Check The Rhyme: Decoding Trust

Check it!

“Well, we don’t believe you, you need more people”

This is a lyric from Jay-Z's (a.k.a. Sean Carter, Jigga, Hov) classic album, The Blueprint. I love this line. Not only is it from one of the best diss records ever made, “Takeover,” but it also really gets at the notion of trust.

Trust is an important part of marketing, particularly when we think about branding. We don't trust unless we see receipts of behavior that show evidence that other people subscribe, that other people evangelize, that other people advocate. People give us the confidence to trust.

Now let's break down trust. It's part of our normal vernacular, but what does it really mean?

As a construct, I love this definition for trust: trust is the mechanism that absorbs uncertainty. It absorbs that feeling of "I don't know if that's going to work out. I'm not sure. Is it worth it?”

When we’re a little uncertain of a situation, we look for trust in our friends to absorb that feeling. The same thing goes with brands and the products that they offer. We look for cues from our people in an effort to assess whether or not we can trust it.

Now, here's why this is important for marketers; people trust people more than any form of marketing communication. People trust people more than print, out-of-home, radio, television, display, digital, banners...we trust people more!

In fact, we trust strangers more than we trust marketers, which should be super sobering for every marketer reading this. Our consumption behavior relies on the evaluation of complete strangers—Amazon and Yelp reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, and TripAdvisor scores. That is to say, we trust people more than we trust the institutions or brands from whom we consume.

Jay-Z’s idea isn't just a diss, it gets at something that marketers can learn from. When a brand makes a statement about who they are, what they do, or some declaration about how their products and services are the absolute best, if there aren't other people who are evangelizing, advocating, or corroborating, can we really trust it?

Well, we don’t believe you, you need more people.

This should be gospel for marketers and how we think about going to market, how we think about communicating our products and services, how we preach the gospel about our ideology, and how we see the world.

Thank you, Jay-Z...Professor Sean Carter.