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UVic survey reveals our most-trusted brands

It may be controlled by a Brazilian hedge fund, but Canada’s doughnut king is considered the most trusted brand in the country, according to a new index released today by the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business.
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President's Choice, a George Weston brand, is trusted for sourcing local products.

It may be controlled by a Brazilian hedge fund, but Canada’s doughnut king is considered the most trusted brand in the country, according to a new index released today by the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business.

The Gustavson Brand Trust Index, which UVic intends to release annually, listed Tim Hortons among a top-10 of trusted brands that includes Shoppers Drug Mart, Google and Canadian Tire.

Tim Hortons was recently acquired by Restaurant Brands International, which is controlled by 3G Capital of Brazil. There are 3,773 Tim Hortons restaurants in Canada, and 4,724 locations worldwide.

“They really are the iconic Canadian brand,” said Saul Klein, dean of the Gustavson School. “It will be interesting to see what happens [with new ownership] as one of the things that makes them really strong is community engagement. Will they sustain the spending on those elements? One would hope so to maintain their value proposition.”

Community engagement such as minor-sports sponsorships and following the Canadian military into conflict zones, and the perception Tim Hortons’ outlets offer good value for the money, put the brand at the top of the index.

Klein said the index has been established to raise awareness of the role that trust plays in the minds of consumers when making purchase decisions.

“The issue of trust is an interesting one. People are losing trust in institutions, media, government, corporate spokespeople ... in many ways trust is the glue that holds our society together, and when trust is eroded it’s not good for anybody,” Klein said.

In that light, the Gustavson School wanted to understand why consumers would pick one brand over another. “With the idea that if we can generalize and show the things consumers are looking for in brands, we could help reverse some of those trends and have businesses see they can get a competitive advantage by rebuilding that trust,” said Klein.

The index was compiled from answers given by 3,133 Canadian adults (ages 18 to 65) to questions covering 40 characteristics of 249 companies.

The result showed Tim Hortons was miles ahead of its category competitors on consistency, reliability, honesty and care, and scored strongly on care for workers and environmental responsibility.

All of the 249 companies were scored against a range of functional, emotional and ethical considerations, and consumers were asked to rate those companies based on factors including quality, value, innovation, leadership and corporate social and environmental responsibility.

Along with Tim Hortons in the index’s top 10 were two George Weston Ltd. brands — President’s Choice and Shoppers Drug Mart. President’s Choice was trusted for sourcing locally, and for value for money, while Shoppers was seen as caring, involved in communities, supporting charities and good value for money.

Google, which ranked fourth, scored well on environment, society, innovation, leadership and unselfishness.

Canadian Tire scored well on community involvement and value for money.

Kraft Foods was trusted for community involvement, supporting charities, consistency and value for money.

Campbell’s Soup was seen as sourcing locally and giving good value for money. The index showed consumers trusted Heinz for its functional qualities rather than emotional ones. It was seen as honest, caring and consistent.

On the other hand, Canada Post was stronger on emotional trust than functional trust, as it was seen as being involved with society, treating its workforce well, is honest, caring, sincere, unselfish, reliable and sources locally.

Johnson & Johnson was rated well for environment, sincerity, supporting charities, being responsible to society and providing value.

Klein said the Gustavson Brand Trust Index will give companies a tool they can benchmark themselves against, while UVic now has a new product to help it establish a bigger footprint on the corporate map.

“It is for us a brand-building exercise, but it’s also reinforcing the message that this — responsible leadership — is at the core of what we do,” he said.

However, he acknowledges it will require attention and a buy-in from both consumers and companies to make it successful.

“Certainly we’d like this to take hold and our plan is to do it annually,” Klein said, adding he would gauge its success by the media attention it gets and the response of listed companies wanting more information.

Though no terms were disclosed, Klein said establishing the index was expensive and they hope to recoup some of the cost by putting together in-depth analysis for individual companies based on the data collected.

“We have a lot more data and a lot more analysis that can be done,” he said. “We are only in the beginning, cutting data in different ways and looking at trends.”

The study has so far found that women tend to trust brands more than men do, though they rank the top brands similarly, and older consumers tend to trust the top brands more than younger consumers do.

The study also found “challenger brands” like Green Works, Happy Planet and Earth’s Own are winning the battle for consumers on the environmental responsibility level.

The study found the least trusted brands were primarily in the financial, travel and utility categories.

 

TOP 20 NATIONAL BRANDS IN CANADA

  1. Tim Hortons                  224
  2. President’s Choice       189
  3. Shoppers Drug Mart     184
  4. Google                          179
  5. Canadian Tire               178
  6. Kraft Foods                   169
  7. Campbell’s Soup          167
  8. Heinz                            165
  9. Canada Post                165
  10. Johnson & Johnson      161
  11. Amazon             161
  12. Walmart             160
  13. Quaker             158
  14. Subway             156
  15. Kelloggs             154
  16. Costco             152
  17. Coca-Cola             152
  18. A&W                 152
  19. CTV                 149
  20. Canada Dry           148

 

aduffy@timescolonist.com