TRUST MEANS MORE THAN RELYING ON REPUTATION

By: Patty Tucker

As the world’s access to information compounds, and business and product failures proliferate, the marketing mix is increasingly affected by the consumers’ trust. While you might have a good reputation, and you might have the right mix of product, price, place and promotion, if consumers don’t trust the brand to do the right thing, there’s a trust deficit that presents brand risk and competitive opportunity.

A quick word on semantics and perspective: at Edelman, our research and our work have brought us to see reputation and trust as kissing cousins that deliver different value:

Reputation is an aggregate perception of what stakeholders believe an entity has done, based on perceptions of conduct and behavior over time; and

Trust is a measure of what stakeholders expect that entity will do, based on performance in relation to their expectations.
   
So trust is the ticket to future success. Consumers might believe a product is good quality, but not trust the parent company to hold sensitive information securely. Or a product might have a good reputation for its effectiveness, but there may be a trust deficit as whether it is manufactured with fair labor practices or high environmental standards.

Building Trust

The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer measured global trust in business and government for the twelfth year in a row. But this year we also ascertained the 16 attributes that cause respondents to trust or distrust. These trust attributes are shown in the graphic and become the ticket to building trust.

Trust is built by meeting stakeholders’ expectations on these 16 attributes. If you’ve done that in critical ways in the past, you will be trusted to do the “right thing” in the future as well.

At this point, business has earned a little trust, or a decent reputation (48% globally) by (almost) meeting expectations on the least important of the attributes. These are mostly operational in nature, such as delivering financial results and innovating new products.

To build trust: meet expectations on attributes that are more important to your stakeholders. Many of these are core to good business and marketing anyway. Demonstrate good customer listening, treat employees well, and be transparent. Trust isn’t the end goal, but a means to an end, so you can prioritize the key attributes that are most closely tied to your brand strategy and gain incremental value.

A Logical Process

First, you need to understand how your stakeholders prioritize the 16 trust attributes for your own brand
and industry, determine what they expect of you. Then, identify how they perceive you’re meeting their expectations. Ideally, ask them. If not, use proof points from customer and employee satisfaction data, complaints and compliments online, sales force feedback and social media chatter. Be honest with yourself about whether the brand is truly operating with these attributes or merely getting away with an absence of negatives.

Cross reference these strengths and weaknesses against business strategy and marketing plans. What initiatives will most require trust and license to operate? What risk areas need expectation gaps closed?

This process will unveil the key trust attributes to prioritize.

Lessons from the Field

When building trust programs, consider the big picture
and the research.

Keep in mind a few key considerations:

Don’t attempt to only apply lipstick. Company and brand behaviors must be in line first before communications can alter perceptions.

You can influence the expectations and perception. If consumers expect, say, demonstration of societal benefits, the bar isn’t necessarily set where you have to solve world hunger. You can frame what stakeholders should expect, and then work to deliver on that with full transparency.

Many of the 16 trust attributes are trust-building strategies in and of themselves. For example, communicating frequently and honestly is key regardless of your other priorities.

A smart mix of spokespeople and channels can impact your effectiveness. The data is worth studying: academic and technical experts are most trusted, while “a person like yourself” and regular employees are close behind. That’s a strong recipe for marketing credibility. The CEO’s trust dropped, but is still critical for trust building for the organization. Harness the trusted voices of employees to reverberate your message with authenticity.

Trust in media is up. Plan buys and storytelling strategies that will reverberate throughout the full complement of media: traditional, hybrid, owned and social, for the classic broad reach.

I hope you’ll take advantage of this data to create some competitive advantage. It will make your work smarter and more effective… trust me.

The Evolution of the Client Relationship: What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

By: Beth Crawford & Scott Mikus

Every now and then, I think back to when we were first setting up shop in 1989. If you’re like us and have worked in the creative industry for a decade or two, you’ve seen a lot of changes in your career. For us, one of the most striking changes is in how we look for and manage client relationships.

Back in the early days of Crawford/Mikus Creative Marketing & Design, collaborating with clients was the name of the game. We were constantly on the road, meeting with clients about campaign strategies, discussing new projects, sharing layouts and doing press checks.

Fast forward to 2012 and it’s a very different world. We’ve gone from face time to Facebook. Now, days or weeks could go by without seeing a client in their offices or in our King Plow studio. Initial inbound and outbound marketing strategies are still developed face to face. However, from there on out, individual projects rarely involve face-to-face meetings. Instead, projects proceed through a series of follow-up calls and emails. Reason being, many clients are time crunched, struggling under heavier workloads and trying to do more with less.

For several of our larger corporate clients, receiving a new job consists of getting an e-mail “ping,” we go out and pick up the job in a project management app, do the job and then post it on a server. From there, client associates from around the globe give input and mark up the layouts. Then, we make revisions and wrap up the job. Some projects might not involve a single one-to-one call. And we are not talking one job here; we can be managing as many as 20-30 jobs in this capacity.

From an implementation and execution perspective, working like this leaves the door wide open for assumptions, generalizations and miscommunications. In this environment, it’s a never-ending challenge to manage expectations and client communications – not to mention, the technology hiccups that can occur internally and externally throughout the process.

In terms of flexibility, we don’t have to be tied to the office all day, every day. But it also means we’re tied to our work for longer hours and we’re expected to be electronically accessible virtually all the time. Have you ever tried to conduct business at the zoo or aquarium with your child? Do you ever get frustrated when you lose your mobile signal inside a Target store (it’s the concrete walls!)?

However, the upside is we’re finding more opportunity (and profit) in collaborating with strategic partners and offering a wider breadth of services. We’ve also been able to extend our client base well beyond Atlanta. We now find ourselves day-to-day in places like New York, New Jersey, Chicago, California and Florida.

What we have learned from our 20-plus years running an award-winning studio is that change demands adaptability. We have to be willing to reach out proactively to clients, immerse ourselves more than ever in their corporate culture and make sure we completely understand their business needs and goals. As project managers, we need to keep an eye on the details. In understanding the client and utilizing both inbound and outbound marketing strategies, we are better able to position ourselves for the long term with a client. We become a partner, not just a vendor.

All in all, it’s been a wild and exciting ride, and the one thing I can say is, it ain’t over yet!

Beth Crawford and Scott Mikus are principals of
Crawford/Mikus Creative Marketing & Design in Atlanta.

Married to the Job

By Scott Tredeau (with help from his better half, Meredith Tredeau)

Have you ever felt like you spend more time at work than you do with your spouse? Are you, as the old cliché goes, married to your job? Not me! I am married to my job, but not like the cliché. I’ve got the opposite problem (just kidding, dear) … I work with my spouse, and we spend the majority of our time together, both on the job and off.   My wife, Meredith, and I are fortunate enough to work together running a small graphic design business, which we’ve been doing for most of the time we’ve been married.

We started working together in 2003, following my unsuccessful job search in a bad economy after college. I started freelancing, and over time, built my own steady client base. As business grew, so did my need for help, and I found myself relying on Meredith’s consulting background and business talents more and more. We decided to make it official (she doesn’t like to work for free), and Tredeau Design was born.

When we tell people that we run a business together, they either say “wow, that must be awesome,” or “wow, that must be hard.” The truth is, it’s both, depending on the day. But what marriage or business doesn’t have its ups and downs, right?

It’s Not for Everyone
Running a business as a couple probably isn’t for everyone. Marriage offers plenty of sources of conflict and compromise as it is, without adding shared work stresses into the mix. The constant contact, balancing and juggling of home and work responsibilities, and the financial risks, can be taxing. Having all your eggs in one basket can indeed be precarious; if the business or the marriage fails, everything could collapse.

Why it Works for Us
For me, knowing that we had a good marriage to begin with was a big factor in the decision to run our business together. Our personalities and the characteristics that make us good marriage partners are probably the same that make us good business partners. I knew that we would be able to compromise and work through any conflicts with the business the way we do in our marriage. Really, the business is just an extension of the relationship – the trust, communication and commitment – we already have.

It was very important for us to establish clear roles and boundaries right from the start. At work, like we do at home, we each have our primary roles and duties. I cut the grass, Meredith cleans the bathrooms; Meredith manages the business side of Tredeau Design, and I handle the creative side. We also have some collaborative and complementary roles. At home, it’s decision-making and disciplining the kids. At work, it’s conceptualizing and having face time with clients. Her left brain and my right brain make a good team.

We enjoy the togetherness and the flexibility that running our business gives us and our family; but to quote another cliché, we realize absence does make the heart grow fonder. We make a point to get regular breathing room, from work and each other. I think we both take pride and find comfort in knowing we have a business partner we can fully trust, who has the same vision and commitment to the company. It’s also nice to be able to talk about your day at work with someone who really gets it. Though, we do have to remember to turn it off sometimes and stop talking about work!

We both want the same thing, we want it to succeed, and we both put our heart and soul into it. We’ve built the business together and we nurture it, and each other, every day.