Australians are finding brands and their new innovations less trustworthy, with trust in business dropping to 48%, the lowest point since the global financial crisis (GFC), according to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer.
The barometer found that Australia's trust in business has dipped below the trust in government, with issues around acceptance of technological advancements and businesses having to “earn the right to innovate” core to the issue.
It noted that 53% of Australians believe innovation is happening too quickly, with 72% believing it is being driven by greed and 74% believing it is being driven by the need for growth. Only 14% of respondents said innovation was done to make the world a better place.
Edelman Australia CEO Tim Riches told AdNews that while innovation is a key focus for Australian businesses looking for growth, more needs to be done to highlight company commitment to consumers.
He said globally, Australia's trust levels are around the “neutral” mark, but given the local and global events of 2014, trust has been shaken on a general basis.
“There is chaos swirling around us in our outside world, and when that happens we contract our trust, and place pressure on business motivation and ethics,” Riches said.
“For businesses, it's been a very tough year and there has been a lot of core issues around self-interest versus the interest of customers and communities.”
Riches said transparency and participation are the key point for marketers when it comes to communicating innovation and launching new products.
“Using transparency measures to project the actual real benefit of change and innovation is really at the heart of the task,” Riches said.
“That's not just a communications task I think it's actually a process management task. The more interactive that they make make innovation as a process, the better its going to be in terms of increasing people’s confidence in the output of the process.”
This participation also carries onto media and information dissemination. The research found that when it comes to media, a company that has an existing relationship with a consumer is a more trusted author of content (49%) than a journalist (42%) or a celebrity (23%).
For branding looking to jump onto the content creation wagon, Riches said this shows building trusted relationships is key.
“It reframes the marketing function as the challenge of bringing people into trusted relationships,” Riches said.
“The companies someone uses are companies that have already passed the trust test so people want to interact with that company. Recruiting people into trusted relationships is to a large degree what marketing is about now and so a company should be confident in their interaction once those trusted relationships are there and allowing a higher level of participation and interactivity.”
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