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The Marketing Architects
The Business Case for Brand Trust
00:26:51
Trust isn't just a feel-good metric. According to an IPA Effectiveness Data Bank analysis of over 800 campaigns, 93% of campaigns that drive very large trust gains also deliver at least one major business effect. This week, Elena and Rob are joined...
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- [00:00]
A
That's a little like that used car salesman we've heard about all the time. You start building campaigns that are designed for trust doesn't mean you're going to get it. You actually have to earn it. Branding is executed in a TV commercial is a promise you're making to consumers. And as in life, you got to deliver on it to be trusted.
- [00:20]
B
Marketing Architects hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Elena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects and I'm joined by my co host Rob Demar is the chief Product architect at Misfits and Machines.
- [00:37]
C
Hey Elena.
- [00:38]
B
We're joined by Katrina McAuliffe, our SVP of Brand Strategy at Marketing Architects.
- [00:43]
A
Thanks for having me.
- [00:44]
B
Thanks for joining us. We are back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to root our opinions in data research and what drives business results. Before we jump in today, I wanted to mention that Marketing Architects is going to be at the possible event in Miami at the end of the month. We're going to have a fully stocked popcorn booth as always. And if you're going, we'd love to meet you. Today we're talking about brand trust, what it really means, how it's measured, how it's built and lost, and why it's a metric marketers should care about. But I'll kick us off, as I always do, with some research. This episode is actually inspired by a Marketing Week article which is titled Campaigns that Drive Trust are more Likely to Deliver Business Impact. It's based on a new analysis of the IPA effectiveness data bank which has over 800 for profit campaigns spanning from 1998 to 2024. And it makes the case that trust isn't just a brand health metric, it's a business metric. And here's what the data shows. 93% of campaigns that deliver very large increases in brand trust also record at least one very large business effect. Things like sales growth, market share gains or profit. Compare that to 66% of all campaigns in the data bank. So that means that trust building campaigns are 41% more likely to drive meaningful business results than the average campaign. Trust driving campaigns are also more than twice as likely as the databank average to deliver very large improvements in perceived brand quality and brand loyalty. They're also more likely to reduce price sensitivity. 11% of trust building campaigns delivered that outcome versus just 6% across the full data bank. And the trend is moving in the right direction. Since 2012, the most effective trust building campaigns have seen a 56% increase in the number of very large business effects they deliver. But before we get into trust, specifically Katrina, I want to take advantage of having you here on the pod because you have a very deep expertise in brand measurement broadly, which is always a big topic on the show. In your opinion, what does a genuinely good brand measurement system look like? If a senior marketer came to you and said, we really want to do this right from the jump, where do you start?
- [02:44]
A
Yeah, I could go on for hours about this, but. And it's one of my favorite subjects, as you well know, but I think bottom line is a good measurement system is multifaceted and it should be based on beliefs about what brands are and how they grow. Bottom line, a good brand measurement system should tell you whether more buyers are likely to think of you, whether they can easily buy you, and whether those perceptions are turning into penetration and profit. One element, and only one element of that measurement system should probably be a brand tracker that can be continuous a point in time, but the results need to be put in the context of category spend and overall business performance. You need to look at it holistically over time to understand the impact of brand development on your business. I want mental availability, which is much more than simple awareness and incorporates context and buying situations. And I want to look at that alongside physical availability, penetration, and. And those three measures for me do the heavy lifting. Trust sits alongside them with some measure of value. They're kind of worth paying more for as useful friction metrics, but they do not replace those core three beliefs. Trust matters to me, but it's not the be all and end all. And actually very often it's an outcome of some other things. It's not the message in itself. Does that make sense?
- [04:17]
B
Yeah, that does. I'm curious how often when you meet a brand for the first time, how often they actually have a system that matches this and what are some of the mistakes that you might see when you're evaluating how they measure their brand health?
- [04:30]
A
I think increasingly amongst our clients, Elena, we see some sort of brand metric system along the way. I think, unfortunately, though, often it sits in isolation with the research department rather than necessarily with the performance team or the brand team. Everybody is in silos. I think one of the most important things is that brand living in isolation. But I think often the biggest mistake that particularly market researchers make is brand health turning into kind of a vibes recital.
- [04:59]
B
A vibes recital,
- [05:02]
A
but it's not really answering the grown up question in the room, which is what should or could we do differently on Monday next month to drive better business results and really feeding those results into that like multi silo, organizational information and dashboard. One of the things, for instance, is that bigger brands naturally look healthier on many attitude scores anyway. It comes with the territory, as it were. So if you stare at something like trust as a metric in isolation, you can confuse being large with being loved more. And so you've got to look at it that holistic message that you're getting out of that tracker. And the real question becomes, what are the signals that are driving metrics up or down and how do we correct for them? For example, simply telling someone you're trustworthy or better doesn't mean you are. The proof is in the brand experience. It's a little like that used car salesman we've heard about all the time. You start building campaigns that are designed for trust, doesn't mean you're going to get it, you actually have to earn it. Branding is executed in a TV commercial is a promise you're making to consumers. And as in life, you got to deliver on it to be trusted.
- [06:22]
B
You mentioned making like. One of the mistakes is if the brand tracker like lives in isolation and it's not connected to the business. I think that's where tension can come up because brand teams might be measuring one thing and if they're not connecting it, then finance and leadership might not see the value. So how do you bridge that gap between marketers and senior leadership when you're measuring brand?
- [06:42]
A
I think it's really trying to encourage that collaboration across those different groups and with senior leadership in particular, we try to translate brand language into economic language. Not simply saying to them trust is up, but really talking about the consequences of what is or what might happen as a result of that. Trust going up and looking at it again goes back to the context. Frequently attitude changes happen together and they follow experience, they don't lead it. And I think if you understand that, then what you can say is what we hope we're going to look for when we see the holistic group of this data is that we're going to see something like trust is up. Familiarity and consideration is also up, which means acquisition is improving, repeat buying and loyalty is looking better. And we hope to see that is going to be translated into revenue. And we also hope to see signals that price sensitivity looks better. And in turn we're going to be driving revenue. Now, it depends on the category as to whether or not that will be leading or lagging, but in general, you're going to see those pre engagement signals happening sooner, the attitude shifts happening later and the revenue following along with those attitude shapes. I think that they're really great. Thing about the latest IPA work is it's super useful because it gives that argument some backbone campaigns with very large trust gains far more likely to deliver major business effect. But it's like chicken and egg. Which one actually came first? Barclays bank is a good example. It's one of the ones that's often quoted because after its trust problems they develop purpose led work that drove over five times as much trust and consideration as earlier product focused campaigns with the preference that came along. But it's not necessarily that trust going up is leading everything else. It's like you've got to look at that leading and lagging indicators make sense.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah. The chicken or the egg is a good point. Is. Yeah. Is it the campaign driving the trust or is brand trust just going up and then your campaigns are performing better as a result? I wanted to talk about like trust measurement in particular. Like how do you actually measure brand trust and track it over time and make that actionable for a marketer?
- [09:02]
A
Yeah. And it goes back to not looking at in isolation. Personally, I like to measure trust in two layers. There's the what people see, what people say. So yes, it's worth saying, you know, how much do you trust this brand? This brand is trustworthy, however you care to term that in your tracker. But secondly it's like what are they willing to forgive? And actually looking at those behavioral metrics. So if you pair that trust metric along with a review of complaints, returns, service recovery, you review social media sentiment over time and then you pair that with repeat purchase and willingness to pay a little bit more, you're going to end up with that more holistic picture. I think Domino's is an example I like because they did rebuild trust by being transparent. They got themselves into a lot of problems. They needed to save their brand. It made its criticism very public. They changed their pizza. They supported that with a campaign. It actually drove same store sales up by about 9.9 10%. That's my kind of trust metric. It's a belief that shows up in behavior. It doesn't move by itself as well. I think it's interesting if you actually look at what Burger King's just done, we'll see what happens now. You know, they've dethroned the king. They're doing all this huge revamp of their burgers, the inside of their restaurant. It's going to really Be interesting to see as they publicly acknowledge their mistakes, what happens with that brand moving forward.
- [10:32]
B
That's good advice. Not to just ask, is this brand trustworthy on its own, but how do we pair that with other metrics? And I would think that the business would appreciate that as well. Rob, one thing I was curious about is for brands that maybe don't have a large scale tracker set up yet, or maybe they don't have enough data. Have you ever seen signals in creative testing or maybe in how audiences respond to a certain spot that could give you a read on whether something is helping to build trust?
- [10:58]
C
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot and I know Katrina knows a ton about this as well. But earlier Katrina picked on used car salespeople and so I'm going to double down on that. Sorry. But when you look at used cars people, one of their tactics is that they just bombard you with information. They do what's called cognitive friction. Right. And people don't trust. They don't trust that. People don't trust brands, that they have to translate. Right. So trust comes from clarity. So how are you looking at your message strategy? Just making sure it's really clear so you're not making your customer nervous, you're not repelling them with too much sales jargon because they're just not going to trust that at the end of the day. But that's a high level example. But I also think there's very tactical ones. If you look at simple data metrics like bounce rate on your website. Right. If you have a message out there where you're making a lot of lofty creative promises, you're promising the moon and then you get to the landing page and it's a lead gen form. You just broke the trust, you broke the contract that you started to have with the consumer, that here's this great experience, here's what we're going to do, and then you don't pay it off on the back end. I think you also said Katrina earlier and I think it's a brilliant point. Trust is very outcome based and so there is just so many of these things that we do along the way that are going to ultimately pay off that trust at the end of the day.
- [12:21]
B
Yeah, it's funny, it's almost like how you tell if a human is trustworthy. If someone's going on and on about how great they are, you're like, something's a little fishy here. So, Katrina, you mentioned Burger King and I was wondering for brands that feel like maybe they're a little behind on trust. They might be a challenger brand, maybe they're a newer brand, maybe they've had some public missteps. Where would you advise they start? With building trust.
- [12:43]
A
I think the real challenge is diagnosis. I think you have to diagnose the source and the scale of the issues. Like for a newer brand, they may not have any. It's just some people, somebody don't know anything about them. So that's a very different brand from if you actually had trust and you lost it. So I think you've got to diagnose it. I think for newer brands, I definitely begin with where are the category entry points, the category white space and how does that all align with the brand strengths and the vision of what that brand wants to do? That to me is a little more straightforward. You got to position it right, you've got to be distinctive, you got to do all those other things. For brands making a comeback, I think it's a lot more of a challenge because I think there's this careful balancing act. Brand strengths remain important, but you have to be aware of the pain points. Rob's point earlier, if you protest too much about those pain points and you promise, promise the earth and you don't deliver it, you're not going to win that trust back. So it's, it is this careful balancing act about where do you start and what do you lean into. And in some cases you're gonna lean into the things that got customers pissed in the first place. On the other hand, you're gonna smooth those out if it wasn't too major and you're gonna talk about the brand strengths, get people to retry the brand and actually gonna come back to it. If the trust issues stem from a really bad misstep or series of them, they're not going to be solved by a manifesto type approach full of good intentions but no material proof of change. People aren't that dumb. Tesco had a great line, which I think so many other people have said, which is you can't advertise your way out of problems you've behaved your way into. Wow, isn't that great? I love it. It's just not going to happen. KFC's FCK apology during the chicken shortage work for the same reason. They own the mistake in the same way that Burger King have just done. They pointed people to real store updates and they sat alongside a very unsexy, unglamorous operational fix. Humor helps. You can get people to laugh out of it, but humor can't Repair what's just a well dressed shrug and kind of like put up with it. And certainly telling people out of that to trust me. Going back to used car salesmen isn't going to help if the underlying issues are not solved. That's putting lipstick on the proverbial pig.
- [15:11]
B
This might be a bad question, but I feel like when you bring up brand trust, marketers are generally like, yes, that's so important. Do you ever think trust is overrated in like a certain category? Or is there a case where it's maybe not as important for one brand versus another?
- [15:24]
A
I think trust can be miscast. It's a little word that covers a whole lot of stuff and I think you have to understand what it means within the category and to the brand. In a low risk category, it's hygiene rather than hero. Nobody holds a candlelit vigil over their chewing gum. It really, it's not that important. I'm sorry Wrigley, but it's really not. But even there, if you think about it, if you know the name and you trust it, it removes hesitation, it supports pricing and it makes broad reach advertising work harder. Regardless of category. It is important and there are definite, definitely some categories where trust is definitively more important than others. But then it's interesting because generally if you think about financial services, otc, drugs, it's a cost of entry more than a distinctive or a differentiating asset. You can't really say trust us more than another brand that's been around for as long. It's not to say that building trust in any category is not important. It is. I think you just have to recognize it means very different things and you build it in very different ways. I do think that IPA report is a very good corrective because the strongest trust building campaigns, and I think it's a misnomer, just call them trust campaigns because I'm not sure that's what their intent was. That's what they got, they built trust. But I think they definitely outperform on a number of really practical things like acquisition, sales, share, profit. So super important. But it is important to remember that the strongest trust building campaigns are not actually talking about trust. They're addressing very real human truths. They're making emotional connections and they're building or rebuilding brand misperceptions. It's not like the brief is build trust. The brief is fix the problem, connect with the people, tell them about us, whatever it is. So it, I think it just covers a multitude of sins and I think if anything it might make marketers Lazy going, oh, just build me a trust building campaign.
- [17:36]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. That it'd be interesting to look at the campaigns that they used for that study. And yeah, I bet that none of them are saying trust us, please.
- [17:44]
A
No, that creative brief does not go out for the most part and say build trust.
- [17:48]
B
Yeah. So we are a television agency. So I have to ask this. I was reviewing some Edelman data Edelman has posted every year and they were pointing to how earned media and independent voices are among the most credible sources for building trust in a brand. So Katrina, where do you think paid advertising, specifically television, where does that fit in the trust building ecosystem? Is there that inherent credibility that comes with showing up in a media environment like television?
- [18:15]
A
I think there definitely is. I would put TV in the legitimizer and amplifier bucket. TV is a microphone, but it's not a morality transplant. It does not grant you morality purity, which is strong words. Just because it says on TV doesn't mean it's, it's gonna work. It does make a brand feel more established because the context is regulated. It's professionally produced. Customers also know that TV's expensive and it legitimizes those companies who can afford the investment. Without a doubt. And Thinkbox reports ads in that kind of environment are seen as 44% more trustworthy than those in user generated or unregulated environments. So that's huge advantage. And, and from our experience, we see trust scores rise almost universally across almost all our brands who start running TV for the first time. When we start seeing the upper funnel metrics increase. Now that does take time and it happens after we see other mid funnel brand pre engagement signals. So yes, amplify if not moral compass, as it were.
- [19:30]
C
No, that makes total sense. It is at the end of the day a flex though, for sure. That's why people buy super bowl spots. And if you've seen a brand that's been on television versus a brand that has a small banner ad, you're probably gonna go, okay. The TV brand had to go through some hoops and some level of success to be there. But I also wonder if that's a bit of a biased perspective coming from my generation, which really grew up as TV being the end all be all. And it's still this magnificent platform. But there's so many other options now to establish trust as well. But it's also one of the best platforms for building mental availability. Right. And in order to establish trust, you need to establish mental availability and be consistent with all of your Assets and whatnot. And it's harder to do that with any other channel other than tv. That's where it. It really shines.
- [20:22]
A
What's really funny, though, Rob, you say that, and that's even amongst this generation, the super bowl is super effective. I was just going over the CS data, and it's incredible the legitimacy that those spots carry with them still, because of the price tag, I have a feeling.
- [20:37]
B
Yeah. So you're saying, Katrina, even the younger generation still see something like the super bowl as a legitimizer. Here's the big question of this episode. Do we think, can you advertise your way to trust? Does advertising. Does it only amplify trust that's already been earned through something like experience and behavior?
- [20:54]
A
Well, I'll be the spoiler in here. My view is that advertising is an accelerant if, and this is a big if, if the business has genuinely changed, it helps the market notice faster. Domino's is a positive case. The advertising was believable because the pizza had changed first. Volkswagen is a cautionary tale. And once, regulators said about 590,000 U.S. diesel vehicles had been fitted with defective and deceptive devices. No amount of lovely film craft was going to make that trust gap look imaginary. You can advertise your way to fame, but trust is a little less gullible, as they say. And I think it was Bill Byrne, back from DDB fame, who said, a great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster, will get more people to know it's bad. And the same is definitely true for a trust score. So I believe trust must be earned. Advertising is a megaphone which can help or hinder, depending on whether or not you've earned it.
- [22:00]
B
Did Katrina steal your line, Rob?
- [22:02]
C
Well, here's what's so funny is I always quote David Ogilvy on this because, you know, he's just. He's the og, right? He said something along the lines of, a great ad can sell a bad product once. That was his point. And I'm like. I quote David Ogilvie way too much. So I went online to find a better one, and sure enough, it was Filipino. I'm like, oh, that's a mic dropper. I'm just gonna use that one. It's like a great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. Dang. All right. You know, and in tribute of DDB going away, I thought it'd be a good final salute. Hey, great minds think alike.
- [22:38]
A
That's exactly what I was going to say.
- [22:40]
C
It sounds a lot better coming from you.
- [22:41]
B
Anyways, Katrina, one thing I'm curious about is, like, familiarity, because advertising can help build familiarity. And doesn't that build trust? Am I more familiar with someone? Something I'm more likely to trust it? Do you think there's a loose connection there?
- [22:53]
A
Yes, it does build familiarity. The more familiar, as long as it's good, you build trust. The more familiar. If you become familiar with all the problems, not so much.
- [23:03]
B
Sure. So it feels like the right strategy is if you have a trust issue, like, first, address, solve, why did this happen? Diagnose. And then advertising can be a very effective way to amplify and build up your trust. But if you don't have the core experience, whatever happened, if you don't address that, then you're not going to be able to advertise your way to trust. All right, so wrap us up here thinking about our personal lives. What is one brand, product or service that has never let you down, one that you trust completely, and what do you think they've done to earn it? And, Katrina, let's start with you.
- [23:35]
A
You know, this one was super tough for me because I think, like, it's changed. I'll steal Rob's thunder. But it's like, it used to be Apple, but then, you know, not anymore, just it. But anyway, so I was actually thinking, and for me, I think it's Jeep. Like, we have always had Jeeps as a family. We run them and run them until they die. They don't let us down. It's like they're pretty basic. It's really not a flamboyant answer. But I think the point is trust is a little, I don't know, neutral beige in the best possible way. Jeep starts, works, keeps on working, doesn't make my life harder. And in branding terms, it's not really boring. It's a safety moat, like, around the brand.
- [24:18]
C
But as a wrangler lover, wouldn't you also just say the brand of Jeep is also not embarrassing to say? I have a Jeep.
- [24:25]
B
Jeeps are cool.
- [24:26]
C
Jeep's a good brand. So the brand plays into that kind of durability.
- [24:31]
A
Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, I don't feel awful. And it's not like saying, I have a BMW, for instance, you know, which is kind of a little more status driven, but it's just like, right, this is functional, this is useful.
- [24:40]
C
Everybody loves a Jeep. Yeah.
- [24:42]
A
What about you?
- [24:43]
C
Gosh, for me, I brought it up on this podcast before. I have so much love and trust for Mr. Car Wash. I am a Mr. Car Wash. Die. Hard. I have been a loyal customer for decades. They're consistent in their experience. We could be on a road trip going through denver and the Mr. Car Wash delivers. I know their employees are like part owners, but you can tell they feels great. They're happy. The only thing that hasn't been consistent is they got rid of their coffee during COVID and it never came back. And I miss getting my cup of coffee as part of my experience, but I just. I love them.
- [25:21]
B
Yeah, they're probably like, we saved a lot of money not doing this. We don't pay it back. This one was hard. I honestly feel like a lot of brands have kind of let me down in some way. So it's hard to pick, like, what is the most trustworthy. But for me, it's Sleep Number. I love Sleep Number. I've had a sleepover bed my whole life, and the store experience is great. I've always had very consistent, like, delivery from Sleep Number. They've even helped me when I moved with, like, how do you break down the bed and move it? And, yeah, that's a brand that I don't know why I would ever buy from another one. And I think a lot of it comes down to trust in the product.
- [25:56]
A
Yeah. And good delivery, like, you sleep well at night.
- [25:59]
B
There you go. Yeah.
- [26:00]
C
You can see how important that is in the mattress category right now because it has been one that's been disruptive over the last 15 years by very price sensitive, quick delivery products that are supposedly as good as all of the premium brands. So Sleep Number's done a great job and continuing to differentiate themselves both in quality and in technology. And like you said, customer experience.
- [26:25]
B
Definitely. Well, Karina, this was amazing. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [26:29]
A
Thank you for having me. It was fun.
- [26:31]
C
Great stuff.
- [26:33]
B
That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor De Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn and if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing. Marketing architects.