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Trust & Brands Why being trusted should be your #1 guiding principle

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Here’s what I’ve learnt about ‘Trust in Markets?’ from a lecture by Professor the Lord Plant, for Gresham College

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You need to get through 10 slides now on economics, markets and trust – it’ll be a doddle…

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In order to trade we need to be able to trust one another. We have to trust at a very basic level to be able to participate in the buying and selling ‘contract’.

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These days trust is especially important because most goods are credence goods (we have to take it on trust that they are OK... thanks to complex supply chains, among other things).

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As the market develops and consumer choice widens, the buying and selling relationship becomes more complex and it is harder to trust what we are buying.

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What’s more, in modern society, relationships are also becoming more impersonal and less ‘bonded’. The shared norms and values of small social groups are no longer feasible, so it’s harder to trust who we buy from.

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So, the argument goes that within the market there is an inherent tension between proliferation of choice and a lessening of trust...

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Trust is a requirement of the market, but also weakened by it.

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So what to do? Economists offer three options to solve the problem of needing more

trust, but having less…

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1. Legislate, but hmmm that’s not easy (and requires lots of trust anyway)

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2. Develop new ways to share norms and values via social capital (it’s why ideas like

The Big Society are out there)

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3. Let the market find its own way to deliver trust…via brands

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Phew! You made it. So brands are one way to deliver trust… The rest of the slideshow is my take on how brands can deliver trust and why trust should be a brand manager’s #1 priority

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So how can brands deliver trust? By delivering a recognisable and consistent set of product or service attributes that consumers can get to know – thereby delivering a ‘credence’ short-cut. (Remember our brains love short-cuts to decision making)

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What’s more, brands can deliver trust on a number of different levels…

Certainty Identity

Belonging Care

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So starting from the bottom…

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We feel unsafe in a complex and unfamiliar world, so a brand’s starting point can be to give the customer certainty by being reliable and consistent – this delivers trust in its most basic form.

Certainty

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Delivering reliability & consistency is a massive ‘ask’ – it means the customer needs to have the same experience of the brand every time, or that when a brand changes, it does so within the framework of very established norms and values... (This is the basis for ‘authenticity’)

Certainty

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Within NPD it means delivering innovation to the same standard as existing products. It means that you can’t simply switch up to be part of a new trend, your brand has to develop in its own way.

Certainty

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(Unpalatable) implications for brand managers:

1. Don’t innovate unless you can replicate your brand values

2. Being old fashioned can be better than being inconsistent and unfamiliar

3. New brands have a better shot at innovation

Certainty

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A brand can build even stronger bonds of trust when consumers start to identify with its values. By having a unique identity, consumers can more easily align themselves with (or against) a brand. We trust what we identify with, we trust similarity (to us) more than difference (from us).

Certainty Identity

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(Difficult) implications for brand managers:

1. Brands need to appeal to some people and not to other (for stronger levels of trust)

2. You have to choose what you stand for and then keep on standing

Certainty Identity

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If a brand can build a community – help people to belong to one another - then trust will be even stronger because what others do, say and think matters massively to us as social animals

Certainty Identity

Belonging

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(Exciting) implications for brand managers:

1. The internet & social media (in particular) give you a really strong chance at creating a community around your brand – and social influence delivers more profound trust

Certainty Identity

Belonging

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26 (Realistic) implications for brand managers: 1. You should always deliver certainty and a strong

identity as start points for trust 2. And...you can only create a sense of community

around the brand if your product is relevant for this – acknowledge how much passion people can realistically feel for your brand...

Certainty Identity

Belonging

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Certainty Identity

Belonging Care

And what if a brand actively took care of its community too? Trust is strongest in those we are closest to, our care-givers (like family), so won’t a brand gain ultimate trust if it takes care of us?

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(Costly) Implications for Brands... 1. To gain highest levels of trust you need

to look after your customer – actively 2. Ultimately brands need to give back to

the community 3. That requires time and investment...

Certainty Identity

Belonging Care

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So why should being trusted be your #1 priority? Because if you obsess about your customer trusting you, you will develop an authentic set of attributes and values that your customers will identify with and want to be part of. And that will lead to success.

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Credit

This thinking was inspired by Mark Earls (Herd); David Brookes (The Social Animal); Seth Godwin (The Purple Cow); lots of Behavioural Economics and reading on Social Psychology. All views are my own. If you’d like me to help you think about how to make your brands more trusted, I’d be delighted!

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Free Thinking

kath@qual-street.co.uk Tel: 01904 819140 Mob: 07738 180529