Brand Trust Is More Than “Doing the Right Thing”
/The Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 Report presents some very interesting findings after an incredibly strange year during a global pandemic. When Michael Miraflor shared some screenshots on Twitter, I immediately got intrigued by this relationship between different types of organizations and trust. My first thought - why wouldn’t nonprofits ace the trust test?
Because the way Edelman looked at trust was not just in terms of ethics, but competency.
Nonprofits are literally supposed to exist for the sole purpose of doing good. Yet people don’t necessarily trust them. They struggled with perceived competency. Competency at what?
Edelman asked people, “To what extent do you agree with the following statement? [INSTITUTION] in general is good at what it does”.
Earning consumers’ trust requires more than just having good intentions, or even acting with integrity (although those are important, too). Nonprofits struggle with their overall score because they’re not as trusted to do the job well.
Thoughts & Opportunities for Nonprofits
For consumers to trust your nonprofit is good at what you do, you need to achieve 2 things:
Clearly communicate what it is that you do - what is the problem you’re solving and how are you solving it?
Prove you’re good at it - show results
While the first part - ability to communicate what you do - may seem obvious, it’s all too common for nonprofits to struggle, for a variety of reasons:
The organization has changed direction or evolved, but the communication hasn’t
Trying to be all things to all people, whether in terms of what you’re communicating, or the organization truly lacking a focus
Inability to translate internal, jargon-filled language to something the public can understand
Whatever communication challenges exist, it’s important for organizations to be able to clearly communicate what it is they do. Without clearly identifying what it is you do, consumers can’t even really judge whether or not you’re competent. Set a target, then hit it. If you don’t set the target first, we have no idea whether you’ve hit it or not.
The second half (hitting the target) is about documenting and then showcasing the impact of your work. Prove you’re successful. Show why you're the best suited to tackle this challenge. Just like in business, there are seemingly infinite substitutes, so telling the world there’s a problem, and you’re trying to solve it, isn’t sufficient. We live in a world of finite resources and people need to know why you are worthy of their hard-earned money. Why your organization?
Trust Isn’t Just “Doing the Right Thing”
Trust in brands of all kinds is about more than the brand “doing the right thing.” Otherwise, nonprofits would generally excel in their overall score. For consumers, part of trust is that the organization can do what it promises to do (and the consumer gets what they’re expecting).
This immediately made me think back to some previous studies where I was surprised about which brands ranked highly for trust. My initial reaction to Morning Consult’s 2020 trust brand rankings was incredulity. Why would Amazon score well when they have shown time and again that they’re not necessarily to be trusted in terms of their word, or treating employees well?
This likely reflects the trust in competency factor. Consumers trust they’ll get what they want, when they want it. And Amazon excels at that. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there are multiple logistics companies ranking highly - USPS, Fedex, and UPS are all top performers.
People don’t need to trust Amazon with their whole life, just their relatively non-important life purchases. And yes, the vast majority of purchases aren’t really that important in the grand scheme of things. What’s important is that they deliver on their brand promise, over and over again.
Thoughts & Opportunities for Businesses
Relentlessly audit the entire customer experience to identify and eliminate friction
Understand what consumer intent and expectations are at various touch points and stages, and either meet or exceed it
Media & Government Struggle - Ranked as Both Unethical AND Incompetent
It’s no surprise the media suffers from a lack of trust. Public figures have claimed over and over that the media can’t be trusted and it’s “fake news.” We also have a deluge of misinformation, even if it’s not necessarily coming from major news networks (and some of it likely is coming from some, ahem). The reality is, there’s a lot of content out there that you really can’t (or shouldn’t) trust.
Does this mean businesses are well-positioned to create content people do trust? I’m not sure. Does their perceived competency extend to content? And content about what?
A lack of trust in the government also may be creating an opening for brands to talk about solving societal problems as well. If we don’t trust the government to solve our problems, then we start looking to other entities to help us fix them.
It will likely take the work of everyone - businesses, NGOs, government, media, and citizens to make change on these large-scale problems. And time. But brands don’t necessarily have to deliver the end-all-be-all solutions to these issues to present something compelling for consumers.
Brands don’t have to single-handedly solve these big, thorny problems, but they can take part in advancing progress and allow consumers to be part of that too.
Could these larger issues be in some ways, thought of as jobs to be done? As Phil Barden wrote in Eat Your Greens:
“We purchase brands and products to achieve the desired state, goals, needs or Job/s To Be Done (JTBD). Motivation actually determines what we purchase.”
Brands can ask themselves - how can we move these issues forward in a positive way that’s compelling to consumers and aligns with our mission and business?
Of course, then you’ll have to ensure that whatever you do is not only ethical, but done in a competent way... if you want consumers to trust you.