time came for QF to provide their side of the bargain that they were left “empty-handed”

Thanks we’ve taken your money over a decade or two (and that from 15,000,000 others) but now all you’re going to get is a toaster from the store. Yknow those business seats long haul you thought you were going to achieve after years of earning points sorry we simply can’t fulfil your order

Oh and by the way, you wish to pay that’ll be way over the odds pricing
4 times the cost of competing airlines - unfair pricing based on “supply and demand”

So distrusted yes
As to whether they do a good job operationally and ought be trusted to fly you safely to wherever they are pretty damn good
 
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Indeed. The point was purely a personal one, not a critique of the measure overall - it's much the same as when youtube videos by Josh Cahill and other airline vloggers rate a lot of legacy airlines that are unpopular in their home markets relatively highly because the comparison is generally based on service performance and not simply brand sentiment. It is a matter of emotional vs analytical value assessment, and I wonder if the key division between people on AFF runs along a similar line. People are likely to avoid the brand not necessarily because of comparative lounge network, hard product, or network connectivity rationale, but moreso because of their opinion of current or former leadership, the sentiment in the media, past experiences and interactions and more generally, familiarity breeding contempt.

Also may I say that nowhere can I make the judgement that one value assessment is more or less right than the other, it's not that emotional judgements are wrong and analytical right, but you have people (like me) who lean in a particular direction, and that strongly influences our decision making processes.

Even the inevitable "it's the soft product" response echos the same sentiment - it's how they made you feel. The truth is that if you already feel negative towards the brand, every interaction will start from that low watermark. Every negative interaction is amplified, positive outcomes are simply compensation.
 
The number of people in the London lounge last Tuesday evening tells me plenty of punters “still call Australia home”
 
WW and Coles: Big corporate profits in face of a cost of living crisis
sure, but Im not sure how that morphs into "distrusted"

Woolies is distrusted by my household in the "fresh food people" mantra because it is not fresh by any stretch of the imagination.

Im sure the people surveyed broaden the meaning of "distrusted" to include anything negative.
So someone who just does not like a brand because of pricing policy would tick yes for "distrusted".
 

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