Reader’s Digest Reveals Most Trusted Brands in Canada for 2022

Toronto, Ontario, January 5, 2022 — Canadians have entered a second New Year with COVID-19. While the country continues to grapple with ongoing challenges associated with the pandemic and its longer-term impacts, many may be feeling they have a bit more of a handle on navigating living with COVID within their day-to-day lives, and are taking stock of what to prioritize heading into 2022.

As was the case through 2020, trust continues to be crucial. 2021 in particular was a year in which ever-changing public health guidelines and COVID-19 variants have required Canadians to remain adaptable. Being able to trust the products and brands they rely on, and to be sure that the quality of these brands is one thing they do not need to worry about, have remained top-of-mind. In addition, consumers need to trust that the brands they support are following guidelines and doing everything they can to help Canadians navigate these challenging waters.

The latest Most Trusted Brands survey, run annually by Ipsos for Reader’s Digest, looks at 35 product and service categories to uncover which brands Canadians trust most. To be crowned “Most Trusted Brand^TM” within its category, a brand must receive a statistically significantly higher number of mentions than any other brand in that category on an open-ended basis.

Some of the winning brands for 2022 include:

Food and Beverage:

• Healthy Cereal: Kellogg’s
• Tea: Tetley
• Bottled Water: Nestlé
• Sparkling Water: Perrier
• Non-Dairy Beverage: Silk
• Cooler (alcoholic beverage): Smirnoff Ice

Consumer Packaged Goods:

• Sun care product: Coppertone
• Sensitive Skin/Dry Skin Lotion: Aveeno
• Pads/Liners: Always
• Incontinence Product: Depend
• Interior Paint: Behr
• Exterior Paint: Behr
• Exterior Stain: Behr
• Pet Food: Purina
• Mattress-in-a-Box: Casper
• Laundry Detergent: Tide

Medical:

• Arthritis Pain Reliever: Tylenol
• Cold Symptom Reliever: Tylenol
• Headache Pain Reliever: Tylenol
• Pediatric Fever and Pain Reliever: Tylenol
• Allergy Reliever: Benadryl, Claritin, Reactine

Auto:

• Hybrid Car Manufacturer: Toyota
• Passenger Car Manufacturer: Toyota
• Pickup Truck Manufacturer: Ford

Financial:

• Automobile Insurance Company: Intact
• Home Insurance Company: Intact
• Life Insurance Company: Sun Life Financial
• Health and Dental Insurance Company: Sun Life Financial
• Travel Insurance Company: Blue Cross

Retail:

• Food Delivery Service: Uber Eats
• Meal Kit Delivery Service: Hello Fresh
• Cash-Back Rebate Company: Rakuten
• Grill: Weber
• Pharmacy / Drug Store: Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix
• Beauty Retailer: Sephora

A full list of the winning brands can be found at https://www.readersdigest.ca/trusted-brands/trusted-brand-winners/

Trust Key at Point of Purchase

With pandemic-related fatigue present in the minds of many Canadians, trust is nearly always what they fall back on to make purchasing decisions, assured that their choice will be a good one during times of uncertainty. As in 2020, nine in ten (92%) continue to agree (39% strongly/53% somewhat) that when a product or service’s quality and price are similar, they tend to buy the product or service from the company they trust more. And, on par with last year, this extends to companies in general, not just brands – nine in ten (89%) agree (37% strongly/52% somewhat) they are more likely to invest their money in a company that they trust.

The vast majority – nine in ten (90%) agree (35% strongly/56% somewhat) also continue to feel that it is important to them to trust the companies that they support. Trust impacts the consumer experience in a number of other ways, with a majority agreeing that:

• They’d be more willing to work for a company they trust (91%; 43% strongly/49% somewhat), though this is down from 2020;
• They pay more attention to companies they trust (88%; 30% strongly/57% somewhat);
• When they trust a company, they tend to recommend its product or service to their friends and family (84%; 32% strongly/52% somewhat); and
• They trust third party recognition of products and services such as awards or seals of excellence (62%; 11% strongly/51% somewhat).

Canadians want to know that companies operate with integrity. Most (92%) agree (40% strongly/52% somewhat) that they trust a company that will stand behind their products, and eight in ten (84%) agree (30% strongly/54% somewhat) they are very loyal to the brands and companies that they support. Trust is reinforced when a business can show accountability to consumers: a majority (78%) agree (24% strongly/54% somewhat) that they are more likely to trust a company that announces product recalls.

When it comes to learning more about the brands they want to buy, many Canadians turn to other consumers for information. In today’s digital age, two-thirds (66%) agree (15% strongly/51% somewhat) they trust online consumer reviews or ratings of products and services.

The aftershocks of the early days of the pandemic can still be seen in the consumer mindset, with four in ten Canadians (42%) agreeing (10% strongly/32% somewhat) that their trust in products and services has gone down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, on par with last year. However, a majority still disagree, indicating that Canadians’ trust has not weakened substantially.

While Trust Still Crucial, Economic Impact of COVID May Be Shaping Attitudes

In a year where many continue to feel the economic stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority continue to say they have enough money to live right and pay the bills (78%, though just 30% agree strongly, and 48% agree somewhat).

Within the context of these economic stressors, just over half of Canadians (54%) agree they buy items solely based on their price (13% strongly/42% somewhat), up significantly from last year. Further, the portion of Canadians agreeing that they will pay a little more money to support a product or service from a company they trust, though still high, is down from last year (79%; 23% strongly/56% somewhat). While results of the survey show trust trumps cost when all is considered equal, Canadians may be reassessing their purchasing decisions nearly two years into the pandemic, when many may be needing to save where they can. In fact, a strong majority (86%) agree (33% strongly/53% somewhat) they are more likely to trust a company that offers a money-back guarantee.

While supporting local was key to ensuring Canadian businesses could stay afloat during the last few years, some Canadian consumers may now be rethinking how important this is to their decision-making today. Most Canadians say they are more likely to support Canadian companies because of the pandemic (83%; 32% strongly/52% somewhat). Compared to last year, when they were asked about supporting Canadian companies through the pandemic, agreement was much higher, raising some uncertainty about future behaviour.

 

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between August 13 and August 31, 2021, on behalf of Reader’s Digest. For this survey, a sample of 4,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online via the Ipsos I-Say panel, including 1,017 French-speaking respondents. Quota sampling and weighting were employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the overall poll is accurate to within ±1.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled. The sample of 1,017 French-speaking respondents has an associated credibility interval of ±3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

Winning brands are determined by unprompted, open-ended votes and confirmed to be statistically significant from the next brand(s). Any categories where the winning brand is not significantly different from the other brands is considered a tie. For any brand resulted in a tie, a built-in tiebreaker question OR a follow-up survey was used to determine a winner. For the follow-up survey, tied brands were put against each other, prompted, and the winning brand was identified from the runoff. If one brand’s votes were statistically significantly higher than the other’s, it was declared the winner – otherwise it remained a tie.

For more information on this Factum, please contact:

Sean Simpson
Vice President, Ipsos Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2002
[email protected]

^TM Trust Brand is a registered trademark of Reader’s Digest

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