Bet Your Brand On Trust

Visibility Public Relations

“When the truth is found to be lies, and all the hope within you dies.”
Don’t you want some Brands to Love?
Don’t you need some Brands to Love?
You gotta find some Brands to Love.

Yes, the Coen brothers got the classic Jefferson Airplane lyric a little wrong, but let’s (hint) hope that brand marketers don’t make the same mistake. Trust, based on truth, equals credibility in interpersonal relationships as well as for people/brand relationships.

Edelman’s recent 8095 (born 1980-’95) study of how Millennials connect with brands clearly demonstrates that brand trust is the sine qua non of marketing in the social media age. According to Edelman’s research, eight of 10 Millennials have taken some form of personal action on behalf of a brand they consider trustworthy. Involvement ranges from sharing brand experiences with friends and family, on and off-line, to joining online communities and posting reviews. Better watch out though, because Millennials are just as activist when a brand experience fails to meet their expectations.

That New Brand Religion

Happily, these newly empowered Millennials, an even larger generational cohort than their boomer parents, in short, want some brands to love. According to 8095, they are already significantly defining global brand trends through their actions.

The upshot for marketers, PR practitioners and social media gurus cannot be over-estimated:

Millennials see brand relationships as a form of self-expression. Brand preferences compete with religion and ethnicity as leading personal identifiers.

Information is key to influence – more info coming from multiple channels is welcomed, as 8095ers seek from four to seven sources in their decision making process.

Brand activism is a core value – more than half say they would volunteer to try new products form a “preferred brand,” and then post online reviews.

The reverberation goes on forever – the ripple from the brand pebble goes out to family and friends personally and on social networks, where it lives forever.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *