Trust and Brands

I was reading a blogpost by James Garvey, editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and author of a number of books about philosophy. He wrote a short piece on Trust and Brands in which he raises an interesting point. He believes we’re living in an age of mistrust, with scandals in banking, politics, the media and military, even organized religion. He recognizes trust as an emotion, and therefore not something that can be regained through objective means. When people have lost their trust it is very hard to win back. Only through time, transparency, and a change in behavior can trust be regained.

Fair points I think. Maybe it would be useful to push this idea a bit harder.

One way to look at brands is as differentiators primarily built on trust, “I buy Heinz tomato ketchup because I believe the brand will provide me with the same quality product every time I buy it”. Trust is based on belief and therefore only thrives in circumstances where I cannot have all the facts to make my decision (the difference between ‘believing’ and ‘knowing’). But with today’s digital tools at my disposal I can get most of the facts after just a few well aimed mouse clicks. I can examine the brand’s social agenda, I can go over every single ingredient, I can even ask my friends why they prefer a certain brand and advise them to use brand X over brand Y.

I think this is what is helping the erosion of the historically high level of trust in Apple. Of course the death of Steve Jobs is a large factor but I believe the discovery of sweatshops, the discussion over their use of ‘dirty’ minerals and the availability of the details on the legal fights with Samsung and Google are what are really bringing down this once invincible brand. And it’s not just Apple. Brands seem to be struggling to find an answer to the transparency provided by the internet. Marketeers are coming up with brand strategies aimed at convincing us that their brand is exactly what we want it to be, with ‘transparency’ and ‘honesty’ becoming key marketing terms. Trouble is, you can’t fake this, or like James says in his blog, you have to mean it.

So what’s your point of view? How should brands react to this changing world? Should they? What’s the future of brands? Is there one? Or should brands be on the endangered species list? Leave your comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Q.

The World's Fastest Agency.

 Consider this:

“Ad Agency Answers 140-Character Twitter Briefs in 24 Hours”

“A networked team of creatives in New York launched a new service that meets the demand for rapid turnaround advertising. Using Twitter as a medium, the World's Fastest Agency will respond from briefing to idea within 24 hours.”

“Clients can say goodbye to 100-page PowerPoint decks, meetings, weeks of fee negotiation, countless emails, more meetings, lunch, meetings, scope of work to-ing and fro-ing, meetings, more emails, Q&A sessions, tissue meetings, inaudible conference call, pitch, feedback, feedback on the feedback, re-briefing, re-pitching, another meeting, more feedback, focus groups, another meeting, more emails....”

http://mashable.com/2013/03/18/worlds-fastest-agency/

It seems to make a lot of sense. A quick, no-nonsense, cheap creative solution via social media. But, and there’s always a but, I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. Why?

It made me think of the time a slightly annoyed client saw me after what was undeniably a boring meeting. She told me that the time she got to spend with the agency was normally the highlight of her week. She finally got to think about the brand, be presented with great  (and sometimes not so great) creative ideas, got to be the boss and to top if off, eat as many free Pret sandwiches as she could stomach. So for her a boring meeting was inexcusable and should never happen again. And she was right of course (as a lot of clients tend to be…).

And therein lies the rub. I think clients secretly like the process, they like the time they get to spend thinking about the brand, they like the back and forth, the briefings, the meetings, the focus groups, the whole shebang.

The proposition of The World Fastest Agency is very much a translation of how advertising creatives tend to view the world. However, it has made the cardinal mistake of not considering your target audience and that is why I don’t think it’ll fly.

Q.

Philips Wake Up Light

This is an old one, and is no longer live.

We were given this flyer by some student at Amsterdam Central Station. It is asking you to upload your perfect morning onto the Philips Facebook pages and share with your friends, all for a chance to win a Philips Wake-up Light. To us this is another example of a brand asking us to become virtual crafts artists without offering something of similar value in return for my crafty handiwork and personal details. Sure, a nice wake-up light (retailing at a little over a hundred euros) is nice but to ask me to switch on my creative brain and tap into my friends network, only to possibly win one does not seem like a fair trade to me.

And the fact that they were handing out flyers in the ‘real’ world implies that they needed to boost the number of digital participants to try and come up with some figures that could be translated as success. Old school thinking to try and correct something that was flawed at conception. Thumbs down.

Q.

De Correspondent

We think this is exciting stuff!

Rob Wijnberg, former chief editor of NRC Handelsblad, a quality newspaper in the Netherlands, has set up a new initiative, the Correspondent (www.decorrespondent.nl). The new online news site will aim to contextualise the news using high profile and well respected journalists. The exciting bit however is their business approach. Instead of looking to investors to fund the start-up they are looking for subscribers, 15.000 of them to be precise, who are willing to put down 60 Euros per year to receive in depth news analysis and reporting. No investors that you need to keep happy, no advertising to accommodate, you only get what you buy and who wouldn’t want that? Well, they managed to find the required numbers in no time at all, with 22 days to go until their self-imposed deadline. And even if they wouldn’t have reached the 15000 subscribers they would have just refunded the money. Elegantly simple and effective.

If I were an advertising agency I would be scratching my head a lot these days, with TV moving towards a Netflix model, Radio towards Spotify, and now print and online media under attack as well. It seems the world is changing rapidly and traditional advertising is becoming like a dinosaur looking at that beautiful bright burning piece of rock that has suddenly appeared in the sky.

Q.

MELBA, En hoe was jouw dag?

Sorry, Dutch again. Here’s the translation:

Coming home after a busy day and somebody asks you how your day has been, who wouldn’t want that?

Tell us about your day on:

Facebook.com/enhoewasjouwdag

I went to see how many people actually decided to go there. Currently 4550 likes and I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

OK, I can see the tenuous link between this brand for toasty nibbles and the Dutch custom of having a drink before dinner (“borrel”, it is good, you should try it) and swap stories about your day with friends or family. But that doesn’t mean that I want to spend the remainder of my day going to the brand’s Facebook destination simply to tell the world what I’ve been up to. Where’s the incentive?

If you want my attention (and my personal details!) you better bring something to the table in return! I cannot be the only one who is getting increasingly tired of brands asking me to share all sorts of stuff that frankly is none of their business. Networking is a reciprocal process, what you put in you take out, yin/yang and scratching of backs, that sort of stuff. A brand should really think about what it can do for me before it asks me to share anything with them. 

How was my day? None of your business!

Q.