Why Official Channels Matter

By Steve Rubel, Executive Vice President – Global Insights and Strategy

I am not a spreadsheet wonk, but digging into the trove of raw data compiled for the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer a few stats in particular jump out. When correlated they point to the opportunity that the media has to increase their trust as they begin to give advertisers an official platform to tell their story in their own words – just as our CEO wrote earlier this month.

First, among informed publics, between 2011 and 2013 Trust in corporate content globally rose four percentage points (13 – 17 percent). This is nearly the same rate that trust in social media climbed over the same period (8 – 13 percent). Trust in traditional media was flat at 29 percent.

Second, trust in search engines actually declined 83 to 78 percent over the same period.

Finally, between 2009 and 2013, a greater percentage of the informed public said they need to hear things three to five times for it to be trustworthy. This figure grew from 60 to 64 percent over the period.

Taken together one could infer that more people are willing to go directly to an official source of information like a corporate website than ever before, perhaps eroding some searches. But there’s overlap here too. It’s possible that trust is rising in social networks because, in part, it’s now a robust source for corporate/product information since so many businesses have jumped in to establish official presences.

There’s not enough data here to clearly indicate the trustworthiness of new forms of corporate/branded content that is increasingly being syndicated, integrated and co-created with media companies. However, I am encouraged that the data may encourage the media to see that, by giving companies an official content marketing platform, they can record gains in Trust in the years ahead as more informed consumers express an interest in hearing all sides of a story. And that’s exciting for all involved.

This piece was originally post in Edelman’s Global Practices Blog:

http://www.edelman.com/post/why-official-channels-matter/

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Return the Trust

By Helen Vollmer, President, Southwest

“The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust."

         -Abraham Lincoln

With Daniel Day Lewis impersonating Lincoln to sweep all major acting awards happening this month, and Obama offering up his State of the Union while Congress regroups and the Administration reinvents itself, this seemed an appropriate quote for the times. Even more so considering that Edelman’s 2013 Trust Barometer findings show that less than one fifth of the general public believes government and business leaders will tell the truth when confronted with a difficult issue.

We know why the public doesn’t trust government—corruption, wrong incentives driving policies, cronyism and partisanship, but maybe we should also ask why elected and appointed officials don’t seem to Trust their constituents? Perhaps the answer lies in a lack of real dialogue between those who want to hold office and those they represent. I’m not talking about political rallies. I’m talking about a give and take in real conversations about concerns, issues and opportunities that aren’t hair-sprayed to perfection in advance. Perhaps the listening skills of those involved on both sides are partly to blame. Instead of shouting to be heard, maybe we all should listen to better understand the complexities of issues and why solving problems to a mutually beneficial end is just plain hard.

But I am hopeful.  In this new age of public engagement, there is more opportunity for dialogue and information than ever before.  Both the public and officials now have the opportunity to express themselves in real time via social media.  They can also respond rapidly and ask for more rationale or share differing points of view. Also, new media channels demand transparency making it harder to cover up the facts for long.  And finally, third-party media, while still incredibly important, is now just an added voice, not the only voice in imparting wisdom to the masses.

Without a doubt we all have a lot to work on when it comes to mutual Trust.  In the end, maybe it was Shakespeare and not Lincoln who had it right.  To quote the Bard, “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

We trust you’ll enjoy our musings on Trust and credibility in this issue. Enjoy.

Three Reasons I Care About Trust

By Alan VanderMolen; Vice Chairman -DJE Holdings, President and CEO - Global Practices

As the executive responsible for Edelman’s intellectual capital, I think about Trust and what it means in the business world – and the world of public relations – nearly every day. We recently released Edelman’s 13th Annual Trust Barometer, and I want to share the three reasons I care about Trust.

Trust is a Leading Indicator
Unlike Reputation, which is the sum of perceptions of past behaviors, Trust is a leading indicator of how stakeholders believe a business and/or its leaders will behave in the future. If stakeholders grant Trust to companies, those companies have permission to lead. Trusted enterprises can drive the agenda of their organizations in explicit partnerships with stakeholders, leading to increased value for employees, customers, suppliers, communities, investors and, ideally, society.

Trust is a Manageable Asset
Unlike the outdated (and I would suggest false) notion of managing perceptions of companies to drive stakeholder behavior towards those companies, Trust is a manageable and measurable corporate asset that delivers business value. Our 13 years of research, combined with endless and on-going literature searches and numerous complementary studies of Trust we conduct, led us to identify five performance clusters for Trust: Engagement, Integrity, Products and Services, Purpose and Operations. You can find detailed descriptions for each here. These clusters are listed from most important to least important according to our 31,000 respondents to the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer. This powerful framework allows companies (and communicators within companies) to manage Trust against specific corporate objectives. Trust needs to be, and can be, managed like any other asset within the company.

Public Relations Professionals Should be the Keepers of Trust for their Organizations
I fundamentally believe companies and their leaders know how to behave in ways which engender long-term Trust. For reasons which are usually within their control, they sometimes lose their way, damaging the value of their companies and leading, in many cases, to leaders being removed from their jobs. In the modern practice of public relations, PR professionals have the responsibility to manage Trust in their organizations – to ensure that the organizations themselves and their leaders behave in ways that afford the granting of Trust by stakeholders to those organizations. The more we know about Trust and how to manage it, the greater value the practice of public relations provides to business and society.

This piece was originally post in Edelman’s Global Practices Blog:

http://www.edelman.com/post/why-trust-matters/

Trust Highlights Importance of ‘How’ vs. ‘What’ in Business

By Ashley Wilemon, Vice President, Dallas

For 13 years, Edelman has published its annual Trust Barometer, a snapshot of the world’s attitudes toward “everyone else.” I say “everyone else” because those who are surveyed during Trust are asked to evaluate institutions and industries – entities that undoubtedly influence and in fact drive our societies, but entities that are, at the end of the day, little more than concepts. It’s difficult sometimes to realize that the reason we (and those surveyed, who are intended to be a representative sample of “we”) have attitudes toward these entities – business, government, the technology industry, healthcare – is because they are comprised of individuals who make millions upon millions of decisions that collectively drive the entity.

I’m sure none of us think of ourselves as “business,” but when those surveyed in Trust are asked questions about their attitudes toward “business,” they’re talking about people like you and me, and they’re evaluating us based on the thousands of decisions we make every day, the way we counsel our partners, and how our work product is put out into the world.

When it’s broken down that far, it becomes both overwhelming and inspiring. On the one hand, we can’t turn the tide by ourselves, in one day, or even with one client, and that’s frustrating (especially for Type A PR professionals). But on the other hand, we are part of something bigger, and the decisions we make are active contributions to the world of “business” (or healthcare, or government, or whatever industry your business touches), and that’s empowering.

I remember a sign from high school that said, “Reputation takes years to build and a moment to destroy.” Not a novel sentiment, but it was profound to me at the time (Give me a break - I was in high school.) The same can be said for Trust. We are building trust every day – with our partners, our colleagues, our clients, everyone. And only about half of that reputation is built on WHAT we deliver; the other half (at least) is based on HOW we go about our business.

At a recent staff development meeting, there was a lot of emphasis placed on HOW we go about our work, and it got me thinking about HOW our methods help build (or break down) Trust. As individuals and as professionals, we should place a greater emphasis on taking the time to do things the right way, and as individuals and professionals, we should be more patient with those who take the time to do things the right way. It’s an investment in the long term, but those small deposits over time build equity. It’s a formula that is simple to understand but nearly impossible to implement. But if each individual can take on the burden to make the process better (the HOW), I am positive the WHAT will be better too. And as individuals whose decisions contribute to the direction of entire world-moving entities, our small steps will help steer the collective group in the right direction.