By Robert Wheatley

Fractured trust upends power of communications

Perhaps at no other time in the history of modern marketing have we been faced with such an incredible accumulation of contiguous scandals, recalls, startling revelations, bankruptcies, forced marriages, mistruths, half-truths, malfeasance, behavioral inconsistencies and general evidence of bad business behavior.

From miscreant members of the Clergy to chemical leaching plastic water bottles, lead-covered toys, and fallen sports legends, consumers have been bombarded with evidence that leaders, corporations, brands, institutions and communications cannot be trusted. People are learning rapidly that corporate messaging is suspect at best as buoyant reports of happy trails ahead may be masking an impending fall from grace. We discover even the most storied of conservative business icons in banking and insurance can fall under the spell of temptation to play fast and loose. Awesome out-sized basketfuls of assets are gambled away through investments in flimsy financial products constructed on a floor of actuarial quicksand.

Trust is a part of brand currency…

Is it possible that these living examples of missteps, misdeeds and bad judgments could create a crisis in confidence about the truth and propriety of messages consumers are so routinely courted with by brands? Especially the promises served up in a soft, warm blanket of emotion and artful story telling?

We know that brand relationships, the successful ones, mirror the same characteristics of our best personal friendships. Respect, honor, reciprocity and yes, trust, all come into play. Brand trust is built on a sense of belief, faith, confidence and expectation. Over time this delicate equity can foster reliance, loyalty and even in some cases, dependence.

If trust is indeed fractured, does it matter?

What is the consumer’s response to a famine of trust? They turn inward. Move away from engagement and begin to rely more on sources of influence and recommendation that are ever closer to them. Marketing speak, push style communications and paid assertions of benefit and outcome – all are diminished and then eventually ignored. The end result of this migration is a form of declining ROI in the efficacy and power of marketing messaging and investments in traditional brand communications. Once you no longer believe in the message or the source or the medium you simply tune out. So if the bottom falls out of “trust” as we know it will the marketplace then place a greater premium on the Real Thing? YES…

As evidence of its scarcity and significant value, we’re not able to simply order up a load of trust from the production department or central casting. Trust and belief refuse to be marginalized as verbiage inserted in the next communications brief objective line. Jonathan Baskin, AdAge columnist said it well: “Traditional branding theology suggests we can apply emotions to things. That approach doesn’t hold much water with consumers who live in a media-sphere that is constant and pervasive, that draws its content from events, not declarations, and from experience, not imagination. So it’s not enough (anymore) to announce that your company is ‘bullish on America’ or that consumers should ‘Whoo hoo.’ That stuff not only seems irrelevant but somewhat dishonest.”

At its core trust is finally acquired through demonstration. Actions truly do speak louder than words. Deeds are more meaningful than pronouncements. Trust is earned as an outcome of doing the right things, all of the time. Now the cachet and value of trust as an important component of brand DNA may rise to the surface as a definer of future success and growth. So what is the path to competing successfully for increased Share of Trust?

Consumers can no longer be regarded as transaction sources. Disney once remarked that he didn’t build his remarkable theme parks to make money. Rather he made money to build, enhance and develop the inspiring and entertaining experiences he offered in his theme parks.

Trust is in many ways an emotional take on what’s in front of us. We gauge behaviors, nuances, images, expressions, tone, manner, history, perception, current hall-talk, relevance, graciousness, deference and other pieces of evidence to determine if something is trustworthy. A lot of this processing is quick, sub-conscious and on occasion subject to prejudices we carry with us.

Inevitably truth has a way of clawing to the surface. So operating in a manner that places a premium on trust preservation is an essential. And in the end it means that we marketers regard our customers with the same level of love, care and respect we have for our own families. Trust must now be factored in as an essential element in the brand development toolbox because it is linked strategically to the kinds of communication investments you should make.