Anthropologists and others who study societies know that the ability of homo sapiens to trust strangers and, by trusting them, trade with them, sets humans apart from other species.
Everyone in advertising instinctively learns this lesson early on. Trusted brands are able to convince the consumer that their products and services are worthy of time, money and attention. Trusted marketers can imbue brands with that tradable virtue. Every relationship in the value chain—brand to agency; agency to buyer; buyer to publisher; publisher to consumer; consumer to brand—depends on mutual trust.
When that trust sours, trade suffers.
But are we reaching a turning point in trust, and therefore in trade?
What is a trusted source today?
The extraordinary swirl of the digital world has brought many benefits, but it has some significant challenges as well. And one of those has been trust. That’s because our world has become, in some important ways, impacted by the notion of “fake.” Technology permitted free speech and democracy to be widespread, but, increasingly, worries about the fallout from fake news, not to mention fake impacts on advertising, dominate the public conversation.
There has been plenty of discussion over public fears about the unethical and illegal activity that happens in the digital world. That includes disquiet in the advertising world about how safe brands are in this space and how genuine their impact counts have been. Neither of these trends is good for trust and the recently published Edelman Trust Barometer showed this in great detail. There has been a marked change of public opinion around trusted sources of information.
People crave credibility
The good news is that people still show every sign of wanting to trust reliable media. You have to hope that is true because if trust in platforms and the content they carry continues to fall, it is advertisers and agencies that will bear the brunt. A lack of confidence in the media is a lack of confidence in the very space that so much advertising depends on. The question of how brands can earn the trust of a consumer on a trusted platform is more pronounced now than it has ever been before.
In 2018, trusted advertising will emerge from the growing desire for voices of credibility and authority. More than ever, there is a voracious appetite for quality and expertise. Journalists have enjoyed a huge leap in trust despite—or perhaps because of—the lack of trust in the fragmented world of multiple online voices. Quality has returned to the menu of a public hungry for stories that they can trust.
Advertising can and must take advantage of this flight to quality. All the signs are that authority will be the watchword of the trusted brand. Advertising can bridge the gap between brand and consumer to revive relationships that have taken a battering in a time of fakery.
We have to hope this is true. Otherwise it is hard to see a way through the digital maze. The more varied and fractured the ways in which people engage with brands are, the more difficult it will become for consumers, brands, publishers and agencies to meet in ways that engender trust and, through trust, trade. It is through advertising that such introductions are made.
