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An Open Letter to Ignorant Brands
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Dear Ignorant Brand,
You romanced me. Secretly, I hoped to see an improved version of myself by virtue of your promises. Then through several engagements, I discovered you don’t care about me at all. I needed love so badly that I ignored the early signs. Now I can see clearly, you are just another greedy bastard.
If you have any creative backbone in your marketing team, unpack the words you use so easily. Many interesting things can be learned. I have helped unpack the concept of trust over the years and what trust means for organizations and for brands so I hope you will take note.
Trust means meeting my expectations for an experience and repeating this process with consistency and accuracy. It doesn’t hurt to be kind to me in the process because I like to do business with friends.
Trust is part of your brand pillars. It’s in your core value statement. It’s one of your key selling propositions. Trust is proselytized by your human resources, compliance, legal, marketing and sales teams. It’s no surprise to me what people want most from brands: honesty. Quoting that post: “truth really is the only sustainable advantage”.
Your brand, your logo, your tagline all made a promise to me. This promise should have been reinforced through all our interactions, but you dropped the ball. You let me down. I would have forgiven your mistakes if you just communicated with me, your fan, but you ignored me. Clearly, it is you who doesn’t trust me.
For future reference, trust is different for products and services. I love products, like a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy say, but only tolerate my service providers, like the mechanic. This is true for legal, insurance, financial, real estate. I have different expectations, based on the rules of our relationship. I trust my accountant to do my books, not to babysit my daughter. In you I trusted my hopes for a better, new improved Jeff.
Trust is at the heart of brand discussion because it’s part of storytelling dynamics. To get me to care, I first must trust that you as author and narrator will deliver smartly on the promise of your voice and your hook. When you use these to trick me, shame on you.
Hoping you are acquired and discontinued,
Your Ex-lover
Image Notes: Mailboxes by Andrew Taylor from the Flickr creative commons photo community.