Selbey Labs has published it latest report exploring the critical issues of Trust, Truth and Authenticity. The report is available to download at the bottom of this page.
The report builds on the ground-breaking book The Post-Truth Business, written by Selbey Labs' Head of Foresight & Strategy, Sean Pillot de Chenecey.
Inside, readers will find a summary of the latest thinking on the role that trust, truth and authenticity plays in building strong brands.
To coincide with the launch of the report, Selbey Labs undertook some research amongst the UK public polling 2,238 UK adults gauging their attitude towards brands in terms of trust, honest, reliability and competence and how this affects both perceptions and brand loyalty.
The research conducted by Perspectus Global highlights how the UK public currently places greatest importance on brand values such as honesty, reliability and trustworthiness. More than seven out of ten (71%) adults said honesty is the most important attribute that should be upheld by a brand, given the current state of the world. This was closely followed by reliability (68%) and trustworthiness (67%).
This viewpoint was backed up with the insight that the leading reason the UK public would recommend a brand to others would be on the basis of its reliability (71%), followed by trustworthiness (64%) and honesty (64%). Only 17% of general respondents would recommend a brand for having a purpose.
Indeed, when pointing to reasons why they have stopped using a brand or service provider over the past 12 months because they have failed to meet expectations, unreliability (20%) outweighed concerns over brands’ corporate/sustainability purpose (11%).
If a brand or business were to make a promise and then fail to deliver on it, 62% of general respondents said they would stop using them. 61% said they would complain and 33% said they would tell their friends and family about it.
Of course, we want brands and businesses to behave responsibly and to reflect our values, but we also need them to be well-run, competent and reliable. In this new era of accountability, brands are increasingly being judged by shareholders, customers and stakeholders on their actions, competence, reliability and performance, rather than aspirations.
At Selbey Labs, we talk about Reputation Capital as being the combination of trust, competence and reliability. It is this Reputation Capital that will drive decision-making about both b2b and b2C brands, businesses and indeed governments.
Selbey Labs has also developed a diagnostic tool to help brands gauge their reputation capital. To find out more contact info@selbeylabs.io.
