Who can you trust? PART 2

I wrote a piece on trust a while back and concluded that companies are more trusted than governments, but the way in which we interact with them is crucial. A couple of weeks later I went to an Acacia Avenue seminar on the topic and decided that I’d only just scratched the surface. Delving deeper was not as easy as first thought.

Even the basic definition of trust is pretty confusing – there are 24 plausible descriptions. But the first (and presumably most read) goes as follows:

“Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.”

This seemed pretty solid and even pays homage to the word’s origin (it comes from a Middle Age game called “tryst” involving one set of villagers chasing a load of rabbits towards a line of club-bearers who, ‘standing in tryst’, would wait for the bunnies to arrive before bopping them dead). However, one key element, featured in other definitions and implied in the game outlined above, is missing – expectation.

This is where trust works for brands. Consumers have an expectation that brands will represent/display certain attributes. They don’t just rely on these qualities, they expect them. Stability from John Lewis (only 4 chairmen in the last 100 years), openness from Pret a Manger (recipes given away online), practising what you preach from Innocent (Fruitstock) and self-confidence from ghd (that one’s from the girls, I don’t actually have any hair to straighten).

Despite this expectation and my previous conclusions a GlobeScan survey on trust in institutions found ‘global companies’ and ‘large national companies’ to score second and third from bottom respectively. In fact, both scored negative ratings whilst ‘armed forces’ topped the table. However, a glance at Edelman’s survey on specific brand trust suggests they are far more trustworthy then the army with Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola and Microsoft leading the way!

So what’s going on? The key difference is in the question asked in each survey. GlobeScan measured “Trust in an institutions ability to operate in society’s best interests” whilst Edelman’s focus was simply on “Which brands do you trust”. One concentrates on the community and one on the individual. It pains me to say it, but Thatcher spotted the importance of this difference a while back – “There’s no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women”.

I don’t agree with her sentiments but recognising this difference is essential for the poor performing ‘global companies’. Ultimately people still crave community (think London Marathon, Diana’s funeral, Facebook, reaction to Thatcher’s comment, etc) and it is one of the original pillars of trust. Brands are our bunny-boppers.

So is the trick nowadays to think community/society and not just individual? Perhaps – Coca-Cola and Microsoft are fighting AIDs, HP are saving the forests, everyone's chasing 'green trends', and so on. Maybe we’re not in the age of the individual after all?

Hmm… this may need a Part 3. Until then, I’m sticking with Bob Dylan – “If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself”.