Corrosive nature of distrust and how brands will suffer

Trust is the subject of the day. Are we surprised that companies, institutions, politicians are increasingly distrusted? The reasons are obvious and banal. They don't keep their promises.

Trust is holy. Think of the opposite: betrayal. No word is more chilling when it comes to personal relationships. No feelings as abject as those of the person betrayed by a trusted lover or friend. Trust is freighted with some of the most powerful emotions human beings can feel.

Our relationships with companies are rarely this intense. Feelings are more likely to be annoyance, irritation, disappointment, rejection.

But what we could call the ‘trust deficit’ isn’t just between companies and their customers. Elaborate bureaucratic form-filling - for even minor activities - indicates management don’t trust their employees. And employees don’t trust their suppliers. Business relationships are riddled with distrust.

Look at one example more closely, procurement

Every company has always had someone - usually called a purchasing agent - who negotiated the hard stuff a company buys: stationary, filing cabinets, computers, the furniture of office life - as well as the ingredients, materials and commodities required for what the company produces. The soft stuff - of consumer research, advertising, design and other forms of marketing communications - were traditionally at the discretion of the marketing executive who knew what they were to be used for.

And what exactly are these different facets of marketing services to be used for? To further the activity of the organisation, to illuminate the attitudes and behaviours of consumers - the people who pay everyone's salaries - to produce the communications that persuade these people to buy the goods and services the company makes.

What in the world do procurement people know about this most important task? Nothing. So how do they judge? Obvious. A quick flip of the eye to the bottom-line to check the lowest price so they can report a saving. But can these people understand consumer research?  Do they have training in psychology? Anthropology statistics? Can they write copy, brief artists and photographers, make television commercials? Do they have the tiniest scrap of training that might qualify them for the job?

No, all they can do is count

In fact, probably any of us who can count could do the job just as well. Or indeed, much better, since we know something about what we are buying.

But let’s look even more closely at this bizarre situation and look at the assumptions that under-pin the role of procurement more specifically. Why do management feel the need for procurement to operate throughout the company? The assumption is clear. It is that everybody cheats.

Now in a pre-procurement world, marketers were trusted by their management to choose their suppliers, build relationships, share data and confide problems. To even allow a supplier to fail occasionally. Every advertising agency person and every marketing director has a dud or two in their background they would rather forget.

Metaphors are revealing. The joke in the advertising world was that a client either had a wife or a mistress. Most had both at some point. The wife relationship produced the children - the brands - nurtured them, grew them, helped them through difficult times - and such was the trust that the brands had a much better chance in life. Dallying with mistresses from time to time may have produced some hot ads but not the kind of solid commitment that nurtured brands.

You can only begin to build that kind of trust if you allow the marketing executive the freedom to invest in a relationship. From the agency side, nothing is more thrilling than that kind of trusted relationship.

Of course there was abuse

Some agencies padded expenses, skimmed off money, overcharged and worse. In a culture of trust there will always be abuse. But the advantages far outweigh the occasional slip. In a culture of mistrust, when everyone is assumed to be cheating, there are no, repeat no, advantages whatsoever.

In fact, the disadvantages aren't just the insults, hurt feelings and lack of job satisfaction. The assumption of dishonesty is corrosive and degrades everyone it touches. Because worst of all, the brands suffer.  Like children, they need continuity, they need people devoted to their wellbeing, people who know the history and who are alert to changes in the business and consumer environment, people who understand the reasons their consumers buy and use them.

In terms of personal behaviour, the manifestations of this lack of trust are everywhere: messages go unreturned, emails go unanswered, meetings get cancelled at the last minute, and business etiquette - which used to be essentially the same in the office as in your home - has become coarse and cursory. A relationship that is merely a transaction means you have little shared emotional bond and that brings out the worst in people.

But let's ignore the bad manners

The crux of my argument is the consequences for the brands that are lost in this declension. Short term thinking, like distrust, is the curse of the age. They seem to be part of the same unhappy syndrome. Procurement should have no significant place in the relationship between marketing people and their suppliers.

The onus placed on agencies is equally great. They must scrupulously monitor themselves, make sure their systems work well, rein in the behaviour of the arrogant blow-hards, learn the client’s business in much more detail, take initiatives not requested, demonstrate the trust is warranted and that your interests in both his or her brands and his or her role in the company are sincere.

Many marketing services relationships are a mess. But they can and should be fixed if marketers want to get the best from their suppliers - which, in the current confused and chaotic business environment, they need more than ever.

Read more from Judie Lannon in our Clubhouse.