For the second consecutive year, the beauty and personal care sector holds the best reputation among Brazilian consumers. Food companies and car makers take home second and third place respectively, while the worst-rated sectors are telecom operators and healthcare plan providers.

These results are drawn from the second edition of the Sector Reputation Index (IRS, in Portuguese), which analyzes 12 sectors that directly interact with consumers based on four criteria: quality of products and services; innovation; ethics; and commitment to sustainability. The research was developed by Brazilian research company Datafolha Institute for public relations firm Imagem Corporativa.

The personal care and beauty sector obtained a rating of 7.6 in quality; 7.0 in ethics; 7.2 in innovation, for an overall average of 7.3. The sector with the worst rating, telecom operators, had an overall average of 5.2 points: 5.0 in quality, 4.9 in ethics and 5.9 in innovation.

The analysis also found that, in the eyes of Brazilian consumers, domestic companies remain slightly ahead of foreign brands in terms of quality, ethics and innovation, although international companies closed that gap in 2015.

Food producers were the highest rated in terms of sustainability: 23 percent of those interviewed believed the segment is composed of the most sustainable companies, aligned with the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit.


Following food producers were the sectors of beauty and personal care (14 percent), banks (10 percent), car companies (8 percent), healthcare plan providers (6 percent), cellular app providers (5 percent), retailers (4 percent), airline companies (4 percent), streaming services (3 percent), beverage companies (3 percent), credit card companies (2 percent) and telecom carriers (2 percent).

The research also encouraged consumers to give reasons why they don’t buy a product or service. For 50 percent of interviewees, poor quality of a product or service was the strongest factor, followed by not delivering what is promised and/or false advertising (42 percent) and not offering technical support (30 percent).

Other main factors included rejection due to being an unknown brand (29 percent), having a bad reputation (27 percent) and delivering products late (23 percent).