Does ‘trust’ really matter for brands?

Don’t worry about trying to go good and change things for the better. Just do whatever it takes to sell stuff to the most people at the highest margin. Got it. Thanks brainiacs.

This article is shallow and reflects everything that is wrong with this industry. I am amazed that Thinkerbell were happy to go out with this piece. I’m sure a bunch of their clients and staff can see this article for what it is – a couple of privileged white blokes telling the world how it is.

…isn’t it entirely case-by-case?

You’d think marketers working in regulated industries like financial services and airlines are concerned with being a trusted brand; rightfully so.

You can’t necessarily say trust is not apparent on an FMCG level, either. Pharmaceuticals are an entirely different proposition to bottled water.

The local baby formula shortage in 2015 comes to mind: poor trust in the quality of Chinese baby formula led to massive diagou shopping here in the more ‘trustworthy’ Australian market.

That’s not considering other factors like whether or not the advertiser’s a publicly-listed company, or if they’ve had any recent scandals… you get the idea.

There’s a bit more nuance required for a piece like this, but it’d be great to see a revision or follow-up piece on this. Not sure all this hate is warranted, either.

This is a fad, not a sustainable brand.

This coming from an agency that’s more interested in it’s own fame that it’s clients is so ironic.

There’s a reason brands are measured by trust in the long term, as it’s leads to the brand staying in market for generations. Household brands are trusted brands. Sure you can show a couple of flash in the pan examples of brands that generate sales through stunts and being different, but will they be around in 20-30 years time? This feels like a very shallow article designed to be controversial and not really thought through.

Classic example of an agency trying to define a broad category (brand and reputation) through the lens of the bit they do, using an example of extremely limited applicability to most brands.

Shallow, immature and self-serving.

… of Mumbrella comments.

Thanks to the Thinkerbell team for igniting some passionate engagement with your self-serving reductionism, logical leaps and false equivalencies.

In an attempt to contribute some substance, may I offer:

Don’t hire an ad agency to think holistically about your brand, unless your brand only needs culture-stunty attention hacks to grow. But if it does, then Thinkerbell is probably a good choice!

Using bad examples of “trust-building” advertising to support the proposition that building trust is irrelevant fails even the most basic clear thinking test. Hot tip: there is more to building brands – especially outside flash in the pan fmcg brands – than advertising and culture stunts.

Lessons from Liquid Death, like Patagonia, Olympic athletes and FBI negotiators are of incredibly limited relevance to most brands.

OK, if the science is so good then provide some examples from the other categories? Liquid Death sells because it is front and centre of a bunch of podcasts young males listen to.

Make a compelling argument for fridges.

I’m not sure using one product in one category is a significant enough sample size to make your point. Can you expand to look at finance, whitegoods, auto etc please before we take you seriously?

@@nice article… no it wasn’t Adam, he can’t elucidate his thoughts that well. Probably someone else at the agency.

@the authors…

Dependability. The purchaser expects water, and the purchaser gets water. That feels like dependability to me. Please qualify the types of negative feedback the company was highlighting; were they not receiving water in their can?

Integrity. A product called Liquid Death leveraging corpse paint and glory holes. Marketing that aligns with the brand. I’d call that integrity. You seem to be analysing this from your how-do-you-do-fellow-kids perspective.

But, really, these are just quibbles. There should be no reason for a product like this to exist, unless you’re in Flint, Michigan, the Gaza Strip or other such distressed locales. Celebrating its container for being only slightly less damaging to this earth than plastic is a sign you need to get your heads out of your proverbials.

Thanks Adam.

‘Having a go’ without adding to the argument is rather vacuous. To aid in advancing the conversation here are some logical fallacies for your benefit:

Ad Hominem – one that attempts to invalidate an opponent’s position based on a personal trait or fact about the opponent rather than through logic.

Straw man – one that argues against a hyperbolic, inaccurate version of the opposition rather than their actual argument.

Equivocation – a statement crafted to mislead or confuse readers or listeners by using multiple meanings or interpretations of a word or simply through unclear phrasing.

Appeal to ignorance – a claim that something must be true because it hasn’t been proven false. It can also be a claim that something must be false because it hasn’t been proven true. This is also known as the burden of proof fallacy.

Circular argument – one that uses the same statement as both the premise and the conclusion. No new information or justification is introduced.

Appeal to hypocrisy – also known as a tu quoque fallacy, is a rebuttal that responds to one claim with reactive criticism rather than with a response to the claim itself.

But what if every time Chris walks by said target, he’s naked? Exposure effect still in play there fellas?

I think the marketing sciences they refer to is making the points they are talking about. The example is attempting to bring the science to life.

The toxicity of this is concerning. Is all this hate purely due to the article or an irrational hatred of the agency who released it?

Samsung fridges

Name four.

Yes to all of that, but also maybe your ‘Thinkers’ aren’t as smart as they think they are. There a so many holes in this article that I’m really surprised I highly regarded agency would put it’s name to this.