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Where Has All the Trust Gone?
Written by: Len SteinArticle Overview: Americans, we the people, have become a distrustful lot of late, hardly surprising news given our Recessionary new world order that is rammed home daily in headlines detailing the failures, cover-ups, and worse, of corporate America and its leaders.
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Where Has All the Trust Gone?
Americans, we the people,
have become a distrustful lot of late, hardly surprising news given our
Recessionary new world order that is rammed home daily in headlines detailing
the failures, cover-ups, and worse, of corporate America and its leaders.
Enter the 10th
annual Edelman
Trust Barometer 2010,
not co-incidentally published (January 26) during Davos, which found that,
“Trust is now an essential line of business to be developed and delivered.
Trust in business has improved, but the patient has a long road to go for a
full recovery,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman Public
Relations. “The increase in trust in business belies its fragility.”
As a result, public relations
practitioners find themselves operating in a new world order where, for the
first time, the Barometer reports “trust and transparency are as important to
corporate reputation as the quality of products and services. In fact, “In the
U.S. those two attributes rank higher than product quality –and far outrank
financial returns, which sits at or near the bottom of 10 criteria.” – Edelman
news release.
Wither CEOs?
According to the Barometer,
the credibility of CEOs showed “notable recovery,” jumping nine points in the
U.S. (from 17% in ’09 to 26 percent). Despite this rise, CEOs still rank at the
bottom of the list of trusted spokespeople in the U.S. Even employees (28%) and government
officials (26%) are more credible.
As a result PR players should
no longer expect their communications campaigns to succeed by touting the
claims of largely commoditized products / services that are extolled by senior
executives, celebrities, or even ordinary people like us.
So, whom can we turn to? The
answer is not good news for marketers seeking to leverage the social
mediasphere where the credibility of one’s peers or social media network
friends fell almost half, from 45% to 25%, since ’08 (methinks we have
discovered the source of so many of those glowing reviews). The potency of
“consumer spokespeople” like me also dropped significantly, from 45% (2009) to
39%.
What Do You Trust?
It turns out that consumers
(we the people) are becoming more demanding and discerning of corporate and
product values. No longer does offering “high-quality products and services”
and displaying “transparent and honest business practices” merit our trust. In
increasing numbers people want to know just what kind of behavior to expect
from companies and how they are aligned with the greater good.
The Trust Barometer points
out to academics, experts and industry analysts as, reportedly, the most
credible voices for information about a company. Reports from industry analysts
and (read this carefully) articles in business magazines remain the most
credible sources of information about a company, at 47 percent and 42 percent,
respectively. That presents a slap in the face to much of the over-hyped
blogosphere, although there are significant exceptions, when seeking to elevate
one’s thought leadership potential.
However, the credibility of
mainstream media, including television, newspapers, and radio, continues to
wane. In the U.S., the credibility of television news dropped 23 points in just
two years (from 43 points in 2008 to 20 points in 2010). The credibility of
radio news and newspapers fell 20 points over that period.
Technology, Our Savior
In a time of diminished
expectations, and a challenging future, the flame continues to burn brightest
for science to come to our rescue. Technology remains the single most trusted
industry sector – 79 percent say
they trust tech to do what is right, up from 76 percent in 2009.
Net, net. PR can no longer
expect to rely on persuasive communications campaigns to carry the day. Nor can
senior counselors train their client CEOs to project the right image and body
language when on camera.
The public relations
profession will have to take a stand with we the people and counsel their
clients as to how to better align their practices to foster the greater good of
society. This present both a daunting challenge and a great opportunity. We
will watch the outcome with bated breath.
END
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Article Tags: branding, corporate communications, marketing, public relations, transparency, trust
Related Forum Posts
Re: Essential Leadership skills
- Vigilance
Trust
An ability to DELEGATE
Re: Bad credit guaranteed home loan?
- Lending money to people with bad credit was one of the biggest things that put our economy under and many lenders out of business. I'd say if you have this opportunity take it now before it goes away. Trust me, if there are any of these programs left (and don't expect a low interest rate if your credit is bad) they won't be around for ever. At ANY interest rate.
Re: How do you earn trust with an online business?
- Add VALUE to your target market. How? Well depends. If your business can start by Educating the target market about how your product or Service can add value to their lives.
This can be done via Video (hot right now), basic text, audio etc.
I've had a lot of success with Video and am using it primarily as a lead generation tool. If done right your Content can add Value and add to your bottom line at the same time while building Trust.
Re: Do Your Prospects / Customers Trust You?
- This is so true. In the software business, if you don't earn their trust in the first few days they start implementing it, they tend to just give up on using it at all.....even if they may have lost a lot of money. With software, silly glitches can have a huge bearing on your newer clients. Especially if they are brand new to software in general. The more established users understand that when you are constantly building and developing the software, there are going to be glitches along the way. Trust is a must!
Women's buying patterns
- I'd like to know more about women's buying psychology - what makes them tick?
- are they looking for an "experience"? If so, are there important parts of the experience that must exist?
- how do you break past Trust barrier?
- If you are selling a service what kind of support are women looking for?
- do women buy a sampling first to "check out the waters" before they commit to a larger purchase? or do they jump in with both feet?
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