This is a long post - without apology. It was written for Brand Strategy magazine (March 2007 edition). This year we have seen exceptionally strong interest from media, clients, NGOs and academics around the Trust survey results. Everyone wants to understand trust it seems. More articles in the pipeline. Although I am tempting fate, I do feel as if I may start to blog a little more frequently. For those of you still wanting to know about bloggers block….well I was surprised and slightly embarassed by the number of emails I got a) encouraging me to blog more and b) disappointed when I didn’t. Finally, he sighed, I have a public (albeit tiny). So although this blog is mainly for me - I want to thank those who encouraged me in the last few months to find the time to blog more.
1. Introduction
The deadline for this article was Valentine’s Day – and that set me thinking. In the ‘90s, brand managers were told customers should be ‘surprised and delighted’ by the brand experience – not just ‘satisfied’. I recently heard a brand manager articulating that his aim was for consumers to walk into a store already slavishly intent on purchasing his brand. If that is how we want the consumer to feel, then we are way beyond ‘surprising and delighting’. We are entering the territory of brand ‘love’ - and what is the essential ingredient of an enduring love? Trust.
2. Measuring Trust
The Edelman Trust Barometer is in its seventh year. It began with 1,300 people in five countries and has grown to encompass the opinions of 3,100 in 18 countries. It is the first truly global survey on trust we have fielded and, we believe, is the only one of its kind. The results must be seen in the context of the sample’s demographic, namely: college-educated; between 36 and 64 years old; report a household income in the upper quartile for their country; and show a significant interest in and engagement with the media and current affairs. Traditionally we describe these people as the ‘chattering classes’. However, with the shifting sands of demographics and the arrival of more fluid consumer mindsets, this description is barely adequate. Ultimately, we feel that these people are influential in the broadest sense.
3. Towards a PR-led Model for Trust
The PowerPoint presentation containing the analysis of all the results is 556 slides long. So, this article will focus on highlighting the various dimensions of trust into which those surveyed give us an insight:-
do they trust institutions to ‘do the right thing’ (government, media, business, NGOs)?
do they trust a specific organization ‘to do the right thing’?
what channels do they trust when looking for information to form an opinion?
what spokespeople do they trust as deliverers of a message?
what behaviours will build trust?
When we unpack the full data for a particular brand, these dimensions provide the basis for a model for a PR-led communications strategy which will build up and protect brand equity in the form of trust. The model has six stages:-
benchmark trust relative to other brands in and outside your sector and map how trust varies with geography for local insights
understand and quantify the issues which drive trust and distrust for the brand
define what organisational behaviours and communications strategies build trust for the audience
decide on local visible actions which will build trust
identify the most credible media and spokespeople for your brand for each relevant geography
execute the communications strategy in market and monitor results
4. Trends Which Add Depth And Colour To The Trust Model
Trust in Institutions Is Fluid And Underpins Fundamental Changes In How We Form Opinions
The Trust Barometer survey shows how trust in various institutions has varied over the last seven years. These trends are the context within which a brand will need to adjust its trust-building communications strategies annually.
Business: The long-term trend in trust in business is positive, moving from 44% in 2001 to a seven-year high of 53% in 2007 in the USA. In Europe, trust in business has been stable over the last seven years and seems to have settled at an average of 36% over the past three years.
NGOs: Long-term trends in trust for NGOs in USA have risen steadily over a seven year period from 36% to 57%. Trust in NGOs has been higher in the USA than in Europe for the past three years. Trust in NGOs in China, which jumped sharply in 2005, now match the levels of trust enjoyed by NGOs in the USA and Europe.
Media: In Europe, trust in traditional media has been slowly declining since 2003 (32%) to 25% in 2007. Trust in media in the USA essentially mirrored the European trend until 2007, when US trust in media jumped sharply to 43% (compared with 25% in Europe).
Government: Trust in Government is driven by the approval ratings of the day in a particular country. However, at a European level, overall trust ratings are relatively stable - although 2007 saw a drop to a new low of 22%. In the USA, trust in Government is going through a low patch compared with its long term average and sits currently at 38% for 2007 and 2006.
That’s A Capital L in A/S/L
One of the earliest trends that the survey quantified was the impact on trust of the perceived country of origin. We cannot unpack all of the results here but it is interesting to observe that, in the US, respondents have the highest levels of trust for companies perceived to be Canadian, British or Swedish.
Unfortunately for American companies, the feeling is not reciprocated. The Canadians place their highest trust in their own companies, the British and the Swedes – with American companies coming in at eleventh in 2007.
Overall, Europeans place most trust in companies from Sweden, Canada and Germany. Europeans place least trust in companies from the BRIC countries and Mexico.
Brands Need To Find New Ways To Access Peer-2-Peer Consumer Dialogue
When asked what sources of information they trust, every region put ‘conversations with friends and colleagues’ in their top three most trusted sources. Traditional media are still well trusted by comparison but the rise of the influence of a ‘person like me’ has not fallen back. In a world where we trust traditional media and spokespeople less, we are turning to those closest to us for additional endorsement of our views.
Brands have to learn new tricks if they are to find ways to connect in horizontal conversations between peers which, by their very definition, the brands have not been invited to join.
New Levels of Trust In Business Mean Brands Can Go ‘Beyond FAB’
In every region, more people believe that business has a positive impact on society rather than a negative one. At a country level, only the UK and Germany have higher percentages believing that business has a negative impact on society.
The implication? Strong brands have never had more explicit permission to play a role in societal change – whether it’s campaigning for a new view of ‘Real Beauty’ or reminding us all that ‘Dirt Is Good’. Brands can and should be bolder in seeking emotional common ground with consumers on social issues – and that means communicating more than FAB.
To Be Global Or Local, That Is The Question (Actually It’s Not)
There are few people left working in big business who are not part of a complicated matrix reporting structure which delicately tries to balance the needs of the centre compared with the needs of a local market. The following chart provides a unique insight into how certain countries have a preference for a global company to present a local face. This is a truly powerful data set and it should be informing communications strategies for any organisation or brand.
5. On Death and Taxes (The Only Certainties in Life)
It is risky to predict the future feelings of a group whose opinions are notoriously volatile. It is also true that any predictions not drawn from a small thesis run the risk of being an over-simplification of extremely complex issues. The following thoughts, however, may hold water until confirmed or disproved by next year’s survey.
USA Trust In NGOs Sustained - Trust in business has recovered but the key trend is the sustained levels of trust in NGOs in the USA, which has emerged in the last three years. This is a broad indicator that the US is catching up with Europe on the concept of a stakeholder economy driven by consensus (as opposed to a shareholder economy where financial results are the only relevant performance indicator). Put it another way, America appears ready to talk with NGOs and trust them more than ever before to be partners in a dialogue about society and the economy.
Developing Countries Put Their Faith in Business - There are key differences in the way trust is viewed in the developing and developed worlds. The developing world (the BRIC countries) puts more trust in business, brands, CEO spokespeople and traditional sources of information than do developing countries. NGOs enjoy lower trust than business in the developing world. Perhaps these countries, at a macro level, see business as the route to economic success. And, once economic prosperity is stable and assured, they will be ready to trust and engage with NGOs on issues that affect the broader health of their societies.
Employees Really Are A Brand’s Best Ambassadors II (The Sequel) – People trust the opinions of employees more than ever before. Consequently, if a brand is not creating evangelists out of its own employees, then it is missing out on a possible resurgence in a tried and trusted form of influencer marketing. If your employees don’t feel passionate about the brand, how will your consumers? For CEOs reading this article, if your marketing managers are not investing in employee engagement, you probably should be considering it.
Web 2.0 Is Not About Technology, It’s About Passion – Online sources are trusted, but less so than traditional media by this group (remember they are 34-65 years old). This is a revolution that is probably under-indexing in this demographic. Big brands are experimenting with the new online environment. The web has rediscovered itself as a laboratory for new ways of communicating. My prediction is that trust in online sources of information, blogs and bloggers themselves will rise over the next few years as a younger generation of non-newsprint reading 20-somethings finds itself captured in our survey. The communications industry will see a fundamental shift in the product it sells driven by this trend. The blogging and social media phenomenon will then be truly mainstream. And what it is already facilitating is truly exciting: a huge groundswell of people finding self-expression and creativity. People finding others online who share the same passions. And tapping into people’s passion is the elusive emotional connection that brands seek – the marketeer’s Holy Grail. Brands that can engage in this storm of consumer-generated content will be able to generate powerful relationships through innovative, engaging dialogue. PR agencies will increasingly be in the business of co-creating engaging content with the consumer. Furthermore creating entertaining content will no longer be the preserve of consumer brand marketing programmes – this trend is already filtering into the world of corporate and B2B marketing.
Trusted Brands Will Increasingly Drive Societal Change – Government public information campaigns, traditionally advertising-led, are suffering just as much from the drop in trust in advertising as consumer brands. Combine this with low trust in government and it is not difficult to see that driving societal and behavioural change is going to need new techniques and new approaches. Rising levels of trust in business suggest that brands should and could play a deeper role. Apart from anything, it allows brands to create a dialogue with consumers on an entirely different emotional level. So an increase in the number of brands choosing to align themselves around an issues-led campaign model is a further prediction.
6. The Rules Are Being Re-written. So, What Are You Doing on Monday?
The Trust Barometer survey provides data that can inform powerful conversations about the state of trust for a brand at a global, regional and local level. The survey shows us additional insights into why a brand may be trusted or distrusted and what organisational behaviours and communications techniques drive trust and distrust amongst the target group. The most important thing, however, as with all surveys, is not so much what they tell us but rather how we chose to act on the insights they provide. So, if music be the food of love, then I commend you to use the trends highlighted here to feed a review of your global communications strategy. The rules are changing and so our brand strategies must too.
(Published in March 2007 Edition of Brand Strategy)
It’s that time of year and clearing out files on the PC always throws up a few surprises. One of them was a book review I was asked to write back in late 2003 on “Beyond Branding” by Thom Braun of Unilever’s Marketing Academy (published by Kogan, 2004). So why post an old review of an even older book?
Well, four reasons:
1. The theses promoted by the book are still highly relevant. In fact, the ideas put forward by the authors have clearly influenced brand positioning in the intervening three years
2. There is a reference to Christmas (ok, so that’s not really a reason)
3. It was finding a blogger’s review of a book a couple of years ago which led to my own personal epiphany about the influence of blogs and the access they would provide to a collective wisdom (duh)
4. It struck me that everything in communications has to be “Beyond [insert Zetigeist]” and these authors, to my knowledge, seem to have been the first to use it in this context. So worth giving them credit for that
So what of the book and its thesis?
The book’s authors understood authenticity would become important. Perhaps they didn’t realise just how right they would be and for what reasons. In the last three years: Linda Stone’s prediction of a world of ‘continuous partial attention’ has continued to prove itself achingly true; the Edelman Trust Barometer saw the rise in ‘a person like myself’ as a valued and trusted source of information. And the blogoshere exploded, giving ‘people like me’ access to the opinions of millions of other ‘people like me’. These, and other trends, are forcing companies to develop a new dialogue for their brands. One that connects with consumers as people who identify with a point-of-view, not just a product. One that goes beyond (oops) the standard narrative of features, advantages and benefits and taps successfully into the real-world concerns of large groups of society.
Here’s the review wot I wrote.
“Beyond Branding”
This is an unusual book. It’s a passionate book (at least by the standards of most of the dreary tomes which line the shelves of airport lounges being thumbed by weary business travellers looking for inspiration). It is written by a group of self-styled activist consultants and writers who call themselves ‘The Medinge Group’. It is not a diatribe against brands, but against the increasingly hollow outcomes of conventional branding processes. This is also an inspiring book. It’s a plea for a new approach - one that does not just put the heart back into brand planning but puts the brand back at the heart of the organisation.
Of the twelve authors, perhaps Denzil Myers says it best: ‘The authors of this book are not out to save brands and branding in their contemporary form. In fact, we think the current system is so broken, so corrupt, so oblivious to real human values…’. and so he goes on. John Moore also rails against the unreality of brands, quoting Woody Allen’s ambition as a pastiche of marketing: ‘To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. And then see if I can get them mass-produced in plastic.’
Much of the group’s diagnosis can be found elsewhere. There is much in here on disconnection between marketing and business function; the disconnection between advertising and truth; the disconnection between stakeholders needs and those of fund managers who supposedly represent shareholders; the disconnection between organisations’ need for control, and people’s need for self-determination.
Research carried out by many other organisations, including Edelman, shows that the trust which consumers have in brands (products, organisations and institutions) is on the wane. In this context only brands which develop a new sense of authenticity, only those who can reconnect with consumers in a way that recognises declining levels of trust, will be sustainable.
But do these prematurely grumpy old men see a way forward? Is there a right path for brands? Yes. As Tim Kitchin puts it, “Brand relevance does what it says on the tin. By ensuring that the values that drive the brand are those that best unite stakeholders….organisations ensure that they stay relevant…”. If the authors are right, the next decade or two should be good times for marketers who choose to trade in truth and not fantasy. And a stimulating time for the communications industry which must help shape these new brand promises in the minds of consumers.
I urge you to read the book. You won’t agree with some of it. But that’s not the point. It’s fresh thinking which may just help you think differently about the brands in your care. The best brands will be for ever, not just for Christmas.
- ends -
The authors have a site up (http://www.beyond-branding.com/book.htm) which is worth a look.
Happy New Year All
S
P.S. Sorry to those of you who are old enough to have the old Madness tune bouncing around inside their heads now.
P.P.S. If people are looking for a reason why I have not blogged for a while, lets call it bloggers block for the moment. More on that later.
“If there is one thing worse than being talked about, it’s not being talked about” said Oscar Wilde. I would like to thank my erstwhile colleague for supporting the Edelman PR campaign with the placement in today’s Daily Telegraph. Sophie Brodie writes:
Feel Good Factor Comes To Edelman
“An internal memo has leaked out of Edelman PR, where London chief executive Stuart Smith is reintroducing staff massages. Three years ago they were free and rarely taken up. This time staff pay £10 a session and the company covers the rest. There’s a strict policy on cancellation – miss it and the tenner is deducted from your pay. Massages last 20 minutes and are booked on “a first come, first served basis”, a phrase that prompted much tittering among Edelman staff. Apparently, the female HR team carried out a thorough trial of massage parlours before settling on a masseur who runs the Mobile Feel Good Massage Company and comes every other Friday – when presumably no one does any work anyway.”
At the event we also released some research on the impact of blogs on political activism. It shows that nearly a quarter of the population in the U.S., UK, and France, read blogs at least once a week (and of that group nearly one-third are moved to undertake some type of political action).
Most notably, what once was viewed as a geographic disparity between the U.S. and Europe regarding the role of blogging in public affairs appears to have dissipated, with France and the UK nearly matching their U.S. counterparts in their reading of blogs and their subsequent call to action as a result.
Other findings:-
• in an average week, just under a quarter of respondents in the UK (23%) and France (22%) and slightly more in the U.S. (27%) read blogs
• of those that read blogs nearly a third in France (26%), UK (27%) and the USA (28%) took some sort of action after reading a blog
• signing a petition was the most common activity undertaken in all four countries (UK 43%, France 37%, USA 36%, Belgium 24%) followed next, again in all three countries, by having attended a public meeting on local issues (UK 23%, France 24%, the USA 26% and Belgium 6%)
• of the four countries surveyed, US respondents were more politically involved and more publicly active in expressing their views than their European counterparts
• US respondents were twice as likely (21%) to have written or called a politician, their third most popular activity, than in the UK (10%), France (8%) and Belgium (6%). They also were more likely than the other three countries to have contacted the media to express an opinion (USA 18% cf. UK 9% France 8% Belgium 5%), to have written an article for a magazine/newspaper (USA 16%, cf. UK 8% France 5% Belgium 3%) and to have worked for a political party (USA 6%, UK & France 2% Belgium 6%)
• People interviewed in France, the USA and Belgium was significantly more likely to have attended a political rally, speech or organized protest (France 12%, USA 10 %,) compared to the UK (6%) and Belgium (6%)
• Overall, there were noted differences in the reading of blogs when looking at sex and gender – with more men reading blogs then women and younger populations (18-24 years old) reading more than their older counterparts. The men who participated in this survey in both the UK and France claimed to be more frequent readers of blogs than the women. In the USA the average was also higher for men, but less so
• On the whole, in the UK, Belgium and France the younger the age the more frequently they read blogs. This was particularly evident in France. In the UK the results were affected by a significant proportion of 25-34 year olds (8%) who claimed to read blogs everyday compared to the total (4%). In the USA the 18-24 year olds were far more frequent readers of blogs than the older groups.
About the study
It was carried out by international research firm, StrategyOne, a subsidiary of Edelman using an omnibus survey in each of four countries: UK, France, Belgium and the USA. The sample comprised of 1002 respondents in the UK, 940 in France, 1000 in the USA and 937 in Belgium. The fieldwork for the UK, France, the USA and Belgium was conducted in September 2006.
Yesterday we held an event called ‘Blogs: How a Galaxy of Voices is Changing PR’s Universe’. The event served to launch two pieces of research:
Edelman and Technorati identified the Top 100 blogs by region. The USA, German, French and Italian lists are based on a unique Technorati authority algorithm. The criteria used was the number of links globally over the previous six months. Japanese, Chinese and Korean lists will follow in November. We also created a Top 50 list for the UK (however this was done manually and using more subjective criteria). Most importantly, all these lists are of the most prominent blogs according to the criteria used.
In the audience today were a range of people from the communications functions of companies in many different sectors. We are also joined by a number of bloggers – namely Suw Charman, Neville Hobson, Hugh McLeod, Jackie Danicki – and our own Stephen Davies.
There were lively contributions from those on the panel (listed below); from the audience and also between members of the panel! Familiar names to you all I am sure:
• most of the Global 250 blogs are published by Americans
• the top Italian blog ranks at #28 (Blog di Beppe Grillo)
• the top UK blog comes in at #139 (Gapingvoid)
• the top French blog ranks at #518 (Loic Le Meur)
Of the Top 50 UK blogs:-
• 70% post daily
• 66% have written about a UK company and/or its products
• 44% have written about a multinational company and/or its products
• 22% cover news and politics
• 12% write about global issues
• 14% write about local UK issues
But there are wide variations in these numbers when you do the analysis across the UK, French, German and Italian top blogs.
We could have taken many more questions. The main take outs for me from a communications perspective:-
• Everyone is talking about a global conversation but the conversation is increasingly multilingual (June 2006, from Technorati: 39% English; 31% Japanese; 12% Chinese; 3% Spanish; 2% each for Italian, Portuguese, French, Russian; 1% for German and Dutch; 5% Other)
• There are still a lot of organizations in the UK who have not yet taken the time to at least understand how ‘technology’ – or more importantly how people are using it - can and will transform the way they communicate with the outside world or even with their own employees
• A lot of PR people are still mainly interested in how the blogging phenomenon interfaces with the world of traditional media (particularly print journalism). Whilst this is a valid area of interest, it’s not the whole story. To focus on this one aspect would be to miss the point. The point is that there are million conversations out there and the imperative has to be working out how to join in – in a relevant, appropriate and timely way.
Some video clips from the event are attached to this post.
Based on research that Edelman did with Technorati - and some further research which looks at the political aspects of blogging (carried out by Edelman) in Europe and the USA - Richard will be answering questions about blogging and discussing the research with FT.com.
The birth of my blog sees the second year and launch day of the getsafeonline campaign. Today a team of people from the Edelman London corporate team helped run the second annual event.I won’t normally blog about campaigns we are running – unless I feel they are relevant or informative. However, this campaign is just that. Getsafeonline has a strong and important message to spread to consumers and small businesses.
About the campaign
The Get Safe Online campaign is the UK’s first national internet security awareness campaign. A joint initiative between the government, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and private sector sponsors from the worlds of technology, retail and finance, the campaign continue to raise awareness, primarily through the campaign website www.getsafeonline.org or www.getsafeonlineblog.com.
About today’s event
The event was well-attended with representatives from across the private and public sector.
Cabinet Office MP, Pat McFadden, addressed today’s summit and asked industry, government and public sector to help address the public’s raising concerns over internet crime.
A new report from the campaign shows that 21% of people in the UK think e-crime is the type of crime they are most likely to encounter, up from 17% last year, and they fear it more than mugging, car theft and burglary. The new research from suggests growing fear of internet crime is deterring the public from using the internet for everyday activities. Nearly a quarter (24%) are too concerned to bank online, nearly a fifth (18%) won’t shop online and one in six (17%) are so concerned they have been put off logging on all together.
Finally, my congratulations again to the whole getsafeonline team for winning one of this year’s Clarion Awards for last year’s getsafeonline launch. The award was for the advancement of CSR campaigning in the ‘Strategic Communications’ category.
I was able to interview a number of the key figures at the event, including Cabinet Office MP, Pat McFadden.
Here is Nick McGrath, Director of Security, Microsoft UK.
Nick Staib from HSBC gives his thoughts on the campaign message
Doug McCallum, MD of eBay UK, tell us what eBay is doing to support the campaign
So why wait and become the 56,000,001st blog in the world? It’s not that I didn’t think that the world of communications hasn’t been changing for the last two years. Perhaps a couple of reasons. First, the more I thought about it the more I realized it was about finding a voice. For those of you who blog, I am sure you will understand that concept. For someone who has spent his life writing for other people, other brands and other organisations in both the public and private sectors – I found it enlightening and not a little ironic. Secondly, it was the time thing. I didn’t want to start if I wasn’t ready to commit to it. So there you go.
But the hardest job of all was naming the blog. I even searched blogs for the phrase ‘naming a blog’. Suddenly I found a new comfort in a global online community. I found I was not alone in having struggled for days to come up with a name that found the essence of what I think will be my blog. I in no way declare myself to be a perfect wordsmith, but it does describe a very important part of what the communications industry is about - helping others to articulate their point of view.
I will try to remember the words of Horace when writing posts
brevis esse laboro obscurus fio
(when I try to be brief, I become obscure)
About
OK. It took me a while but I finally took the plunge. Blog number 56,000,001 according to Technorati (9th October 2006). Those that know me, know that I am not often short of words, opinions (or even the odd diagram). So PRwordSmith is where I will chime in occasionally with news and views on the world of communications and business.
