Some more Monday morning research for you to consider while getting back into work mode. A report from Millward Brown takes a look at the top trusted brands in the US based on trust and recommendation. These factors are combined into what the researchers call “TrustR” which is a new metric for understanding and strengthening the bond between consumers and brands. In this day and age where trust is more elusive than ever since it appears that saying whatever needs to be said to get out of any situation is more than OK, we will need some measurement of a brand’s trust level.

So who are the big winners according to Millward Brown?

This number was arrived at by using the following formula

TrustR is calculated by looking at consumer responses to the questions “how trustworthy is this brand?” and “would you recommend this brand?” The scores are indexed and combined to reach a TrustR score. The average score is 100, and anything over 105 is considered “good.”

Now, as you can see I have highlighted what I will call the “Toyota factor”. This data was collected before the recall shenanigans of Toyota (who apparently saved some nice coin by holding off any admission of issues) so this says two things. 1) Toyota was definitely a trusted brand before the recall and 2) It’s a safe bet that v2 of this study will be out in short order to see just what Toyota did to their TrustR (sounds painful doesn’t it?).

So what is your opinion of Toyota now that the full story is coming to bear? Would you expect their position in this chart to change after the recall incident? What have they done to the trust in their brand? Will people trust them more (which I have heard from some folks) or will there be suspicion because of the news of their history of delay tactics with regard to safety issues? What will their TrustR score be now?