Interpublic Group's Terry Peigh launches report on 'The New Trust Imperative'

Trust is emerging as an important aspect for consumers day by day but underneath this dramatic growth in valuing product information has emerged a very powerful requirement for that information

Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | February 17, 2016

For the past 6 years, FCB Ulka's Cogito Consulting and The Interpublic Group has been studying and analysing the changing nature of consumer decision making and has been releasing in a form of a global research, 'New Realities'. Once again Terry Peigh, Sr. Vice President & Managing Director, Interpublic Group, launched this year's findings. The research  highlights the emergence of many new media channels and new sources of product information have created a new reality in how today's consumer goes about evaluating a product and making an eventual decision.

Over this period, dramatic shift in how consumers view the 'consumption' of product information and the channels they most value in making product decisions has been observed. They've evidenced changes in their degree of comfort with new information; their desire for information as a way to gain 'social value'; the joy they receive in learning about brands; how information has made them more confident in brand choices; and how they segment in terms of valuing product information.

But underneath this dramatic growth in valuing product information has emerged a very powerful requirement for that information.  In this paper, they have reviewed how today's consumer is changing in their consumption of information and lay that up against their pressing need for information that is highly trusted.

The recently conducted research attempts to dissect what goes into a trust evaluation by a consumer, exactly what's considered when a consumer goes about making a decision to trust or not trust. Speaking about the same, Peigh said, “In total, we see this information as critically valuable in learning about the ever-changing habits and preferences of today's consumer, and in designing marketing and marketing communications programs that respond to this new reality.”

The New Realities research:

In 2009, IPG saw a need to help their clients get a better understanding of exactly how consumers around the world were dealing with the many new channels providing product information.  No longer was it a matter of a consumer learning about a product from just a print ad or a TV commercial.  In a very short period of time, they were also confronted with product information served to them via websites, blogs, numerous social sites, price comparison sites, product comparison sites, mobile platforms and from her friends down the street.

“We wanted to know, and to share with our clients, how they were coping with all this new information.  Was the additional product information frustrating? How did it affect her confidence in the product? Did she enjoy this learning? Was she inclined to share what she learned? To what extent did the consumers differ in how they “consumed” this information?  With these questions in hand, we began the research that year in two countries, US and China.  Since then, we've expanded it to several other key countries which include Brazil, India, Russia and England.  We now have multiple years of data from these countries and are able to make observations and comparisons among countries and within a country over time,” Peigh added.

They have conducted every wave of the study among 600 people per country, with an equal mix of Gen X, Gen Y and Baby Boomers, equally split men/women. Working with their research partner, they sampled people from a geographic cross section of the country's population. The questionnaire was submitted online, so we need to appreciate that the results obviously reflect the attitudes of a computer-literate audience. But with this audience representing a prime target for many of their clients, we were comfortable with that screen.

Highlighting the attributes, Peigh said, “When we present these research results to clients and industry groups, we often begin by asking the audience to provide their opinion on what country ranks highest on a few different measures.”

Findings:

Clearly, product information is valued more and more by consumers around the world.  As noted in all countries surveyed their populations strongly agree that information availability has made them more confident in their brand choices, and has increased their satisfaction with brands.

Importantly, this product learning is a real source of joy and fulfilment around the world. “A very significant segment of the population finds the researching and learning about products to actually be fun, rewarding and enjoyable.  And was seen in Figure 1, this joy and fulfilment has increased in most countries over the last 2 years. When we look at earlier waves of the research, there is clearly an even longer term increase in these measures,” said Peigh.

Adding further, he said, “We have found that much of this enjoyment and fulfilment from product learning is sourced in consumers' finding social value from that information.  Their knowledge about a category or product gives them social currency which is the information to share with others when discussing various products. In so doing it enhances their sense of self, and self-esteem.”

Luckily for marketers, consumers today often manifest this desire for social currency by becoming active advocates for brands.  “This is another aspect that we found that many of the respondents studied in our research have shown growth over the last two years in their desire to actively advocate for brands.  And in countries like China and India, the overall levels of advocacy interest are very high,” added Peigh.

Highlighting 'the new demands for trust', Peigh said, “A scan of news stories today across the world points to many instances where people have lost trust.  We see them losing trust in government, religion, business, and in brands and also the marketing world is not helping itself when it comes to engendering trust. Marketers have heard for years and, of course, it's really is common sense… that having product information trusted by consumers is very important.  We've all seen report after report showing the connection between trust and higher purchase intent, stronger repeat purchases, higher share of wallet, a willingness to pay a price premium, and even stronger growth in a brand's stock price.”

But this is also a fact that what is being observed now is a dramatic increase in size of the trust hurdle consumers are putting up.  If there's any doubt about the veracity of the information, today's consumer will turn elsewhere. At a global level, consumers are becoming more discriminating, and 'holding brands to higher standards than ever before.' With the exception of Russia, a solid year-over-year growth in this measure since 2013 has been observed.

A few things for brands to consider:

Product efficacy rules the day. Building things that work and that consumers have a need for, is a sure-fire way to gain their trust. “These days, with the continued increases in available information, consumers are becoming increasingly sceptical. It's essential to pair good products with claims that accurately represent their effects without setting unfair or unrealistic expectations. Overpromises might get you the first sale, but they're awfully hard to sustain over the long-term,” he said.

Social responsibility efforts are good (and in some categories and emerging markets, essential) but they can't make up for product short-comings. Instead of funding expensive yet disconnected CSR efforts, brands might do better looking for ways to harness their product's power in a participatory, socially responsible fashion. With this an interesting and factual presentation came to an end.

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