According to global communications firm Edelman, there is now a “trust problem” for almost all global brands.
The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer revels that this year, “trust” declined for ALL country brands surveyed across 17 economies. Unlike in previous years, Edelman Trust Barometer surveys in which some territories were seen sustaining trust on brands, brand trust declined across ALL surveyed economies in 2020.
Among the four types of businesses (family owned, privately owned, public, and state owned) the ‘family owned’ businesses were the most trusted.
To move away from a strict academic discussion and to come to an industry point of view, we talk here of ‘brand trust’ not in its strict definition of “customer’s expectations of how the brand’s products or services can deliver on its promises” (though that too is still part of it), but in a more interchangeable, “broader” context; The overall acceptance and positive feel towards a brand.
Edelman survey points to an urgent need: Brands have ‘big work’ ahead of them-to get back and win the trust of consumers., a cornerstone for brands’ existence.
In this hard work of carving back consumer trust, “campaigns” become relevant, if not indispensable (campaigns have always been used by most successful brands, to bring them to where they are today, but in this new-normal, campaigns have become significantly more important). Campaign is the power-horse that drives the ‘Brand-wagon.’
In that, for the campaigns to become successful, at least two facets need to be in place: Availability of contents created by the PR agency and such created content (targeting various segments) strategically published / placed in various channels by the advertising industry. In that, both PR and Advertising need to work hand-in-hand to get the Brand ‘going’.
PR industry is becoming a mainstay when it comes to content creation for campaigns. According to Provoke: “..the global PR industry shows rapid growth with $ 16 Bn annual earnings in 2019 (Source: Provoke) the relevance of PR campaigns for companies cannot be stressed enough. The is expected to continue. Provoke estimates the size of the global PR agency industry at $16.5bn, up from $15.5bn in 2019. The public relations business continued to report healthy growth in 2019, better than 5% for the sixth consecutive year, with midsized and independent firms once again leading the way.”
Once the contents are created, the Advertising industry starts the second half of the campaign with its placement activities.
Given the ‘push’ nature of advertising and economic slowdowns–ever complicated by the new-normal- one wonders if advertising is still trusted by the consumers.
A new survey by Kantar (Study into consumer attitudes, media habits and expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic- 2020 April) shows consumers are not yet ready to discard advertising and still see its relevance. They don’t have an expectation that brands should stop advertising. Only a few thought that ‘brands should stop advertising.’ In Kantar;s own words: “There is very little expectation that brands should stop advertising, with only 8% of respondents identifying it (“stop advertising”) as a priority for brands.” The study was conducted across 30 countries involving 25000 respondents!
Another global survey finds more support for this. When asked whether brands should ‘continue advertising as normal’ in its March 2020 survey by GlobalWebIndex (from internet users in 13 countries) 37% respondents agreed, saying Yes. 36% stayed neutral and only 27% disagreed-in that only 27% rejected advertising for brands.
These findings may be indicative of importance of advertising and PR in making brands memorable. In that, campaigns are important for brands. Campaigns –even if competitors are not conducting them – are what makes the brand memorable in consumers’ minds (of course the product/service too makes it memorable, but only for a while).
There are also other important considerations why campaigns are needed: The ability for the brand to control its own image rather than leaving it at the mercy of outside forces, brand’s opportunity to target specific markets, and deliver content that creates awareness on the already created content (done through advertising; aim is to draw consumers to the already created content).
This hints as to why a brand should campaign, if at all; there is little option left for the brand other than to campaign. Whether competitors campaign or not, the Brand still has to, if it wants to continue as a Brand.
And then, to create memorable campaigns, PR and Advertising can team up in multiple ways…
