Show, Not Tell. Building a Trusted Brand in the Digital Age
Consumer trust in corporations is currently not what it used to be. The 2019 Trust Barometer from PR firm Edelman shows that just 52% of the global population trusts business and in many countries in Europe, including the UK and Germany, that figure slips below 50%.1
The notion that people assume companies are inherently decent and act in their interests is gradually becoming obsolete.
Consumers have been continually ‘let down’ by businesses they trust, not least during the financial crisis and now, driven by modern technology, things have changed. Corporate trust is now earned and kept in a completely different way than it has been in the past. Brand strategists and marketers face a new and critically important set of challenges. As Mark Benioff, the entrepreneur and founder of Salesforce, said at Davos in 2018: “In the world of these new connected products, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution…trust has to be the highest value in your company, and if it's not, something bad is going to happen to you”.
Distributed trust – a new era for brands
In her book, ‘Who Can You Trust? How Technology Brought Us Together – and Why It Could Drive Us Apart’, academic Rachel Botsman argues that we have entered a new era in the way trust flows in society – and this includes how and why people trust brands.
“Trust that used to flow upwards to referees and regulators, to authorities and experts…is now flowing horizontally”.
Botsman argues that “trust and influence now lie more with ‘the people’…it’s an age where individuals can have more sway than traditional institutions and customers are not just meek consumers, but social influencers”.2
In today’s world, trust is distributed among us all, not held and not directed by traditional sources like government, the media and business. The reason for this change? Technology – which now means that we can all share an opinion, all leave a review and all scrutinise the truth behind claims from ‘authorities’ that in the past would not have been scrutinised.
Botsman’s thesis is compelling and reflects a lot of what I see all around me – retail banking is almost the perfect example of her theory. Before the financial crisis, banks (and bankers) enjoyed a privileged position - they were held in esteem and had a relationship in which they engaged with consumers from a position of authority. The dynamics of ‘distributed trust’ have changed that. Online social media conversations, app review sites and even Netflix documentaries drive our decision making. As a result, the industry is improving – it is more accountable for its behaviour and more focused on its customers.
Pursue the review
For brands, one manifestation of the change in how trust flows in society is the growth in importance of reviews and ratings. Because of social networks we are increasingly willing to trust the collective opinion of ‘people like us’ far more than bold advertising claims from corporations. According to consumer research group Nielsen, around 60% of European consumers trust online reviews versus just 45% and 44% for traditional broadcast and print advertising.3
So, what does that mean? Put simply, it means that brands should ‘pursue the review’. Companies need to embrace the fact that they are being rated in most interactions and should therefore encourage the use of reviews and ratings; an unbiased, real-world endorsement can be worth a great deal in society today. For restaurants, including a TripAdvisor rating on their homepage has become commonplace but established, financial services firms are also leveraging the power of people ratings. A multi-channel campaign by First Direct bank in the UK was based around a ‘mock apology’ to other banks for coming out top in a customer satisfaction survey published by the UK regulator.
Embracing reviews though is not just about promoting the good stuff. Today, companies can gain trust – not by being perfect but by being honest and showing empathy when things go wrong and when they face criticism.
The world of fried chicken gave us a great example of this in 2018 when KFC changed its UK delivery partner and, for a few days, couldn’t get enough chicken to its stores, forcing many to close. In response, the company acted quickly, with character and honesty – it embraced the problem. KFC set up a microsite to help customers find stores which were open, and it created digital content that it used on social media to inform customers about the problem and the steps it was taking to rectify it, and also apologise. It created a hashtag which started trending nationally, #wheresmychicken and it publicised funny tweets that poked fun at the company. It even took national newspaper adverts to say sorry in a unique way: a large image of an empty bucket of chicken was relabelled ‘FCK’ and underneath were the words ‘We’re sorry’. It was an audacious and funny response that struck a chord with the British public. I have no doubt that the communications response turned a crisis situation into a positive one which earned KFC brand trust.
The return of the expert
While the importance of reviews today is undeniable, I think we are now starting to see its limitations. In my experience, there is a resurgence in the credence given to ‘experts’ over a generalised view of hundreds of anonymised strangers is returning. While I believe trust has been distributed to the collective many, there is a growing wariness of the authenticity of some online sources.
The practice of companies paying for reviews is now widely known, exposed, perhaps ironically through social media. Infamous cases such as the British man who made his garden shed the top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor4 without ever cooking a meal, highlight just how farcical things have become. Driven in part by this trend, I believe we are now starting to see the re-emergence of experts – but in a nuanced form. No longer are there just a handful of ‘authorities’ on which restaurants to visit or which sneakers to buy, instead it is more personal. The internet allows us to know and learn about the credentials and the tastes of our experts – in a sense the public now qualify them. We need to remember that everyone has an opinion that they are able to share – but also that all opinions are not of equal importance.
Cool not creepy – using data the right way
I believe that a way for brands to lose trust (and lose business) today is to sell too aggressively. In an age when much of our data is in the hands of companies, the way that this data is used provides a good example of this. If digital marketers use data in the ‘wrong’ way, that is, in a way that consumers are unhappy with, it does far more harm than good.
As Seth Farbman, Executive Fellow at the Yale School of Management and the former Chief Marketing Officer of Spotify said recently in conversation with Visa: “marketers have more information than ever before, but that information doesn’t belong to us and we must respect it. There is an unspoken social contract that if people allow marketers access to their data, they will use it only to be in service of its owner…abuse it for the marketer’s self-interest and it’s game over.”
Seth has a great point.
In my view, the key is timing and context. Or to put it another way, it is fine for my data to be used in a helpful way when I have established the conditions.
For example, if I am searching on Amazon there is an implicit contract that I am in ‘shopping mode’ and I am happy to get recommendations from their very smart algorithm about items I might be interested in, but if I am not shopping, I am going to get annoyed if those recommendations follow me around the web. If you think about the physical world, the same rules apply. The samples of cheese that are offered in the wine aisle of a supermarket are helpful and maybe I’ll get a nice bit of brie to match the Pinot Noir I am buying. But if the person offering samples follows me around the shop and then, once I have paid, into the local coffee place where I am meeting my wife it is not just weird but irritating and intrusive. Brands that know the boundaries and use data in a helpful way win trust.
Keeping it real
The era of the internet and social networks has had an inherently positive impact on marketing. Our job is more complex and more diverse than it ever was but, in my view, the most important result of technological change is that it keeps us honest. Claims made by brands about what they stand for, or what their social purpose is, are under such scrutiny that falsehoods are called out immediately. Any communication from a brand that is not authentically aligned with the corporate culture and behaviours can quickly lead to a loss of trust.
Building consumer trust by communicating an authentic purpose is not the sole responsibility of brand and marketing professionals, I firmly believe that we all have a big part to play. During my time at Visa we have invested significant amounts of money in a range of sponsorships. The best are always the ones that better align with our purpose and our values as a company. The ones that are most authentic and that make a positive difference.
Right now, I am so proud to be part of a ground-breaking long-term sponsorship of UEFA, where Visa became the first brand to support European women’s football at this scale. For us, this is far more than putting our name alongside a great sport. We believe that football is a great platform to talk about bigger issues of diversity, acceptance and inclusion, and inspire a positive change in the world. Because the values of acceptance and inclusion are central to our DNA as a company, our purpose in sponsoring women’s football is clear and authentic and that is why we are getting a great response to it.
Show not tell
There is some irony that in an age when technology has made the very complex and the complicated possible, the most important thing brands can do is arguably the simplest. In a world of ‘distributed trust’ companies need to stand for something and demonstrate that they act in the way they say they do. Be authentic and be true. To win and keep trust, brands need to ‘show, not tell’.
Adrian Farina is SVP Marketing for Visa in Europe
Heading all brand and product marketing activities for the global leader in payment technology. He started his career in the fast food industry with Pizza Hut leading all direct marketing efforts in Argentina. He then worked in FMCG marketing during a 10-year international career with Procter & Gamble in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela. In 2008 Adrian moved to the US to join Saatchi & Saatchi X and led the expansion of the Shopper Marketing business in Latin America, working for leading clients including Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, Cadbury, HP, Diageo and Nestle.
Adrian joined Visa in 2012 as SVP Marketing – Latin America and the Caribbean, leading all marketing efforts including the local activation of the 2014 Brazil World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics. In early 2017, he relocated to London – UK, where he leads a team of 70+ marketers across the region. He has been a juror for EFFIE, Festival of Media and Cannes Lions.
1 https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-03/2019_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report.pdf
2 Rachel Botsman, ‘Who can you trust? How Technology Brought Us Together – and Why It Could Drive US Apart’, Penguin Business, 2018, page 5.
3 https://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/apac/docs/reports/2015/nielsen-global-trust-in-advertising-report-september-2015.pdf
4 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor
All brand names, logos and/or trademarks are the property of their respective owners, are used for identification purposes only, and do not necessarily imply product endorsement or affiliation with Visa.
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