The 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer was released recently with a headline that begins, “Trust in Business Rises Globally.” In the United States, trust in business grew from 18% to 54%. That looks like a great improvement. But when you read further, 59% of informed publics ages 25-64 expect businesses and financial companies to return to “business as usual” after the recession is over.
What’s business as usual? If you remember last year’s Siegel+Gale study, “63% percent of believe banks, mortgage lenders and Wall Street intentionally make things complicated to hide risks or to keep people in the dark.”*
That’s not trust. That’s fatalism.
Notes:- * Trust in banks is down 39% since 2007; trust in technology companies is up 2%. [↩]
It seems the advertising companies are doing a good job then based on this study. We’ve seen a huge shift in the way companies like AllState, Citi, Home Depot and others position themselves to consumers. Their ad copy reads like a shelter looking to bring in more homeless people – “We know you’re struggling. We know you’re looking for ways to stay afloat. Listen, we can help.” So the question is when the economy turns around, will they still care as much? I hope so. It makes good business sense, but the public is fickle and will soon want to hear again why they should spend their lots of their money with these companies.
I also find the slight increase in technology companies interesting. I wonder if it’s due to the overwhelming popularity of the iPhone and other “cool” gadgets. Or, perhaps not so many people see them as the companies playing watchdog. Or, perhaps people are learning to embrace the technology available to them than before.