How brands can build trust in a crisis

Trust has nev­er been more impor­tant or in short­er sup­ply. Adver­tis­ers and mar­keters used to think win­ning loy­al­ty was the ulti­mate cam­paign aim. But if the pub­lic does not trust a brand to begin with, build­ing the loy­al­ty need­ed for long-term suc­cess is that much hard­er. 

“Trust is the fun­da­men­tal rea­son brands came into exis­tence and why they became so valu­able”, says Matt Waller, cre­ative direc­tor of Lon­don-based adver­tis­ing agency Recipe.

Yet trust in many pub­lic insti­tu­tions is declin­ing. This year’s Edel­man Trust Barom­e­ter found that con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment (-8 points), the media (-6 points), NGOs (-6 points) and busi­ness (-3 points) was down as the pan­dem­ic, protests and pol­i­tics polarised opin­ion. In the result­ing “info­dem­ic”, trust in all infor­ma­tion sources slumped to record lows. 

The adver­tis­ing indus­try specif­i­cal­ly is also strug­gling with issues of trust. Adver­tis­ing exec­u­tives are once again bot­tom of a list of trust pro­fes­sions, below land­lords, estate agents and politi­cians, accord­ing to Ipsos Mori’s 2020 Verac­i­ty Index. This decline in trust is now seen as such a prob­lem that the indus­try body the Adver­tis­ing Asso­ci­a­tion has made it the focus of its work. 

Despite these num­bers, there are signs of how busi­ness can turn this around. Trust in busi­ness may be down accord­ing to Edel­man, but it is now the only insti­tu­tion that is active­ly trust­ed; peo­ple are neu­tral on NGOs, gov­ern­ment and the media. And many com­pa­nies have shown dur­ing the pan­dem­ic that they can take a lead­ing role in soci­ety, whether it is Brew­Dog mak­ing hand sani­tis­er or Leon donat­ing food to key work­ers.

“Lack of trust in news sources, gov­ern­ments and health­care sys­tems has cre­at­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to step in, build trust with their con­sumers and ulti­mate­ly dri­ve loy­al­ty,” said Lea Ber­net­ic, head of brand and mar­ket­ing at free­lance hub Under­Pinned.

But how do brands build con­fi­dence in a cri­sis, espe­cial­ly when trust in the adver­tis­ing indus­try and those who work in it is so low. The num­bers sug­gest that rather than telling peo­ple what they are doing through adver­tis­ing, busi­ness­es need to show peo­ple the pos­i­tive impact they can have.

His­to­ry shows us how some of the most trust­ed brands built their rep­u­ta­tions by act­ing with integri­ty in hard times. John Deere, the agri­cul­tur­al man­u­fac­tur­er, was found­ed in 1837 and near­ly 200 years lat­er it remains the top trac­tor brand in the UK with 28 per cent of the mar­ket and cus­tomer loy­al­ty of 77 per cent, accord­ing to a sur­vey of farm­ers by Farm Equip­ment mag­a­zine.

That loy­al­ty has been earned through build­ing trust, espe­cial­ly in dif­fi­cult times. Dur­ing the Great Depres­sion, for exam­ple, farm­ers faced ruin as crop prices col­lapsed and incomes evap­o­rat­ed, but John Deere refused to repos­sess farm equip­ment, unlike oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers. Then, dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, the com­pa­ny joined the war effort by mak­ing trac­tors, air­craft parts and ammu­ni­tion for the armed forces.

“Peo­ple remem­ber how you treat them when the chips are down,” says Barn­a­by Ben­son, man­ag­ing direc­tor of the copy­writ­ing agency that car­ries his name and who advis­es on brand lan­guage. “Now is the time to do good and earn trust for the long term.” 

There are oth­er exam­ples of brands earn­ing trust despite dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions. In March 2011, a huge earth­quake and tsuna­mi hit Japan, killing 16,000 peo­ple and leav­ing mil­lions des­ti­tute. Con­ve­nience store chain Law­son deliv­ered 200,000 meals to vic­tims and cov­ered the cost of lost stock and dam­aged build­ings for fran­chisees. In Octo­ber, the com­pa­ny post­ed its high­est prof­its for the first half of a fis­cal year, to the end of August.

Japan­ese com­pa­nies have become good at sur­viv­ing crises in part because they under­stand the key role trust plays. In the wake of the same dis­as­ter, local­ly based Yakult faced a 30 per cent mar­ket loss. Instead of cut­ting jobs, the com­pa­ny gave $300 to each of its “Yakult Ladies” deliv­ery staff and pro­vid­ed food and shel­ter to employ­ees and locals.

This helps explain why Japan is a world leader in long-term cor­po­rate suc­cess. Around 40 per cent of com­pa­nies in busi­ness for more than 300 years are based in the coun­try, accord­ing to research by Dr Hiro­ta­ka Takeuchi, pro­fes­sor of man­age­ment prac­tice at Har­vard Busi­ness School. These com­pa­nies show that longevi­ty is built on trust and achieved by help­ing cus­tomers, work­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty when they need it most.

In a time of glob­al cri­sis, com­pa­nies should demon­strate largesse, look­ing after their employ­ees and the wider pub­lic. Brands should invest in doing good and build adver­tis­ing cam­paigns around action, not rhetoric. “In an age of green­wash­ing and mar­ket­ing spin, it has nev­er been more impor­tant to build trust,” says Ben Park­er, co-founder of cre­ative agency Made Thought.

Ensur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions are ground­ed in real actions is key. In 2017, Pep­si faced wide­spread crit­i­cism and was forced to pull an advert that appeared to appro­pri­ate an image of the activist Iesha Evan­s’s arrest at the Baton Rouge protests in 2016. Aaron Hana­phy, semi­otics and cul­tur­al insights man­ag­er at McCann Cen­tral, says: “Con­sumers are equipped with extreme­ly sen­si­tive, in-built bulls**t detec­tors.”  

Brands risk a back­lash if they cap­i­talise cyn­i­cal­ly or hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly. Fred­dy Tay­lor, art direc­tor at Wieden + Kennedy, warns: “It has got to start inter­nal­ly before brands start putting mes­sages about any of those move­ments in their adverts.” 

This means busi­ness­es must get their own hous­es in order by, for exam­ple, clos­ing the gen­der pay gap, ensur­ing equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for black, Asian and minor­i­ty eth­nic staff, elim­i­nat­ing dis­crim­i­na­to­ry hir­ing, pro­mo­tion and dis­missal process­es, before sound­ing off pub­licly about social jus­tice. 

How will the pub­lic remem­ber a brand’s response to the pan­dem­ic in 100 years? Which will sur­vive as mount­ing ques­tions are asked about big soci­etal issues such as equal­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cli­mate change? As Yakult and John Deere show, build­ing trust is even more impor­tant when times are dif­fi­cult. And as the world looks beyond the pan­dem­ic to ris­ing inequal­i­ty, polit­i­cal upheaval and cli­mate change, these are dif­fi­cult times.