True Lies

A recent Nielsen study revealed that people most trust what their friends say about stuff, and that they trust generic online consumer opinions as much as they do branded communications.

I think this has more to do with the contextual reality of the expectations than it does with any inherent trustworthiness in a particular communications medium (or lack thereof).

Media are agnostic when it comes to meaning and utility, or so this dim bulb believes.  TV isn't more or less authentic than the Internet, and information gathered from a chat room won't inherently prove more useful than the same info copied from a roadside billboard.  What differentiates trustworthy content from that which is lesser so has everything to do with, well, content -- i.e. what is being communicated -- and the context in which it's being shared (i.e. the immediately obvious and beneficial use for the information).

As such, trust is based on expectations: if I know that TV ads are generally funny but reasonably devoid of motivating info, I'll trust them to perform to those low standards (a result borne out by another Nielsen study on advertising), so it's less distrust and more the absence of it altogether?  If I usually associate texts on my phone with friends or other reasonably intimate info, and I get generic sales pitches instead, I'm going to learn to trust that channel to tell me nothing useful, too (also confirmed by the Nielsen research).

So, conversely, if I were surprised by some consistent delivery of meaning and utility via TV spots, my trust would increase, as would my appreciation of mobile marketing if it similarly improved? 

The Nielsen data seems to support such extrapolation: the most trusted "form of advertising" is a recommendation from a friend, which is something you'd expect to have merit coming from someone you know (or in response to a direct question); some of the lowest are online video and ads before movies, which are presented without regard to the who, what, where, when, or why of context.  It doesn't help that the content is often purposely pointless.

Why do "branded websites" tie "consumer opinions posted online" for trustworthiness?  Similar expectations: the corporation is going to throw blah blah at me, and the aggregate conclusions of the crowd are going to trend toward some common denominator.  In both cases, we get what we pay for, so to speak.

It's marvelously intriguing information.  Just think how many marketers are running away from traditional media, like newspapers or radio, because they think consumers don't trust them anymore?  An equal number of them are racing to embrace social media campaigns because they are assumed to be more trustworthy.  

Both assumptions are wrong.  Why don't we focus on making the conduct of our businessesmeaningful and useful, and then structure the marketing communications to deliver that information?

The Bulb Asks:

• Is the best way to answer a question to wait for somebody to actually ask it?
• If trust emerges from experience, can we improve any medium's ranking?
• Are consumers themselves the ultimate source of marketing-relevant content?

Comments

[Jonathan]

I understand your point, and I honestly don't know exactly what Nielsen intended to cover in its study. My interpretation of it was opt-in marketing as being all about selling stuff; companies have no ulterior, do-good-in-the-world desire to communicate with you or me otherwise.

'Marketing,' by definition, is about commerce, I think. So while it's cool that you opted-in to my blog, I'm not really trying to sell you anything (unless you got interested in buying my book, I guess). I don't run ads, and I'm not ever going to send you promo offers. So you 'subscribed' to my blog. I don't think you gave me permission to market anything to you...

I also think that your point about what permission marketing COULD be is spot on. I wish I could get businesses that impact my life (from my car to my internet service provider) to send me truly relevant, meaningful information...again, treating me more as a subscriber to content vs. a target for their marketing.

Sadly, this never happens. And I think it's a giant opportunity.

[Dan]

I was thinking about giving permission to have a relationship, not opting in for promo offers. Perhaps Nielsen, me and you aren't talking about the same type of thing. I'm thinking what's really effective is allowing a person, business or group with a product, service or idea you identify with, telling them it's OK for them to send you emails with information that's relevant to me. In this case you WANT to get the info. It's not like getting stuff from Pizza Hut. Maybe we are talking about two different kinds of permission marketing. I, for instance, have subscribed to your blog in my RSS feed. I choose to read it. It's important to me to get the info. If you only distributed it with emails, I'd sign up for that. Is this not the type of thing Nielsen is looking at in this study?

[Jonathan]

Well, unless those low numbers equate to high numbers of orders/order size. My gut tells me that the broad concept of 'permission marketing' is faulty, in that granting permission so that you could receive the occasional promo offer is nowhere near synonymous with signing onto, or actually maintaining, any sort of 'relationship' with a business. Calling opting-in to a mailing list 'permission' is like equating a shug with passionate agreement. :)

[Dan]

I was surprised by the low numbers for "signed up emails". Does this tend to question the idea of permission marketing being very effective?

[Jonathan]

Really good point.

I think the message has to mesh with the medium in order to be realized as authentic and truthful. I'm not sure that I think media have innate qualities -- newspapers being more or less authentic than blogs, for instance -- but they do offer variable contexts, and are consumed in different ways (and at different places and times).

So when a brand strategy calls for putting an ad in a videogame, or creating an 'advergame,' I'd say it's a gross misunderstanding of the context of gaming. There's no such thing as an 'authentic' ad in a videogame.

Similarly, chatting about a brand via social media might fit the context of a conversational platform, but has no connection to how said conversations are subsequently used. This gives us "our branding strategy is to get consumers to talk about our branding" that accounts for lots of the experimentation (so-called) in social media these days.

Content and context. You need both to be real and meaningful, right?

[Andrew]

I thoroughly enjoyed this entry.

So, what then if a company already has the trustworthy and meaningful conduct and continues to explore those two options that you assume to be wrong? I have seen plenty of companies shy away from those channels despite their actions already matching their words. It could very well be that the mediums through which people hear from companies directly influence the way the company is perceived - despite their greatest efforts. Even if their message is 100% authentic and truthful, does that automatically mean that their message will be taken that way?

[Jonathan]

As the great sage Ed McMahon said:

"You are correct, sir!"

[Jonathan]

Changing reality is a powerful idea, and it's a big 'undiscovered country' for marketers looking to deliver branding, methinks...

Brand is behavior.

[Tamsen McMahon (@Sametz)]

All steak, no sizzle. All hat, no cowboy.

It's interesting to me that the recent discussions of authenticity have now turned to trust--because ultimately that's what we hope authenticity will produce or enable.

In my mind, authenticity comes down to two choices: change what you do to match what you say, or change what you say to match what you do.

The problem is, it's a lot easier to change the words we use (advertising) than our actions (because that means changing the behaviors of an entire organization and the people that run it and work for it). It's really easy to change words. Exceedingly difficult to change behaviors.

To restore people's faith in traditional media, I agree the solution is exactly what you suggest: if we want people to trust traditional media, we need to make it trustworthy. We need to minimize--heck, eliminate!--the disconnect between words and actions.

But because that involves making the harder change (changing behaviors), the media itself can't fix it.

[Tom Asacker]

Great post Jonathan! Have you read, "Has Advertising Killed Itself?" http://tinyurl.com/mj7tg8 Would love to hear your thoughts.