e-Brands Face Trust Shuffle: Brand Trust Report Google leads for fifth year; Facebook falls; Twitter misses the bus

Mumbai. 12^th March, 2015: For the fifth consecutive year, Google, the American multinational specializing in internet-related services and products has been declared the Most Trusted Internet Brand by The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2015.Amazon, the online shopping portal, saw a new appearance in the 2015 trust rankings coming in at 146^th rank overall and 2^nd rank in the Internet category. Snapdeal grabbed the third position in the Internet category jumping 917 ranks to 174^thrank across India. The online shopping portals increasing popularity indicate a rising usage of online shopping as a definitive medium of shopping, given its convenience and cost advantages. Flipkart rose nearly 900 ranks to overall rank 212^nd. This rising popularity however does not manifest in other internet related categories – a startling example being the social networking website Facebook, which sees a decline of 12 ranks in 2015.

These revelations were a result of The Brand Trust Report, India Study – 2015, the fifth in its series, published by TRA (formerly known as Trust Research Advisory), a leading research organization dedicated to brand analytics. This year’s study involved 13000 hours of fieldwork covering 2373 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India and generated 5 million datapoints and 19,000 unique brands from which the top 1000 brands have been listed in this year’s report. The 190 page, hardbound report is available for Rs. 14000/-.

Commenting on this sudden flurry of activity in the internet category, N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA stated, “The medium of internet is completely disruptive and it not surprising that the e-brands see upheavals in trust also. Something new is happening all the time and engaging consumers has never been so challenging as well as exciting before this. Internet brands today need to be very careful given that there are online conversations happening beyond the knowledge and control of the brand. There is always something new happening. This year there are some new entrants to the trust list in the internet category such as RedBus.in in Online bus booking, Zivame in Online lingerie store and Hopscotch.in in Online baby products.”

Notable mention is the 592 rank fall that is seen by Yahoo, a brand once the closest competition to Google. Wechat and Line, social networking apps too have not made an impact while the only surviving brand in the category WhatsApp falls by 200 ranks. Social media platform Twitter is a no-show in this year’s listings.

It is interesting to note that of the 31 brands listed in Internet category in 2014 only 13 brands have been able to make it to the top 1000. Also an additional 7 new entrants in the category draw up the total number to 20 internet brands, moving away from the trend of the growth of Internet related brands each year. 

About The Brand Trust Report, India Study – 2015:

The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2015 (ISBN: 978-81-920823-8-7), the fifth in the series, is the result of a primary research based on the proprietary 61-component Trust Matrix. This year’s research was conducted among 2373 consumer-influencers across 16 cities, and generated nearly 5 million datapoints and 19,000 brands, making it the most intensive study on Brand Trust across the globe.

All India Listings: http://www.trustadvisory.info/allindia_2015.htm

Category-wise Listings: http://www.trustadvisory.info/Category%20wise%20listing-2015.html

About TRA (formerly Trust Research Advisory):

TRA, a Comniscient Group company, is an actionable insights and brand intelligence company dedicated to understanding and analyzing stakeholder behaviour through two globally acclaimed, proprietary matrices of Brand Trust and Brand Attractiveness. TRA was conceived in 2008 to decipher, analyze and measure Brand Trust, to make it universally understood and easily applied. TRA conducts primary research with consumers and other stakeholders to assist business decisions and give brands insights on solutions to consumer behaviour. TRA provides Competitive Intelligence Reports mined from its 11 million data-points on brand intangibles of 20,000 brands, and also undertakes custom-made studies for brands. TRA is the publisher of The Brand Trust Report, India’s Most Attractive Brands & India’s Most Trusted Educational Institutes. Its other group companies include Blue Lotus Communications, Blue Bytes News and i9 Communications.

Google declared Most Trusted Internet Brand fourth year in a row

India. 19^th February 2014.  With a booming growth in technology, media and connectivity, The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2014 (BTR 2014) has declared Google as the Most Trusted Internet brand for the fourth year in a row. Yahoo was a close second bridging the gap of 145 ranks in the year 2013 to a 105 rank gap in the year 2014. TRA, a Comniscient Group Company, is the publisher of BTR 2014 which lists 1200 brands from 284 categories this year.

YouTube jumped 202 ranks to become the 3rd Most Trusted Internet brand. A fall of 194 ranks leaves Facebook 4th in the overall category from the previous year where it was placed in 2nd place. Olx.in follows as India’s 5th Most Trusted Internet brand with a marginal difference in BTI (Brand Trust Index) from the previous brand.

A significant change has been noted in the number of brands represented in the Internet category that have gone up from 25 in 2013 to 31 this year reflecting the increase in the trust Internet based exchanges have begun to garner as a whole as well as a distinct rise in the number of new applications and sites this past year.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, said, “This significant rise in the number of brands listed can be attributed to the sheer number of new entrants in the market. In addition to this the dependency on the internet and internet apps in daily use, across demographics, could also be a contributing factor. Loyalty in context to the online world is essential as all exchanges happen without any physical interface, and as the dependency increases the trust also raises.”

“With most of the new brands entering the Most Trusted list this year being from Online Shopping or Internet Services, there will be no stopping these brands from seeing accelerated growth over the next 12 months,” Chandramouli added.

Category wise, Naukri.com leads in Online Job portals, Nimbuzz as an Internet Tool, Olx.in for the Online Shopping category, Facebook in Social Networking and Whatsapp in Social Networking App.

The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2014 (ISBN:978-81-920823-6-3), the fourth in the series, is the result of a primary research based on the proprietary 61-component Trust Matrix. This year’s research was conducted among 2500 consumer-influencers across 16 cities, and generated nearly 5 million datapoints and 20000 brands, making it the most intensive study on Brand Trust across the globe.

 

About TRA (formerly Trust Research Advisory)

Trust Research Advisory (TRA), a part of the Comniscient Group, is a company dedicated to understanding and simplifying concepts related to Trust. TRA was conceived in 2008 to decipher, analyze and measure Brand Trust, to make it universally understood and easily applied. Apart from The Brand Trust Report, TRA also publishes India’s Most Attractive Brands, a study based on TRA’s proprietary Attractiveness Quotient Matrix. Committed to create metrics for better resource allocation for brands, TRA owns the global copyrights to Brand Trust and Attractiveness Quotient Matrices.