The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the trust issue already troubling marketers, according to senior Direct Line marketer Kerry Chilvers.
She suggested that trust should be at the top of everyone’s in-trays today during a panel discussion at Reset 2021, where the Advertising Association, IPA and ISBA presented their annual conferences together for the first time. Chilvers, Direct Line Group’s Brand Tribe Lead, joined Jerry Daykin, EMEA Senior Media Director, GSK and Sue Unerman, Chief Transformation Officer at Mediacom in conversation with moderator Gideon Spanier, Campaign’s UK Editor-in-Chief.
Chilvers cited Edelman research showing a decline in trust in government and media meaning that business was now the most trusted sector, seen as both ethical and competent, they found. “That gives us a real opportunity as advertisers as we head into a recessionary environment. We know we’ve got a really strong role for growth by really ensuring we double down on our agenda,” she said.
Daykin agreed. “Trust is right at the top of the agenda for marketers,” he said. “In this difficult year you have to bear in mind that people’s time and energy is quite strict, so it’s often hard to prioritise these things. Yet at the same time in the wake of disruption [we] get a big opportunity to reset. A lot of things have changed, and we’re trying to do a lot of things in more agile ways.”
Uberman urged: “Trust is one of those rare commodities because you have to earn it, you can’t simply advertise or buy your way into a trust position.”
In the wake of Brexit and Covid advertisers must look to advertise more effectively and spend more effectively with the trust dividend in mind, she continued.
For Chilvers ‘trust’ was a matter of both business sense and doing the right thing, in terms of protecting both a user’s data as well as what they were targeted with. She said: “Bombarding customers is just an unnecessary cost. Why would I want to hit you with an ad 20 times when only two would do?
“It’s not just about doing the right thing, it’s about good business sense: eliminating wastage and having more money to reinvest in other channels.
