Corporate credibility in Spain stands at 52.2 points out of 100 — a narrow pass that reflects limited and conditional public confidence in the country’s business community — according to the Lasker Sectoral Credibility Index.
Developed in collaboration with GfK on the basis of 1,200 surveys, the index aims to measure the level of trust citizens place in the main business sectors that make up Spain’s economic activity, while also identifying the behaviours and values that contribute to that trust.
Sectors directly linked to everyday consumption — where customers can see and receive the product immediately — such as Food and E-commerce, are perceived as the most credible. At the other end of the scale are sectors characterised by more complex services, perceived opacity or difficulty of understanding, and lower levels of competition, such as Financial Services, Energy and Real Estate.
In this respect, the analysis of the attributes that make up the Lasker Index shows that credibility is driven primarily by the actual performance of the service or product experience — clear information, delivery on promises and responsiveness in the event of issues — rather than by corporate messaging or declared values alone. It also reveals that credibility is particularly weakened in sectors that have experienced recent crises, such as the preferred shares scandal in the Financial sector, or the housing bubble and ongoing access-to-housing challenges in Real Estate.
Credibility as a matter of lived experience
The age-based analysis of the Lasker Index reveals an unusual pattern: credibility does not decline progressively, but instead concentrates around two critical life stages. The 35–44 age group (47.6 points) records the lowest level of credibility, as citizens in this cohort tend to have a more intense and complex relationship with companies. Credibility is assessed on the basis of direct experience and delivery, and this is the group that penalises lack of clarity, service issues or broken promises most strongly.
The second main source of distrust — and a particularly significant one — is people aged over 64 who, with 49.5 points, rank as the second most critical group, also below the national average. In this case, distrust stems not from friction, but from disconnection.
“The accelerated digitalisation of services, the automation of customer care and the growing complexity of contracts generate a sense of vulnerability and loss of personalised service, which erodes the credibility of business sectors,” says Vicente Beneyto, Managing Partner at Lasker.
By contrast, young people aged 18 to 24 (60.2 points) and those aged 25 to 34 (57.1) award the highest scores, possibly because their relationship with the business community is more occasional and they have had less exposure to conflict.
Regional credibility
The regional analysis of the Lasker Index also reveals highly significant territorial differences, with a gap of more than 21 points between the region with the highest credibility and the one with the lowest score. However, the regional map does not follow a traditional divide based on wealth, size or industrial weight. Regions with strong economic activity do not necessarily achieve better results, while smaller or less populous territories lead the index.
Navarre (66.7) and La Rioja (64.8) top the national ranking and stand well above the average, consolidating their position as the territories where citizens perceive companies as more credible, approachable and consistent. At the lower end of the scale are Catalonia (49.6), Castilla-La Mancha (48.6), Asturias (47.2), Castile and León (47.2) and, in last place, the Basque Country (45.5).
The Lasker Index therefore suggests that credibility is not built solely through economic performance, but through the day-to-day relationship between companies and citizens. Where companies are perceived as part of the community, trust increases. Where they are seen as distant or disconnected, credibility suffers.
Which values strengthen corporate credibility
Transparency, honesty, empathy, sustainability, and ethical and social commitment are the values that contribute most to corporate credibility, although they do not all carry the same weight in citizens’ overall perception.
According to the Lasker Index, Transparency (53.7 points) and Honesty (53.5) — attributes linked to the way companies communicate the terms of their services and products, the ease with which people can contact them, and their ability to deliver on promises — stand out as the two main pillars of corporate credibility.
Empathy ranks third (53 points), understood as the ability to listen actively to customers, understand their needs, and adapt solutions and responses accordingly. This confirms that a closer, more human relationship with stakeholders significantly reinforces corporate credibility.
Despite growing social awareness of environmental issues, respondents continue to perceive a gap between what companies say and what they actually do. As a result, while Sustainability (52.1 points) is a reference value for citizens when assessing the business community, this pillar only strengthens credibility when it is backed by tangible, measurable and consistent action over time.
Finally, Ethical and Social Commitment emerges as the value with the lowest impact among the attributes that make a company more credible, reflecting a degree of scepticism towards corporate initiatives linked to social causes when they are perceived as part of an image strategy rather than a genuine conviction.
The Lasker Sectoral Credibility Index has been designed as a continuous improvement tool intended to analyse how the attributes on which corporate reputation is built evolve over time. “The impact of credibility on corporate reputation is an increasingly relevant asset for business development. The challenge, therefore, is to demonstrate that these commitments form a structural part of the business model, rather than simply of the company’s communications narrative, as a guarantee for attracting talent, retaining customers and consolidating long-term trust-based relationships,” concludes Manuel Delgado, Managing Partner at Lasker.