Brand Trust Report 2014 Released

The study ranks Samsung as India's 'Most Trusted Brand'; Sony and Tata finish second and third, respectively.

Trust Research Advisory (TRA), a part of the Comniscient Group, has released The Brand Trust Report (BTR), India Study, 2014.

The study, which is essentially a comparison of brands based on the level of 'trust' people have in them, ranks Samsung as 'India's most trusted brand' this time. Sony is at the No. 2 position, followed by Tata at No. 3.In last year's report, these three brands had ranked second, third and fifth, respectively.

This year, LG ranks fourth, followed by Nokia. Hewlett Packard moves up fourteen ranks over last year to become India's sixth most trusted brand and Hero leaps seventy-nine ranks to become India's seventh most trusted brand. Honda is at No. 8, Reliance at No. 9, and Mahindra betters last year's rank by 69 places to reach the 10th place this time.

Hewlett Packard is ranked 'Most Trusted' in the technology space, Hero in the automobile space and LIC in the BFSI space.

N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, says, "Samsung has grown steadily in trust ranks over the last four years - fifth in 2011, fourth in 2012, second in 2013 and has reached India's Most Trusted rank this year. Samsung's strategy of focusing on the core intangibles of its brand is evident from its climb to leadership in BTR 2014."

According to him, when a brand diligently focuses on its trust quotient, it gains market share, product premium and consumer acceptance as automatic by products.

Among the top 100 Most Trusted brands, 75 were net gainers while 25 took a fall. The gainers added an average of 86.23 ranks, while those that fell took a dip of 27.16 ranks, on an average. Therefore, the average gain among the top hundred brands beats the average loss in ranks by 317 per cent.

"A connected surmise could be drawn that in the year that was slow for many, brands took the opportunity to focus more on their trust intangibles, scoring points in the process. For long term sustainability and success, it is important that brands have a long term investment in trust," Chandramouli adds.

Besides the Brand Trust Report, TRA also publishes India's Most Attractive Brands, a study based on TRA's proprietary Attractiveness Quotient Matrix. The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2014, the fourth one so far, is the result of primary research based on the proprietary 61-component Trust Matrix.

This year's research sample comprised 2,500 consumer-influencers across 16 cities. This year's study involved 15,000 hours of fieldwork.

The study generated close to five million data-points across 20000 brands, of which the top 1,200 brands have been listed in this year's report.

These brands have been classified into 284 different categories (there were 213 categories in 2013). The 244-page report is available for Rs 14,000.