We make fun of the U.S. Postal Service, but we trust it

Perhaps President Trump picked the wrong organization to target a few weeks ago.

The United States Post Office, the butt of jokes for Americans for most of my life (complaints about stamp prices, lazy postal carriers, bureaucratic apathy, "going postal") was the most trusted brand in America, according to a survey done earlier this year by data intelligence company Morning Consult.

Yes.

The USPS came in first out of all the brands in America. More trusted the Apple. Most trusted the Microsoft or Amazon or Ford or Coke or Pepsi. More trusted than IBM or Walmart. More trusted than cultural favorite Chick-fil-A and Netflix.

And in what had to be very satisfying to the USPS, more trusted than UPS or FedEx.

The folks at Morning Consult asked Americans (more than 16,000 Americans were asked about more than 2,000 brands), "How much do you trust this brand to do what is right?" People could choose from "a lot," "some," "not much," "not at all," or "don't know." The brands were ranked on the percentage of respondents who said "a lot."

Forty-two percent of people said USPS can be trusted to do what's right a lot.

Which says something: Our most trusted brand has less than half of us trusting it to do what's right "a lot."

In case you're interested, Amazon was second, Google was third, PayPal was fourth and The Weather Channel was fifth.

Among the top 25 were some interesting brands, at least to me: Cheerios (ninth), Ziploc (13th) and Campbell's Soup (21st).

The author of the Morning Consult report pointed out that the most-trusted brands are more trusted than . . . Tom Hanks. Seriously. Only 34 percent of us trust Tom Hanks to do the right thing "a lot."

The Morning Consult study had some bad news for a lot of brands and people, including the media, which is trusted by only 8 percent of people (excluding the Daily Republic and me, presumably).

According to Morning Consult, only the respondent's primary doctor and the military rank ahead of the USPS when it comes to our perception that it will do the right thing "a lot."

But the results weren't absolutely clear. For instance, there was a generational split.

Among Gen Z members (ages 8 to 23), technology is trusted – Google, Netflix, Amazon and YouTube were the most trusted brands. Millennials (ages 24-39) ranked Google, USPS, Amazon and PayPal highest, while Gen-Xers (ages 40-55) ranked USPS, Google, Amazon and Hershey (!) at the top and Baby Boomers (ages 56-74) ranked USPS, UPS, Hershey (older people love Hershey!) and the Weather Channel at the top.

For all those rankings, there is a significant disclaimer: The younger the respondent, the less trust they had. Gen Z members were routinely 10 points lower on everything than baby boomers. Boomers are a trusting group.

Also, brands take time to build trust. Only two of the 100 most trusted brands (Android and YouTube) were formed after 2000, while three were formed before 1850. Forty-five of the top 100 brands were founded between 1926 and 1975, which makes me feel good because I was founded then, too.

So what's the point?

It takes time to be a trusted brand.

Younger people trust less

Even really trusted brands still are expected to do the right thing "a lot" by less than half of the population.

And the older you are, the more you trust Hershey. Even more than Tom Hanks.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.