Zero Moment of Trust. Yes, TRUST.

Zero Moment of Truth was a term coined by Google in their 2011 eBook “ZMOT - Winning the Zero Moment of Truth”. The term refers to the moment in the purchase cycle between the stimulus (digitally speaking) and first moment of truth (a term introduced by Jan Carlzon in the 1980s and popularized by Procter & Gamble to refer to the moment of purchase).

[Este POST ha sido publicado previamente en espa?ol en el blog de Bernardo Crespo bajo el título "Zero Moment of Trust"]

FROM ZMOT TO ZERO MOMENT OF TRUST

Now we are in September 2020, after 4 years of Trump era, living with our masks on, Google shorting access to keywords on his search stack and limiting the concept of third party data since early February this year, four CEOs of the most important tech juggernauts under antitrust scrutiny, CCPA and GDPR in place, living a second COVID-19 wave and waiting for new presidential elections in the States.

Sustainability and uncertainty is the new domain of our conversations. We are all fed up with politics and journalism. Polarization is a global disease. In addition, another virus has alerted us to a new degree of priorities in our lives and the world has been transformed digitally by accident due to the social distancing measures imposed by this global pandemic. Now we are all digital by order of the COVID-19. But how do we solve for growth using data and technology in this new context?

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"The world has been transformed digitally by accident due to the social distancing measures imposed by this global pandemic. Now we are all digital by order of the COVID-19".

After iOS14 release there is a moment of realization on how our data is exposed through our devices. I suspected it and now I have confirmation that WhatsApp held at least an always-on access to my pictures. The same with Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (the last one doesn’t count coz I try to delete my account and I do not use it anymore since Nov. 2018). Early on this month the world got astonished and outraged after the release of The Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix and the only companies growing obscenely in market cap valuation were and are the 7 Big Tech companies: Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, (Alphabet), Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba. 

TRUST IS BROKEN

With the release of iOS14 and Apple’s focus on Privacy by Design, I would like to coin a new concept called "Zero Moment of Trust". And I want to show my gratitude to an unintended conversation with my friend Gam Días this morning over WhatsApp. If it were not for him, we would not have held this really inspiring conversation/s. Let this post serve to acknowledge the co-authority of the term.  To which extent are we willing to give in to the tyranny of the algorithm and the pervasive power of big tech companies without asking for anything in return. Free service in exchange for your data is not enough. Not anymore when you’ve changed my behavior for the sake of your P&L. To which extent are we willing to give our data when the collateral damage is to break my democracy and the stability of our freedom. Not anymore when you’ve just conceived that monetizing data into a tax dividend is the closest you are to share part of your revenues. 

Whether you want to call it Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff) or Behavior Modification Empires (Jaron Lanier), I don’t care. The game is broken. Not anymore. Trust should be regained. Maybe Apple is offering me more to get my trust back via showing me who had an always-on access to my data. You might think that Apple is on the same game as you are —it also has access to the same data, my data. And they have taken a valuable step by breaking up my transparency, my awareness through granting me access to opt in or out my permission. Something you took for granted in exchange of customer experience. I’m afraid that customer experience is the new commodity. From now on it doesn’t pay my consent anymore. I demand something else. You can call it foreplay, I want to call it Zero Moment of Trust. it starts every time you interact with me. And it’s based on Value, Identity, Respect and Care. And you only care about advertising. Replacing continuous trust building (data for trust) instead of leveraging on continuous tracking (data for advertising) is at the heart of the entire data conversation in a trusted environment. This is the key point of the whole conversation about Data and Trust. 

I want to call it Zero Moment of Trust. it starts every time you interact with me. And it’s based on Value, Identity, Respect and Care.

Once TRUST is broken, we have to reset the counter after every touchpoint, after every interaction. I don't trust you anymore. This is the WHY behind this new concept of "Zero Moment of Trust" (instead of Zero Moment of Truth). Trust has to be regained after each and every interaction from now on. Make me fall in love again (in case you did in the past). My trust is broken and you have to get it back at any moment from now on. Even before the stimulus, during the purchase moment and after the purchase moment. 

BUILDING BACK TRUST

Customer acquisition, conversion rate optimization, funnel and fallout rates are bellic and aggressive concepts created mainly by male engineers with a limited transactional focus on doing digital business. It's hunting lingo in which users are merely passive subjects. Maybe the new game is less about transactions and more about conversations. You can call it seduction. Maybe we are moving from a transactional approach to a new, more romantic concept of digitalization where there is no place for dark patterns,  or unnecessary data shadows. Tell me what for and maybe I'll be willing to share more of my data than you expect. Or maybe not. The paradigm shift is moving from the Zero Moment of Truth to Zero Moment Of Trust.

Maybe in the past (2000’s) your impostor and libertarian pose was enough. And not anymore. Gone are the days in which granting access to the Internet was sufficient. A new egalitarian space free for anyone willing to share anything. Isn’t it great! What a dream! Now the value of your companies together is higher than some G20 countries’ GDP. You’ve crossed the thin red line. It’s time to give something back. Let's call it Digital Dharma Law: Give and take. I’m afraid you already took too much. 

"Maybe we are moving from a transactional approach to a new, more romantic concept of digitalization where there is no place for dark patterns, or unnecessary data shadows."

I had a fantastic conversation with my friend Sergio Maldonado back in March at the beginning of the lockdown in Spain, talking about who was more prepared in the context of zero-party data where consent is already broken. We came to the agreement that only prime movers and laggards were much more prepared for this new shift: People in control of their data. Apple’s first step as a prime mover by priming privacy by design is the proof. Who’s willing to be next? There’s no excuse to say that you’re a tail player in the game of digital transformation. Laggards are better prepared than followers to start giving people back the control of their own data. 

"There’s no excuse to say that you’re a tail player in the game of digital transformation. Laggards are better prepared than followers to start giving people back the control of their own data." 

Maybe designing a data strategy seems like a gigantic task for a company headquartered outside China or the USA. I have another view. It’s all about how to be sustainable in a zero-party data context by giving your customers control over their data. It’s simple but you have to stop trying to emulate those who have already acquired so much data. Data is the new oil. Undeniably. But it takes a new approach in this context to transform data into value. The key is to create trust when collecting, retrieving and translating data into new services. You should be using data to offer value and to deliver relevant services that build back trust. Forget about using data to show off. Maybe you found it cool in the past but it does not build trust any more. 

We have focused so much on acquiring new competitive advantages via data collection. Now it’s time to offer value in exchange for data, show respect for the data you analyze and the digital assets you optimize with data, sincerely show you care about your customers when dealing with their data (instead of using their touch points as raw material to accelerate your revenue streams via advertising). Show you care about people. Data monetization is a limited and transactional way to care about people. Not bad and it's not enough. What takes building back Trust in this new era is showing you care about people any time you interact with them and collect their data. Zero Moment of Truth was about customer acquisition. Zero Moment of Trust is about caring about people in each and every interaction. Showing them you care about that precious stuff (data borrowed from users) that keeps your business thriving. Thus, building TRUST in a pervasive and accidentally digital context.

Over the last 5 years after I left BBVA as head of Digital Marketing in Spain, my stakes have been in various business models pervasive in the use of data. From consulting data firms intensive in analytic talent to privacy solutions powered by blockchain, and also throughout education initiatives intensive in data and digital strategy. Now I am also seriously focused with AI and ML with a bunch of really smart people to decode the sources of employability.

I do believe that data and technology are fantastic enablers that enhance business transformation (the proof is my time and my money) and people come first. Strategic data acquisition is the new source of competitive advantage in the AI era—quoting Andrew Ng— and we cannot forget possible dystopian drifts if we do not care about people when using their data. All those initiatives above focus on data + tech and also care about people. That makes the difference.

[Excerpt from Andrew Ng - EmTech "The State of AI"]

"Zero Moment of Truth was about customer acquisition. Zero Moment of Trust is about caring about people in each and every interaction. Showing them you care about that precious stuff (data borrowed from users) that keeps your business thriving. Thus, building TRUST in a pervasive and accidentally digital context."

I'm at the end of the 8th edition of my program in Digital Transformation at IE Executive Education and if I could sum up in a single message what to do regarding Digital Transformation and Data. This is it: "Zero Moment of Trust".  

The featured pic of this post is a simple example of another fruitful conversation with Tony Fish and Gam Dias about how to define a data governance model in the after COVID era. Together with this post, it illustrates perfectly the term <<Zero Moment of Trust>>.

This is my vision of how to be sustainable dealing with data. Hope this serves to keep the conversation going about how to build back trust once we have realized that we, the people, were the raw material of the digital game. And there is already an open debate in place (check among others: The concept of Zero-party Data by Sergio Maldonado, privacyforprofit,  CitizenTrust.org , Mydata.org, darkpatterns.org/reading-list) 

This post is dedicated to the students of the 8th edition of the Executive Program in Digital Transformation at IE Business School.  All of you who started the program early on this year, weeks before the global lockdown was declared. Thanks for your curiosity and your dedication. Thanks for caring so much about building transformation beyond digital during this time full of uncertainty and new challenges. We're moving forward. To you all: Lola Calleja, Gustavo Andrea Duarte, Juan Luís Galán, Javier Gómez Ballonga, Juan Jesús González, Virginie Hochard, Ana Lozar, Ana Maestre, Andrés Martín, Julia Martínez Tapia, Natalia Matesanz, Aida Mediavilla, Alfonso Mora, María Pardo, Elena Rodriguez Alonso, Ana María Seijo

#beyondDigital #DigitalSustainability

If you want to read this post in Spanish:

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About Bernardo Crespo:

Certified Ontological Coach by Newfield Network (ACTP ICF Colombia). Bachelor in Business Administration and last year of BA Honors in Management and Economics, University of St Andrews, UK. Master in Relational Marketing, CRM and E-commerce.

Member of the Digital Advisory Board of IE Business School and Academic Director in digital transformation at IE Executive Education.

Founder and Inspirer of esc-XL.com(Executive Digital Detox), he has been recognized by the newspaper EXPANSIóN in 2016 as one of the 50 greatest experts on Digital Transformation in Spain.

See Keynote Compilation on YouTube