Why Trust For A Brand Is More Crucial Today

Our polarized, internet driven world today is filled with falsehoods, cyber attacks, misinformation and nasty accusations.  All this has created an extraordinary crisis of TRUST, which is the indispensible value for successful branding.  Nothing is more important to customers than a healthy sense of trust, – i.e. a reflection of the credibility, integrity, comfort, transparency, authenticity and emotional engagement with a brand.

There are many types of trust-related risks for brands today but the most common are associated with social media, especially privacy and security.  A staggering deposit of 4.5 billion data records were compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018, up 133% over the same period in 2017.  This means that every day 25 million records were compromised and exposed.

Consumers Fear Loss Of Privacy

Facebook is the biggest culprit.  In 2018.  87 million profiles were harvested by Cambridge Analytica for political purposes.   Although Zuckerberg took out full page newspaper ads apologizing for this “breach of trust”, Facebook still refuses to delete content they know is false or misleading.

The risks to brand reputation and brand safety are extensive.  Consumer perceptions and brand loyalty are obviously at play, especially how personal data is being used online, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer studies in 2018:

• Some 71% of consumers want brands to pressure social media platforms to safeguard their personal data,
• 47% of consumers believe the content appearing next to ads on social media is an indication of the brand’s own values

The Most Bruised And The Most Trusted Brands

Last month the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council listed the top 20 most challenged brands that have had their reputational trust impacted, plus the 15 most critical issues negatively effecting consumer perceptions – i.e. data privacy, advertising and marketing snafus, fraud, corruption and embezzlement, health and safety concerns, etc. – https://www.cmocouncil.org/media-center/press-releases/top-20-bruised-battered-and-embattled-brands-in-2019.  Not surprising, Facebook is at the top of the list, followed by other well-known brands such as Uber, Boeing, PG&E, Juul, WeWork, Wells Fargo and Capital One.

All these social media challenges are very relevant since they will shape the basic trust consumers develop for these brands, which will ultimately determine the success of each brand.  In contrast to these vulnerable brands is a recent survey that revealed the top 20 most trusted brands in 2019, conducted by the consulting firm, Morning Consult.  They interviewed 16,700 consumers to gauge their perceptions of trust for 2,000 major brands – https://morningconsult.com/most- trusted-brands/?mod=djemCMOToday. The top 10 and their scores include old and new brands:

1. USPS (42.0%)
2. Amazon (38.8%)
3. Google (37.9%)
4. PayPal (36.5%)
5. The Weather Channel (36.3%)
6. Chic-Fil-A (36.2%)
7. Hershey (36.1%)
8. UPS (36.1%)
9. Cheerios (35.9%)
10. M&M’s (34.8%)

Specific trust perceptions vary by generation however.  Gen Z and Millennials are notably more distrusting of most brands, with an average rating 10 points lower than that of Boomers.  These younger generations are also more likely to say that their trust hinges on a brand’s ethical performance.  Their top rated trusted brands are focused more on new, digital companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.

This issue of brand reputational trust has become so important that major companies are creating new senior security officers responsible for managing these threats.  For example:

• Bank of America – recently expanded the role of a senior VP for band safety.
• Mastercard appointed a head of risk management for integrated marketing and communications, charged with mitigating future brand risks
• Uber created a new “chief trust and security officer” who stated that “trust is an essential ingredient in the Uber brand proposition”.

This increasing importance of brand trust extends to the political sphere too.  As mentioned in my previous blog, the dynamics behind the perceived trust for leaders like Trump and Boris Johnson (UK) are very complicated.  While they both have demonstrated an undeniable pattern of consistently lying and exaggerating, which normally undermines the perception of trust, their personal brand still enjoys a loyal following primarily because of the emotional connection to their constituents.  Indeed, at the end of the day, trust is a very emotional value.