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Good Branding Stops Your Customers From Switching, Not Good Deals

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Brand managers, get on it!

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Energy companies in the UK are using specific branding approaches instead of product innovation to keep customers, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

While previous research has tended to focus on pricing, this study looked at the branding strategies and personalities of the Big Six energy firms – British Gas, SSE, EDF Energy, E.ON UK, npower and Scottish Power. They wanted to find out whether increasing consumer loyalty results in reducing switching behaviour. The Big Six represent more than 90 per cent of all energy supplied in the UK consumer sector.

The researchers looked at the electricity market between 2013 – when the number of customers switching providers reached its lowest level – and 2015. And, the researchers did find that brand personality consistency over time is important.

Consistent brands (such as EDF Energy) performed better, and their customers decreased switching. This was compared to firms like npower and Scottish Energy, who had significantly changed their brand personality position or communicated inconsistently in this period.

Providers that had a significantly different brand personality position between marketing communication channels, such as their website and annual report, also had more switching than those that remained consistent. Interestingly, the majority of the brands studied were inconsistent on this measure.

Lead author Dr Richard Rutter says that this research demonstrates the long-term importance of corporate branding. “Brand personality does have an impact on customer retention. The Big Six energy providers recognise the power of brand identity when attempting to persuade consumers to switch providers. Rather than doing so simply on the basis of superior financial offers, they are increasingly looking to build a long-term brand personality with which consumers will identify.

“These organisations wish to be viewed as customer-focused and as offering a fair deal to consumers. There seem to be subtle but important differences in the ways that each company is choosing to communicate with its domestic audience and some are more effective than others.”

Concentrating on companies’ communication through their websites and annual reports, the researchers examined what brand personality dimensions – defined as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness – were communicated most strongly and how consistently each organisation communicated its brand between the website and annual report. They then assessed the organisation’s performance, measured by consumer loyalty or switching behaviour.

They found that brands communicating excitement more strongly, such as EDF Energy, had the lowest levels of switching. The findings also suggest an ideal brand personality for the UK energy sector: low to medium levels of sincerity and competence and high levels of excitement and ruggedness communicated through the website lead to better performance. The authors say the annual report should maintain this, but also communicate a higher level of competence.

Said co-author Prof Konstantinos Chalvatzis, “Under scrutiny from the public and politicians, the energy sector is changing rapidly. Branding within the energy sector has become increasingly important, as energy firms seek to attract and, importantly, retain customers.

“We find that certain energy brands, for example EDF Energy have communicated their personality consistently, while others, such as npower and British Gas, seem to have repositioned themselves. A strong brand personality alone is not enough to prevent consumer switching, rather, particular dimensions of personality are more favourable than others and the relevance of specific personality traits can change.”

The authors recommend that firms should not drastically change their branding each year. Brand managers should also consider how to increase the communication of excitement in relation to their brands without being inauthentic, and ensure that their brand is consistent over time and between different marketing media.

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Advertising in Fashion Magazines is Dead to us Now

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Now? Fashion brands are meeting with social media influencers directly.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Hundreds of NY Fashion Week influencers were invited to a party specifically held to put them in front of brands that want some of the spotlight. The party was held by a company called Influence, which connects brands and influencers. Together, they create social campaigns that expand visibility and engage new audiences for brands. The influencer gets paid, and the brands get to reach audiences that they might not be able to access using other methods. Welcome to the “now” of fashion and brand marketing.

Influence is a sister company to the already-successful operation called Newswire. Newswire currently have an online portal that publishes thousands of press releases every day. Journalists and influencers can go straight to company news, by keyword or subject search. This means that they can get their news directly from the companies, rather than have the interaction brokered through a PR agency. This renders the traditional PR agency almost obsolete.

The way the PR industry is changing is similar to the way that fashion magazines are going. Teen magazines and fashion publications are no longer the huge, powerful entities that brokered deals between brands/fashion houses and their audiences. Now, it is the online fashion influencers who have huge sway with their fans, and brands can contact them directly. This circumvents the hugely expensive fashion magazines, whose circulations are falling dramatically.

As an example, a top YouTube fashion influencer is Chriselle Lim. Her channel is growing at a breakneck pace. Her videos reveal how to transform basic pieces of clothing into stylish apparel. Chriselle has support from global brands such as Target and Estee Lauder.

The change in the way brands and fashion are marketed has been incredibly rapid. Fashion magazines? Pah. Now Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are the place to put brand marketing spend.

But back to the party. The event hosted hundreds of NY Fashion Week Influencers at Manhattan’s chic Sixty Soho Hotel. Influencers and brands from across the globe arrived to share in networking and developing opportunities for campaign partnerships that strengthen an Influencer’s channel and widen content reach for brands. The party was also used to promote Influence.com itself. And it worked, because here you are, reading about this new company.

Said Director of Influencer Marketing, Magnolia Sevenler, “Whether you are an influencer or marketer, the Influence by Newswire platform provides a community to build your campaigns.”

According to Sevenler, the platform has been well-received from both marketers and creators for its simplicity and reach. “It’s exciting to see all the positive feedback…as we enter a new era of marketing, where micro-influencers can be rewarded for their passions and brands can reach new untapped audiences.”

The company has plans to expand its network and add additional features to enhance users’ experience. And it is doing this all because the fashion magazine industry is destined for a papery grave. It’s time to move on, people, and bring your marketing spend with you.

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Marketing Survey: Spontaneous Sex is the Best Kind

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Keep this in mind if you are marketing sexy products.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

What does a company that makes sex products do for their annual Valentine’s sales push? They do a survey, to find out how best to market to their customers. And here are the results.

Valentine’s Day, it seems, is starting to suck for everyone. Singles have made it their own anti-holiday, full of memes and proclamations about the commercialisation of the day. But what about couples? Is it all it’s really cracked up to be?

A company called K-Y undertook a survey to find out how to best market their sex products to customers. And it makes for depressing reading. What was once thought to be a romantic and sexy day has become an experience full of pressure and hype. Pressure to buy the right card, pick the sexiest lingerie and have the most mind-blowing sex of your life – and you only have one day to make it all happen.

According to the Love All 365 survey, half of Millennials feel they are missing out if they don’t have sex on Valentine’s Day, but more than 60% of them report that the sex doesn’t live up to the hype. That’s a lot of lead up for a big letdown.

The survey further illuminates the Valentine’s Day tension by revealing that while 82% of people are more likely to have sex with their partner on Valentine’s Day, 83% report that sex is best when it’s impulsive versus planned. Preparing for sex at Valentine’s Day is certainly a faux pas many couples are guilty of committing in spite of the fact that, as the statistics affirm, our preference is for spontaneity.

The good news is that 97% of couples report that having good sex with their partners makes them feel more connected.

“We don’t want couples saving their ‘sexy’ for special occasions, when great sex can and should happen any day of the year,” said Nadja Korner, Marketing Director of K-Y. “Good sex helps strengthen the relationship, so instead of putting all your romantic energy into nights like Valentine’s Day, surprise your partner with that special sexy something on an unexpected night. After all, the essence of pleasure is spontaneity.”

So if you are creating an advertising campaign using a sexy theme, keep the idea of spontaneous sex in mind. Especially if you are targeting Millennials. ■

 

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Targeting Teenagers with Your ads? Here are the Four Personas to Appeal to

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Academics have identified four distinct personas of social media user that teenagers describe as shaping how they behave on social media.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Young social media users are categorised as either acting like the Geek, the Internet Celebrity, the Victim or the Lurker depending on their levels of online activity and visibility, University of Sussex academics say.

The categorisations are based on interviews the researchers conducted with children aged between 10 and 15-years-old for a new book, Researching Everyday Childhoods, published by Bloomsbury last month.

The interviews revealed many youngsters were increasingly savvy about maintaining their privacy online, often being motivated to protect themselves by unpleasant past personal experiences or negative incidents that affected classmates.

Dr Liam Berriman, lecturer in digital humanities at the University of Sussex, said: “Our research found that concerns about staying safe online created an atmosphere of intense anxiety for young people, even if they had not directly experienced any problems themselves. The young people we spoke to felt a great weight of responsibility for their safety online and were often motivated by the concern of being labelled a victim.”

“While there has been a lot of negative media coverage around teenagers’ interaction with social media, our findings are more hopeful that teenagers are responsible users of social media, are very conscious of the dangers and make considerable efforts to protect themselves against those risks.”

Teenagers navigate between the desire to be praised and recognised online and anxieties over the risk of opening themselves up to criticism and trolling. Among the four personas is the Internet Celebrity who is able to best use the latest trends and increasingly values “visibility of the self” through Instagram, Snapchat, the selfie and YouTube vlogging.

The internet celebrity

But academics also identified how young people are experimenting with and enjoying invisibility online. They describe the Lurker as someone able to avoid peer dramas arising through platforms such as Facebook, whilst still engaging in fun peer activities such as stalking their favourite music bands online.

The lurker

The Geek, meanwhile, uses invisibility to anonymously share and promote their amateur media creations online, such as music videos or fan fiction writing. The academics described how the Geeks’ long hours of labour on projects risked parental concern that their behaviour was obsessive or addictive.

The geek

Professor Rachel Thomson, professor of childhood and youth studies at the University of Sussex, said, “What is distinctive about these active social media users was the entrepreneurial character of their practice, with ‘play’ re-envisaged as a form of economically rewarding work. By gaining an audience, young people are aware that they could capture advertising and corporate sponsorship. The dream is to ‘go viral’, establishing a career as a cultural creator.”

The research also highlights the risks contained in a world dominated by personal visibility with the Victim left to suffer personal exposure and shame following the creation and display of intimate material such as sexting and the loss of control of this material.

The victim

The Victim’s high visibility is often out of their control with their presence and heightened without their consent as private material is extracted from them and exchanged under false premises.

This can vary from the frustration of being tagged in photographs and the creation of an unflattering digital footprint through the activities of others to the more invasive techniques of fraping, where a person’s online identity is hijacked without their permission, or sharing of intimate photographs.

Dr Berriman said, “These examples reveal the impossibility of non- participation in the world of social media. A teenager does not necessarily have to create an online persona, it is something that can be created by others.”

This is great food for thought for anyone trying to catch the attention of teenagers online. You may even need to consider four different approaches when targeting the teen market. Thanks, science!

 

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Millennials Are Not All Alike (And They May Surprise You!)

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New research studying the millennials market has identified five unique subgroups.

A new research study from Zeldis Research Associates reveals surprising findings for marketers which belie the frequent mythology that Millennials are “all the same.”

Unlike many other market studies attempting to better understand Millennials as a single group, Zeldis researchers identified five Millennial segments based on income, attitudes, and other important factors.  This “Seen One Millennial and You Haven’t Seen Them All” study is part of Zeldis’ ongoing investigation into how marketers can better reach and successfully engage this group.

“Despite a lot of the media coverage we hear, Millennials are not one homogenous group, unfortunately and incorrectly characterised by a few negative stereotypes such as lazy or entitled,” said Zeldis Executive Vice President Amy Rey. “Our research shows that there are important differences among Millennials. We wanted to dispel some of the myths and help marketers better understand the nuances that will help make Millennial-targeted outreach, products and messaging more effective.”

Five Identifiable Segments

Based on online interviews with 1000 Millennials aged 21-36, the Zeldis researchers identified five unique segments:  Faithful Optimists (31% of the sample), Struggling Parents (23%), Secular Activists (22%) Tech-Savvy Independents (14%), and Pessimistic Conservatives (10%).  Some of their findings include:

– Faithful Optimists, the largest segment, tend to be joyful, hardworking, dependable, and religious. They are more likely to be non-white and heterosexual.

– Struggling Parents tend to be pessimistic about their lives and about the country. They don’t pay much attention to politics or technology. They are more likely to be white women with children and tend to be less educated and from rural areas.

– Secular Activists are more likely to be politically liberal, and to be pessimistic about the country’s future. They tend to be single, childless, and secular and are more likely to be part of the LGBT community.

-Tech-Savvy Independents are more politically conservative but also environmentally conscious. Optimistic about the economy, this segment has a higher proportion of males and non-whites, and tends to be from urban locations.

– Pessimistic Conservatives, the smallest segment, are likely to be from suburban areas. They tend to be religious and politically conservative. Skewing male and non-white, they have high incomes but are pessimistic about their economic future.

Though holding some attitudes and beliefs in common with other segments, each group showed nuanced differences that the Zeldis researchers believe are important for companies to understand and apply when marketing their products.

The full results are available at ZeldisMillennialsStudy.com.

 

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You Might be Paying too Much for ads on Google and Bing

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Before you dish out money to bid for a top-ranked ad position on a search engine, you may want to pause and make sure it’s actually going to pay off.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research out of Binghamton University, State University of New York suggests that instead of just spending to get that top spot, advertisers should be considering other factors as well to ensure they are getting the best results from their sponsored search advertising campaigns.

Sponsored search advertising involves paying search engines, like Google and Bing, to bid for placements on the search results pages for specific keywords and terms. The ads appear in sponsored sections, separate from the organic search results, on those pages.

“The common belief in sponsored search advertising is that you should buy the top ad position to get more clicks, because that will lead to more sales,” said Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Marketing Chang Hee Park. “But the fee for the top position could be larger than the expected sales you’d get off that top position.”

Park, with the help of Binghamton University Professor of Marketing Manoj Agarwal, analysed data collected from a search engine and created a model that can forecast the number of clicks advertisers could expect in sponsored search markets based on four factors:

  • Rank in the sponsored listings
  • Website quality
  • Brand equity
  • Selling proposition

The model gives advertisers a way to quantify the expected clicks they’d get by adjusting these four factors, while also taking into consideration how their competitors are managing these four factors. This could enable advertisers to find a perfect blend of the four factors to ensure they are getting the most out of what they are paying for their ad positions.

It may also indicate that they should be spending more money to bolster their brand or website rather than amplifying their offers in top ad positions.

“Using this model, you may find that paying less for a lower ad position while investing more in improving your website is more effective than spending all of that money strictly on securing top ad positions,” said Agarwal.

This applies especially if your competitor has a poorer-quality website, but is spending more than you on securing top ad positions.

Their model found that poor-quality advertisers that are ranked higher in ad positions drive consumers back to the search results page, leading consumers to then click on advertisers in lower ad positions to find what they are looking for.

In contrast, they also found that a highly-ranked good-quality advertiser results in significantly less clicks for all the advertisers ranked below them.

“It’s more likely that in the top position, all advertisers being equal, you’ll get more clicks. But depending on these four factors, as well as the quality of your competitors, you may find that you’ll get more clicks in the second or the third position,” said Park.

“Conceptually, this is not a new idea, but now the model can help determine this by accounting for multiple factors at play at the same time.”

Advertisers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this research.

Park and Agarwal’s model found that simply reordering the listed advertisers could result in significant changes in overall click volume (the total number of clicks across all advertisers) for search engines.

“Because they often charge on a pay-per-click model, search engines can now simulate which ordering of advertisers in a sponsored search market results in the most overall clicks and, therefore, most revenue” said Park. “Search engines may want to consider charging advertisers in a way that gives the search engine more flexibility in determining the order in which the ads in sponsored sections are displayed.”

 

 

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Buyer Behaviour: Love Trumps Budget When Your Customer is Buying Sentimental Items

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People will always pay more when being led by the heart and not the head.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Brides and the bereaved beware: You, like many shoppers, may have a tendency to reject thriftiness when your purchase is a matter of the heart, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

People are reluctant to seek cost-saving options when buying what they consider sacred – such as engagement rings, cremation urns, or even desserts for a birthday party – for or to commemorate loved ones. The paper, published in Judgment and Decision Making, is the first to examine the implications of this phenomenon.

Even when they identify a less expensive alternative to be equally desirable, people choose the more expensive of two items. They also avoid searching for lower prices and negotiating better prices when the goods they’re buying are symbolic of love.

“People’s buying behaviour changes when they’re making purchases out of love because it feels wrong to engage in cost-saving measures,” said Peter McGraw, associate professor of marketing and psychology at CU. “People abandon cost-saving measures when it comes to sentimental buys because they want to avoid having to decide what is the right amount of money to spend on a loving relationship.”

The findings highlight how wedding, funeral and other industries can exploit consumers, said McGraw.

In one part of the study, which involved nearly 245 participants, the researchers asked attendees at a Boulder wedding show about their preference between two engagement rings. The attendees nearly always chose the more expensive ring when deciding between a more expensive ring with a bigger carat and a less expensive ring with a smaller carat.

“It’s important to be aware of this tendency not to seek cost savings because, over a lifetime, consumers make many purchases that are symbolic of love — whether for weddings, funerals, birthdays, and anniversaries,” said McGraw. “The loss of savings can really add up and put people in compromising financial situations.”

So how can we apply this to a marketing situation? If you are selling goods or services for sentimental events, play up the quality, not the price.

 

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Small Businesses Use Social Media Instead of a Website, Despite Risks

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A new survey indicates that 1 in 5 small businesses use social media in place of a website. Many assume a website is cost-prohibitive and may not consider the risks of not having one.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

 

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base. However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

“Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else’s basket, it’s risky,” said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. “If Facebook changes their algorithm, there’s nothing you can do.”

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritise posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses – as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. “You don’t necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website,” said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. “Maybe just start small.”

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard
Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimised for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimised for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimise for mobile in 2018.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, click here.

 

 

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Advertising is Getting Good with the Gays

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The advertising industry seems to have the power to shape society’s view of gay people. And it is going hard on proving it. 

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The past 15 years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of gays in advertising. Every ad seems to be getting good with the gays.

The media has transformed the stigmatised stereotype of gays into a new, socially desirable image of stylish consumers with high-end taste.

This marketing strategy affects the way gays understand themselves and influences the meaning of gayness for society in general, explains Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai, assistant professor of advertising at the University of Miami School of Communication, in a study published by the Journal of Advertising.

“The findings illuminate the influential role of advertising in informing and shaping personal identities and highlights the often ignored socio-political dimension of advertising, Tsai says. “In other words, when marketers argue that no matter who they target, ‘it’s just business,’ their marketing messages actually have broader, cultural impacts on the minority community.”

According to the study, five specific strategies emerged within these minority consumers to interpret the messages catered to them:

  • Gay men accepted the perception of “higher disposable income of gay male households” and transformed material consumption into a definition of self-worth. “I was on many consumer panels because I fit the profile of gay men who have disposable income and travel a lot,” one participant said.
  • Participation in the mass market was equated to membership in mainstream society. “We got money. We contribute to the corporation. We contributed to big business. We got families. We are part of the mainstream now,” a participant said.
  • Targeted advertising was identified as an essential step in achieving social political inclusion. “Consumer rights and citizenship, civil rights are intricately connected. And when we express our identity as a consumer, that reinforces and strengthens our identity as a citizen,” a participant said.
  • Perpetuating problematic depictions of gays as effeminate men or lesbians as “sexualized femme” was tolerated in the interests of social inclusion. “I was ambivalent when watching this commercial. It’s playing up the stereotype. But for me, if you can see gay people on TV, it’s positive,” one participant said.
  • Participants were willing to give up something of their subcultural identity for the sake of total acceptance in society. “When we are truly accepted in the society, we will just blend in… even that might mean sacrificing our uniqueness,” a participant said.

The next logical question is, how do you target your particular message to the gay community, if you want to attract their business? We await the next study…

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The Media is Now the Least-Trusted Institution Globally

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So, which citizens trust their media the most? And the least?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Let’s start with the USA. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. It is now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

The collapse of trust in the U.S. is driven by a staggering lack of faith in government, which fell 14 points to 33 percent among the general population, and 30 points to 33 percent among the informed public. The remaining institutions of business, media and NGOs also experienced declines of 10 to 20 points. These decreases have all but eliminated last year’s 21-point trust gap between the general population and informed public in the U.S.

“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs. The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.”

Conversely, China finds itself atop the Trust Index for both the general population (74) and the informed public (83). Institutions within China saw significant increases in trust led by government, which jumped eight points to 84 percent among the general population, and three points to 89 percent within the informed public. Joining China at the top of the Trust Index are India, Indonesia, UAE and Singapore.

For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally. In 22 of the 28 countries surveyed it is now distrusted. The demise of confidence in the Fourth Estate is driven primarily by a significant drop in trust in platforms, notably search engines and social media. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they do not know how to tell good journalism from rumour or falsehoods or if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organisation. The lack of faith in media has also led to an inability to identify the truth (59 percent), trust government leaders (56 percent) and trust business (42 percent).

This year saw a revival of faith in experts and decline in peers. Technical (63 percent) and academic (61 percent) experts distanced themselves as the most credible spokesperson from “a person like yourself,” which dropped six points to an all-time low of 54 percent.

“In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever,” said Stephen Kehoe, Global chair, Reputation. “There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People’s trust in them is collapsing, leaving a vacuum and an opportunity for bona fide experts to fill.”

Business is now expected to be an agent of change. The employer is the new safe house in global governance, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they trust their own company. And 64 percent believe a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions in the community where it operates.

This past year saw CEO credibility rise sharply by seven points to 44 percent after a number of high-profile business leaders voiced their positions on the issues of the day. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. This show of faith comes with new expectations; building trust (69 percent) is now the No. 1 job for CEOs, surpassing producing high-quality products and services (68 percent).

“Silence is a tax on the truth,” said Edelman. “Trust is only going to be regained when the truth moves back to centre stage. Institutions must answer the public’s call for providing factually accurate, timely information and joining the public debate. Media cannot do it alone because of political and financial constraints. Every institution must contribute to the education of the populace.”

Other key findings from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer include:

  • Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by Education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). Financial services (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
  • Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
  • Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.
  • Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).

It’s a brave new world, and we as marketers must realise that placing any marketing cash with distrusted media outlets could mean a very big waste of our advertising spending power.

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