Overall Trust in market research: Definite room for improvement in many key markets

Earlier this year, in co-operation with Research Now, Netquest and Dapresy, we set out to measure the level of trust in market research and to explore some of the drivers of that trust*. The first thing to note from the chart opposite is the generally low level of trust people have overall, even in the institute of government. This warrants an article of its own, but it is important because it sets the tone. The results indicate that most people have a fairly neutral level of trust in market research companies, with 19% having a low level of and 15% a high level of trust… We see this as both a threat (if we do nothing) and an opportunity (if we take proactive action to build trust). Relatively, we are currently not in a bad position, however, and out of the 17 different types of organisations covered only the police, local banks and local online stores are significantly more trusted. As can be seen from the chart opposite, the overall results hides significant differences across markets. Looking at the country-by-country results, Germany and Brazil stand out as the only countries having a positive net trust index (top two-box % minus bottom two-box %). The Brazilian result is partly explained by their positive attitudes to things (even vis-a-vis other Latam countries), which can be seen in all the answers to this question (with the except of trust in government, which is unsurprisingly very low in Brazil). Relatively, across all three LATAM countries market research companies are relatively well trusted, ranked 3rd out of the 17 different types of organisations on trust, behind internet search companies (e.g. Google / Bing) and local banks. In Germany, market research companies are ranked joint 2nd on trust, alongside local banks and local online stores, with only the police significantly more trusted. In a separate article in this newsletter, our German colleagues give some great insight into why that might be. In contrast, if we look at the average across Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK and the USA, market research companies are ranked joint 9th out of the 17 different types of organisations. You can see more of the survey findings in an interactive dashboard prepared by Dapresy. * Fieldwork was conducted by Research Now through its online panel, and the survey was conducted in nine countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, UK and US) in March/April 2016 with more than 9,000 respondents taking part. The sample for the survey was drawn to represent adults 18 plus in each country and data has been weighted to match the population in each country on key demographic variables. The total results represent an average for the nine countries and is not weighted to reflect population size.