Does marketing build trust or destroy it?

A crisis of trust

It’s hard to measure the value of trust in a relationship but most of us will know the cost of losing it. This can be seen in our personal lives – for instance, in the destructive consequences of an affair – or in the world of business where the value of a firm such as Andersen was virtually destroyed when trust was lost.

Trust in relationships is probably of greater economic value now, ironically at a time when cynicism and scepticism about marketers’ claims is at all-time high.

This is partly due to the major paradigm shift that has taken place in western economies. As automation takes over more and more routine manual tasks human beings increasingly specialise in what only humans can do – use their creative gifts to build knowledge and innovate. This ability is therefore at a greater premium than ever before.

Trust multiplies creativity

Trust is absolutely central to the creative process. If a human brain contains the potential for a bazillion permutations of connections between synapses, two human brains, fully connected, have a bazillion squared permutations. That’s a lot more than double the creative potential. But for that squaring to work, a really full connection between them is needed.

What makes a full connection possible is trust. I won’t share my half-formed thoughts, interests and concerns with just anybody. I need to feel confident they won’t run off with them without sharing the benefits with me, and – perhaps even more significant – I need to know that they won’t set out to ridicule or destroy them.

Trust saves energy

I’ve occasionally whiled away a bit of time with intellectual property lawyers. Charming and intelligent chaps they turned out to be. But the contracts they proposed we use to protect our ideas when discussing them with other people were a bit depressing. All those clauses, undertakings and injunctions. And of course, to get the agreement watertight, all that time and expense. All of which can be spared if we share with people we can trust.

Trust is generative

If trust is established at the core of an organisation, it is likely to spread, as trust begets trust.

Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other’s resources. One can compensate for the other’s weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities.

(Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channelled into defensiveness. Which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle.)

So trust is clearly a jolly useful thing. More so now than ever. Little to argue about there. But what do I do about it?

The question is: how do we create trust? I’d like to contrast two alternative ways humans attempt this feat.

Route One: Pleasing the other

In this model, I identify someone with whom I wish to establish trust. I aim to create trust with the other person by focusing on them. I observe them and attempt to figure out what they look for and what they will like. Then I try to become the sort of person I imagine they will like and by a variety of overt and covert means present myself as that kind of guy. Hopefully, they will like this and they will trust me. Job done. Hey, if I’m really good at it, they might even fall in love with me.

If we take this and apply in the world of business, what we find is a classic marketing approach. Many marketers dream of people falling in love with their brands. Find your customer. Research their needs. Adapt yourself to them. Invest energy in presentation and make artfully phrased promises. Collect money, advance to Go, acquire hotel on Mayfair and embark on relaxing career writing books on how to succeed in business.

Unfortunately in our personal and business lives we may find it doesn’t actually work like this. The sycophantic romancer can be a major turn-off – and if we don’t spot them early on, and do fall in love with them, we end up disappointed.

And as for marketing, I think it’s well established that we have all become deeply sceptical about advertising claims. We don’t trust marketers that try to tell us what we want to hear, and if we do but find they don’t live up to it, all hell breaks loose (just take a look at any internet hate site).

Route two: Pleasing myself

Now let’s look at a more humanistic way of creating trust between people.

Here, my attention if focused primarily on myself. At a personal level, as I grow older, I come to understand myself better. I learn more and more what works for me and what doesn’t. I get smarter at figuring out what I’m good and what I’m bad at. The better I know myself, the more I trust myself.

The more I trust myself, the easier I find it to reveal myself to other people, and the easier it is to figure out what promises I can make that I can actually keep. The more attention I pay to my own needs, the less I need to depend on others to make me happy, and the less dependent on others I become.

As others find me increasingly open and reliable, they feel more inclined to reveal themselves to me. The better I know them, the more I trust them. Especially at the point in the relationship where we can acknowledge our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

People who choose route two are what psychologists call internally-referenced. They behave more on the basis of their own thoughts and feelings and less on the basis of what they assume, rightly or wrongly, will please others. They are more likely to tell you what they think, what they believe in and what they don’t, and what they are and aren’t willing or able to do for you.

Now much of this is counter-intuitive to marketing folk. Yet there are examples of confident organisations that have chosen the second route to creating trust.

Imagine for a moment that you are running a very new business as a late entrant to a well-established market. A TV documentary maker says he wants to make a film about your company in action. Although you like this thought, he warns you that he does need to make good ratings. So, at least half of each episode will show the variety of ways in which your customers become frustrated with you. There will be extensive footage of them complaining volubly to your staff, other customers and anyone else who will listen and swearing never to patronise your company again.

How likely would you be, as an intelligent business person, to contemplate such an obviously disastrous exposure of your fledgeling business for what it really is?

Hmm thought so.

But let me complete the story. Your name is Stelios and your company is Easyjet. Here is a business whose warts are the consistent subject of a weekly ITV documentary – and is one of the most successful brand launches in recent years.

Distrust as a business model

Businesses like to talk about winning the trust of customers, but carry on a series of behaviours that show they can’t even generate trust internally.

For example. I met a salesman who used to work for an electrical retail chain in London. Each week, he and his colleagues would be advised of special bonus commissions to be earned by promoting specific products to customers. The customers, needless to say, would remain ignorant of these bonuses. Now today’s customer probably knows a salesman will not be objective about brands and products not stocked in the shop. We might even expect the salesperson to be biased in favour of selling us the more expensive item. But we probably would never know that there would be this totally concealed incentive to give us even less objective guidance in our choice.

Such a policy must have some short-term gain for the retailer, presumably as a device for shifting otherwise hard-to-sell stock. And there’s a short-term gain for the employee, who picks up a little more commission. But there is a loss for the customer, who is deceived.

And I think there’s a subtler but more profound loss for the organisation. Which is this: by creating this secret contract with employees, the employer gives a strong signal about their overall trustworthiness. They demonstrate that they operate a culture that supports collusion: and while today the collusion may at some level benefit the employee, another day they might collude against him? The effect on the salesman I met was that his respect and trust for his employer was reduced. And that, inevitably, is a loss for both.

Trust is an action, not just a feeling

Trust doesn’t just happen. It arises from the way people choose to interact. Trust in complex organisations should not be left to chance. It helps to follow certain practices to maintain and grow trust.

One of the stronger principles of humanistic psychotherapy is the observation that love is a verb, not a noun. It is an action, or rather a series of actions, that we do – it is not some magic feeling that we have. This also applies to trust.

Trust is created – or destroyed – by our actions. The simplest and most important of these is our ability to keep the promises we make.

Another vital process in building trust is how we manage the inevitable conflicts that arise in any relationship. What’s needed is a willingness to acknowledge conflict and engage constructively, rather than pretending it’s not there.

The Bay of Pigs

The definitive study of conflict avoidance, and its consequences, was Irving Janis’ famous analysis of the Bay of Pigs disaster. John F Kennedy presided over a cabinet made up of people with formidable and robust intelligence. Yet these great minds managed to persuade themselves of the efficacy of invading Cuba – a decision that with hindsight was absurdly dangerous. Janis studied how the group managed, subtly, to suppress doubts and concerns – creating the illusion of unanimous enthusiasm for a project where really there was no consensus. They had the illusion of trust, but not the reality.

Marketing departments are traditionally full of miniature Bays of Pigs, happening now or waiting to happen. There is imperfect understanding between executives and among the various consultants they work with. Small wonder, then, that there are failures of understanding and trust with the poor consumer.

Groupthink rules. It is often a subtle process as Janis comments:

This subtle sycophancy then extends outwards to colour agency relationships with the client. I have sat fascinated at meetings where a client sits with an agency, has an amiable conversation and agrees an outcome. The agency then leaves the room, and then – only then – the client people roll their eyes and express their frustrations, and their low expectations of what will result. I have also sat in agencies where their people return from similar meetings, bewailing the failings of the client. Amazingly, none of this supposedly "negative" stuff gets dealt with; it just festers quietly.

Just my anecdote. But bear in mind that professional services guru David Maister (http://www.fastcompany.com/online/58/shortcourse.html ) reckons that only about 20% of consultants actually like their clients or like their work – and these are the guys you hope will build your business?

What they need are much more honest conversations with each other, and with all stakeholders. There should be fewer promises made and a greater willingness to challenge and be challenged. Needless to say the output of such relationships are the off-target, over-promising, insincere ads which clutter our daily lives.

Gold – or Fool’s Gold

Iron Sulphide – Fool’s Gold – is easily mistaken for the real thing. But the difference in value is huge.

How can marketers avoid Fool’s trust, and generate the real thing?

Here are some pointers:

1 Trust starts at home. A company where people trust each other is more likely to generate trust with its stakeholders. Far more attention needs to paid to creating respectful human relationships as a foundation for marketing success.

2 Conflict should be celebrated, not shunned. No, I’m not suggesting you take your staff on a boxing course. But arguments and disagreements can be the hallmark of an honest relationship – the key is to have them in a civilised way and make sure they are processed, not suppressed. Start today by listing the five most significant people in your working life. Make an honest list of what you like about them and what you dislike about them. Then ask yourself – have you constructively communicated both to them recently?

3 Take a day off from being customer-focussed. Many commentators are starting to say you need to make the employees king. Find out what they want, what turns them on, and harness their energy before engaging with customers. Gallup’s research (based on 1.5 million interviews) suggests that only 20 per cent of employees feel they regularly get a chance to use their greatest strengths (http://www.gallup.com/publications/strengths.asp ).

That is a shocking indictment of a culture that claims to put customers first. I am deeply distrustful of people who don’t take care of themselves. It’s about time companies recognised the value of putting their people first.

4 Take a leaf (well a whole chapter actually) out of Adam Morgan’s book, Eating the Big Fish. The chapter is called "Build a Lighthouse Identity". Morgan observes that some of the most successful brands have "self-referential identities: "The predominant purpose of Challenger brands’ every marketing action is to tell us where they stand. They don’t attempt to tell us something about ourselves – and they certainly don’t attempt to navigate themselves with reference to us." This goes directly back to the humanistic model of trust building which emphasises being true to yourself, not smarming up to would be lovers or customers. As Morgan continues, "… Fox, Diesel, Swatch, Orange, Oakley and Goldfish… are all brands that in their own way evince an enormous self-confidence, a sense of who they are, without any permission from or reference to the world around them."

Offer: 5 Engage in real conversation. Do that by responding to this article: email me what you think at johnm@roundourhouse.com

John Moore

July 2002

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