Never-ending story, brand equity
There is an essential brand value, part of brand equity, that is very hard to earn. We know it’s hard to earn from Romanian sayings: Trust is built over years and lost in a moment. And when you try to define it in marketing/branding, turn it into something concrete, it seems even harder. Because trust is felt, lived, and internalized. Specialists talk about trust as an emotional and relational brand attribute: a sum of experiences that build step by step, over years…
What trust means as a component of brand equity
Throughout our experience as marketing research specialists, we’ve run many measurements of KPIs and brand equity. All our clients have wrestled with the definition of trust and have had moments of hesitation. How do consumers define trust in a product/service in my market? Which competitor brand is trustworthy, and where do I stand versus the top performer? What is the lowest level of trust in a brand evaluation - simply not associating the brand with trust, or actively rejecting it in consideration? Clearly, all brands want to be trusted, because it’s common sense (we recognize it even personally), and specialists unanimously say it’s essential to building a brand. It’s foundational.
Trust in and about Romanian brands
In the study “Romanian brands through consumers’ eyes,” conducted by Wisemetry, we explain concretely what trust is made of. It is multifactorial, built through a combination of functional and emotional values and attributes. This may not sound new, and the insight comes from the composition itself. Many of you will include quality in this definition, and that’s correct. You also found it among the choice criteria. It’s a cycle: deliver quality so I choose/buy you; deliver the same quality every time I buy you; deliver quality so I repeat the purchase tomorrow. Over years and years, the cycle continues, and it would be best if it never closes. Your brand is very likely to have earned consumers’ trust and it also needs to bring new consumers on board.
It was a surprise to learn that a brand’s ability to expand, nationally and even internationally, is seen as proof that it deserves full trust. You might say respondents were thinking about financial power, that when you have money you can do anything. People don’t think of it that way; they don’t know how much money is needed for investments like these. They simply see success. They see Romanian brands doing what international brands did when they entered our market. They admired some of those international brands, because those were the ones available then. Now they have the chance to admire Romanian brands that have the courage to compete with international ones. They have a chance to feel proud of Romanian brands and want them to succeed.
Trustworthy Romanian brands are worth watching and following
The exploratory research identified a list of Romanian brands considered trustworthy. We didn’t aim to create a ranking of trusted brands, so we let respondents freely (spontaneously) mention the brand names they consider trustworthy. They also explained why they nominated them.
Banca Transilvania, Borsec, Dacia, Dedeman, Digi, eMAG, Gerovital, Farmec, Napolact are some of the brands considered trustworthy (listed here in alphabetical order). As you can see, they come from very different industries: banking, automotive, technology, retail, FMCG. We might have expected more food brands given the strongest association with “Romanian,” but no. Some are very old brands; others are new and contemporary, founded after the 1989 revolution. And yet, something must connect these brands if they are recognized as trustworthy… They are memorable and distinctive, with strong brand equity, above the market average in their category. And with that, we return to branding.
What Romanian brands can do - concretely
This article illustrates only part of the conclusions from the report “Romanian brands through consumers’ eyes.” The exploratory study was conducted in September 2025 and includes 70 AI-moderated online conversational interviews with consumers across the country, analyzed by a team of senior researchers.
If you want to read more, you can get an executive summary of the report here.
