Advertisers finding truth a good tactic

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Jaded consumers no longer believe slick advertising campaigns and marketing must now focus on providing evidence of the product's worth.

That conclusion has come from advertising agency FCB, which completed a worldwide survey and found consumers have largely dumped the timeless trust once enjoyed by brands.

Corporates now have to prove why consumers should buy - and continue to buy - their products.

It is no longer enough to brag about their value through slick advertising.

The Truth about Trust and Why We Don't, a report now being shown to FCB's clients, offers eight points on how to improve a brand's relationship with consumers.

Improve the relationship and, the theory goes, increase sales.

FCB spoke to more than 1000 people worldwide including in New Zealand, where social strategist Jacqueline Smart led the charge.

The survey was started after September 11 but Smart says subsequent events, such as the Iraq war, have made its observations even more pertinent.

Says Smart: "We used to oversimplify [trust] ... we thought we would get it through a brand image rather than a tangible deliverable."

But, with the demise of corporates such as WorldCom and Enron, the problems of others such as Pan Pharmaceuticals, and the disarray of the world after September 11, consumer trust has been torpedoed.

"[Consumers] questioned a lot of what was going on," says Smart.

"What you do is you retreat and try and make more sense of it,"Smart says.

"At the same time it has a ripple effect right back and everything in our life is re-evaluated."

And so FCB re-evaluated how to connect with jumpy consumers and found - contrary to past suggestions - advertisers were not the drivers of the brands.

Instead, advertisers should be the managers of the relationships between consumers and sellers. It is the sellers' role to prove to the consumers it can be trusted.

"I think it is the end of timeless trust," says Smart.

"The consumer will more actively make a decision about continuing to use or trust a brand on a day to day basis, from their experiences. It is quite easy to sever that."

Air New Zealand is one corporate where advertising has swung from bragging about size and power to simply showing what the product delivers.

Last year it dumped the flashy and expensive advertisements that featured the elfin Carly in exotic locales.

Instead, it introduced budget advertising with the tagline: "Being there is everything."

Which is precisely what Smart is talking about.

"Air New Zealand changed from being a 'corporate might' brand to one which recognised why people were with them. It humanised the branding."

Smart says Wendy's burger chain is also successful in its advertising tactics.

It has avoided the "family moments" used by McDonald's and provided simple, believable advertising that has cut through. Its message is simple: it provides good food, fast.

FCB says such advertising works in a world where consumers are increasingly cynical.

Says the survey: "We must recognise that the age of innocence is forever gone and the 'trusting masses' that governments, corporations and institutions have relied on in the past are now savvy, challenging consumers."

Those consumers have also hunkered down against the bombardment of brand campaigns and tightened their "circle of trust".

They are resigned to the inability to influence the big picture and are instead focusing energies on such things as family and immediate community.

FCB has analysed the circle of trust and found it has three layers.

They have named the layers intimate, blind and deliberate trust.

The intimate layer is not one where brands naturally reside, unless welcomed by the consumer.

However, brands can enter the second layer - one of blind trust. They are more commonly found in the third layer, of deliberate trust.

FCB says products should enter the sphere of deliberate trust through delighting people - using tactics such as The Warehouse's unquestioned money-back guarantee - and attempt to enter the more reliable sphere of blind trust through reassuring people of continued results.

FCB's eight points to a better and more trusting relationship with the consumer include replacing the word trust as a goal with goals such as honesty and proof of performance, and providing "fat-free" information to consumers.

Martin Hall, a senior lecturer in advertising at the Auckland University of Technology, said he largely agreed with FCB's findings.

He believed corporates such as McDonald's were changing their attitudes. The hamburger chain, for instance, was responding to obesity concerns by offering healthier food.

However, Hall did have issues with use of the word "relationship" in adspeak, saying it was based on assumptions made by corporates about their con- sumers.

"I think consumers dismiss [relationships] with far more ease than the advertisers want."