Building Brands by Marketing Truth, Trust, and Taboo

Today’s youth has little tolerance for deception, and mistrust has become a main factor in their decision to disconnect from certain brands. Even more, for individuals seeking value alignment and a sense of responsibility from the brands they consume, ‘trust’ is the game and ‘transparency’ is the ball.?

Younger generations will not only distance themselves quickly if they feel deceived, but they will also call brands out publicly. And they care for more than just themselves — the environment and social injustice are but a few examples of topics that are of interest for youngsters, but taboo for brands. By trying to market them blindfolded, brands risk losing the game of trust.?

We sat down with some experts in ‘youth marketing’ to find out how brands can earn young trust and why they should think twice about marketing taboos:

· Rob Scotland , head of brand marketing at Veo Technologies (former head of strategy at McCann London)

· Mary Keane-Dawson , award-winning business leader, coach & mentor (former group CEO of Takumi)

· Mike Blake-Crawford , social-first marketing consultant (former strategy director at Social Chain)

· Jessica Blair , managing director of entertainment & talent partnerships of When We All Vote (former associate director at Civic Nation)

· Sean Pillot de Chenecey , strategy consultant & author at Brand Positive

Q. Where do ‘truth’ and ‘trust’ meet when it comes to the brand’s reputation and its position in the customer’s mind?

Rob Scotland: In the modern audience journey (e.g., McKinsey illustrates as a continual loop, rather than a linear process from awareness to post-purchase enjoyment), truth and trust are extremely important in the qualification phases for young audiences.

Whether it’s leveraging a brand to signal or amplify their personal brand identity, or bringing their own cultural capital to a brand who desperately needs it, aligning with a brand’s inherent truth and trusting said brand to be credible are more critical than anyone who is not a young adult could ever understand.

Mary Keane-Dawson: By being truthful, honest, and authentic, you earn trust. Transparency is key!

Consumers want to trust brands, and this requires transparency. From our previous whitepaper, it is clear what wins consumers’ trust and what they value: transparency, authenticity, and honesty. This is a strong foundation for us to build on.

Mike Blake-Crawford: I think the relationship between truth and trust, in respect to brands, is rather complex and difficult to decipher. In short, truth is linked to authenticity, which is linked to transparency, the importance of which I’ve highlighted in my answer to a previous question. That said, there are occasions in which the impact of truth struggles to overcome the power of trust. This happens often in personal relationships. We all hear stories of infidelity being exposed in relationships, which subsequently go from strength to strength. Despite the truth being so negative and harmful, the years of trust underpinning our emotional ‘connection’ is hard to break.

An example of this applied to marketing would be Volkswagen. In 2015, they were rocked by scandal for fiddling the emissions data for their diesel cars. This resulted in them recalling 8.5 million vehicles in Europe alone. With all of the recent activism and political focus on climate change, one would expect Volkswagen to be a brand forever tarnished, as they were in essence hiding the fact that they were contributing to our planet’s apparent destruction. However, rather than fade away into oblivion, Volkswagen registered record sales in 2017! It seems the truth did little to erode the trust.

On the flip side, who remembers the Fyre Festival? We’ve all, by now no doubt, seen the documentary on Netflix. An idyllic Caribbean island that played host to what supposedly was going to be the hottest experience money could buy. The biggest artists, the most lavish accommodation in the most beautiful of locations.

The truth was somewhat different from the narrative portrayed. Storm shelters, cold cheese sandwiches, zero infrastructure, and none of the artists promised. A brand in tatters, a brand that will never be able to make a revival. The key difference between Volkswagen and Fyre, arguably the tangible impact of the ‘scandal’ on consumers, but I would propose the lack of formed memory structures surrounding the start-up brand were more detrimental to any potential recovery than the scandal itself.

I would, therefore, speculate that truth bears a significant impact on brands in the early stages of development. Truth can go some way into earning trust and destroying trust in those embryonic stages of development. However, for brands with significant equity built over a number of years, even the most uncomfortable truths may struggle to erode the emotional bonds we share.

Jessica Blair: On any given day, but especially on a bad day, truth builds trust. Youngsters have an exceptionally low tolerance for deception. And when it happens, a brand can recover, but not without truth. And when trust is broken, it’s easy for the consumer to go elsewhere to rebuild it.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey: They come to mind via ‘reputation capital’. That’s where consumers need unequivocal answers to their questions of whether the brand or organization in question is trustworthy, competent, and reliable.

If you’re curious to find out more about how brands can earn young trust, whether or not they should tackle marketing taboos, influencer marketing and its incredible potential for building trust, and other youth-related aspects download the youth marketing edition of The Roundtable here .

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