A consumer is no longer learning about a product from just a print or a TV commercial. In a very short period of time, she’s confronted with product information served to her via websites, blogs, social sites, price comparison sites, product comparison sites, mobile platforms … and, oh yes, still (and increasingly) from her friends down the street.

We wanted to know how she was coping with all this new information. Was the additional product information frustrating? How did it affect her confidence in the product? Did she enjoy this learning? Was she inclined to share what she learned? To what extent did the consumers differ in how they “consumed” this information?

With these questions in hand, we began the research that year in two countries — the US and China. Since then, we’ve expanded it to several other key countries: Brazil, India, Russia and England. We conducted every wave of the study among 600 people per country, with an equal mix of Gen X, Gen Y and Baby Boomers, equally split between men and women.

Clearly, product information is valued more and more by consumers around the world. In all countries consumers strongly agree that information availability has made them more confident in their brand choices, and has increased their satisfaction with brands. And we see all data points increasing over the last two waves of this research (2013 and 2015).

A very significant segment of the population finds the researching and learning about products to actually be fun, rewarding and enjoyable. This joy and fulfilment has increased in most countries over the last two years. Their knowledge about a category or product gives them “social currency”— information to share with others when discussing various products. Doing so enhances their sense of self, and self-esteem. (A good example of the longer-term growth in this attitude is China, where we have seen consumers strongly agree on the measure of “people admire me because of my expertise” increase from 25 per cent in 2009, to 57 per cent in 2015!!!)

This data reinforces the need for marketers to aggressively supply consumers with desired product information and make it easy for consumers to obtain it, internalise it, enjoy it, and pass it on. Consumers are one of the most important (and cost-effective) channels of information a marketer could ever ask for. They present their brand knowledge to friends and families with enthusiasm, and we know that their words — due to their trusted nature — are usually the most respected and valued by consumers as against alternative “media” channels. Luckily for marketers, consumers today often manifest this desire for social currency by becoming active advocates for brands. And in countries such as China and India, the overall levels of advocacy interest are very high.

While all of this is pleasing for marketers to hear, today’s consumers are also putting up a hurdle that the brand information must face, in order for them to gladly accept and act on this product information. And that hurdle is their growing demand for trust.

To what extent do they always seek out trusted sources of information on brands? In Brazil, China, India, and Russia, over two-thirds of the respondents now strongly agreed that they always seek out trusted sources!

The new demands for trust A scan of news stories today across the world points to many instances where people have lost trust. A Cohn & Wolfe study in 2014 indicated that only 3 per cent of Americans, British, Italians, Swedes, French and Spaniards say that “big businesses are very honest and transparent”. And in Germany, the number is only 1 per cent!!

And the marketing world is not helping itself when it comes to engendering trust. A MediaBrix/Forbes report indicates that 86 per cent of US internet users feel they have been misled by videos that appeared to be content, but turned out to be sponsored ads

In the UK, only 20 per cent of consumers report a high level of confidence in information on social media (Source: YouGov.UK; 2014) And 57 per cent of marketers say that bad behaviour by brands on social media is eroding trust in their content (Source: KeepSocialHonest.com/YouGov Survey)

It really is common sense, that having product information trusted by consumers is very important. We have all seen report after report showing the connection between trust and higher purchase intent, stronger repeat purchases, higher share of wallet, a willingness to pay a price premium, and even stronger growth in stock price.

But what we are seeing now is a dramatic increase in size of the trust hurdle consumers are putting up. At a global level, consumers are becoming more discriminating, and “holding brands to higher standards than ever before.” And we have also seen an increase in consumers rejecting manufacturer-led information, with distrust being highest in China.

To obtain a deeper understanding of this dynamic, we set out to understand which attributes drive brand trust in the minds of today’s consumers. The top two drivers of trust were most closely connected to a manufacturer’s products: product performance and claim truthfulness. Product performance was seen as a function of quality (‘I’m always confident in the quality of this brand’), reliability (‘This brand always delivers what I expect’) and the ability to meet expectations on a consistent basis (‘I’m never disappointed with this brand’). Claim truthfulness was considered a function of a brand’s character (‘This brand has a character that I respect; can always believe’) coupled with a history of producing reliable claims in the past (‘I can always count on this brand to tell the truth about itself’).

The second, but significantly lower, set of drivers were “innovation” and “customer-centricity”, where innovation is considered a function of product updates (‘This brand is always up to date’) and the frequency by which a manufacturer brings such products to market (‘This brand is a leader/continually innovates’). Customer-centricity, seen as slightly less important than innovation and significantly less important than the product-related drivers, stemmed from a brand being seen as putting their consumer’s needs front and centre (‘This brand has great respect for customers or is always looking out for its customers’). While seen as viable factors, surprisingly “support for social causes” and “transparency around criticisms” were not considered critical drivers of brand trust.

A few things for brands to consider Product efficacy rules the day. Building things that work (and that consumers have a need for) is a sure-fire way to gain their trust. It is essential to pair good products with claims that accurately represent their effects without setting unfair or unrealistic expectations. Overpromises might get you the first sale, but they are awfully hard to sustain.

Social responsibility efforts are good (and in some categories and emerging markets, essential) but they can’t make up for product shortcomings. Brands might do better looking for ways to harness their product’s power in a participatory, socially responsible fashion. A recent example of this can be seen in Kimberly-Clark’s efforts to remove the cardboard centre tubes of its Scott Naturals brand toilet paper, or Crayola launching its Meld ’N Mold kit allowing kids to recycle old crayons and transform them into new packs of custom-coloured crayons.

Time will tell how consumers react to the ever-increasing wealth of information available to them at their fingertips. But one thing’s for certain. A brand will always want consumers to answer affirmatively to the all-important question, “Can I trust you?”

Terry Peigh is Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, Interpublic Group. We have reproduced the edited excerpts with permission from FCB Ulka and Cogito Consulting

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