THE CHANGING NATURE OF TRUST

More than 80 percent of opinion formers in Brazil, Canada, UK, France, Japan and the US agreed that they were more likely to believe something if they heard about it from multiple sources, rather than from a single source.

This supports the theory of Linda Stone, a researcher at Microsoft, that people nowadays are constantly bombarded by information from all sides. So we develop what she described as a "continuous partial attention" to everything going on around us.

There are also significant differences by country in terms of which information sources are seen as "most credible." For example, in the UK, radio is considered most credible, while in France this top slot goes to print media. This changes, however, when opinion formers are asked which media they turn to first; television is considered number one in most countries surveyed, followed by newspapers. The number of opinion formers who turn to the internet as a source of credible information has grown in most countries, with significant increases in Brazil and China.

The rise of the average person

Another key finding of Edelman's 2005 survey has been the rise of the "average person" as a trusted source of information, replacing, or certainly supplementing, traditional sources. The credibility of "someone like me" continues to increase significantly in both the US (from 22 percent in 2003 to 56 percent in 2005) and Europe (33 percent in 2003 to 53 percent in 2005), and is now either second or third in most markets. It's the most trusted source of information in both Brazil (76 percent) and Germany (79 percent).

Interestingly, employees as a credible source of information about a company scored high in most countries.

The politics of trust

In Europe and Canada, trust in American companies is low, presumably as a result of opinion leaders' perceptions of US culture, values and government. Fifty-six percent of Britons, for example, are much less likely to buy US goods and services, and only 40 percent feel they can trust a US-based company "to do what is right." In general, the more iconic the brand, the greater the trust discount. For instance, Coca Cola and McDonalds face significant trust issues. In the US, McDonalds' trust rating is at 60 percent; in the UK, it's a mere 17 percent.

However, trust in US companies operating in Brazil, China or Japan has not declined.

Trustworthy corporate behavior

Although there are some similarities in highly-rated corporate behavior across markets, our research also found a significant divergence of views. Most importantly, the quality of products and services has to be right. This topped the list in almost every market. Customer service, predictably, is also a key issue, as is ethical management, including good labor and employee relations.

Corporate philanthropy, however, which ranked top of the list in the US and Brazil as the corporate behavior that earned opinion formers' trust, was ranked last in Europe and second last in China. Listening to stakeholders ranks as the number one corporate behavior in Europe and Canada, highly-visible leadership heads the list in China, while positive media coverage ranks first in Japan.

Listening to customers and being open to changing ways of doing business scored highly across most of the markets surveyed, coming top of the list in Europe. Getting positive media coverage also plays well across all countries surveyed and contributes to building trust.

Implications for communicators

These findings have implications for those involved in developing corporate communication strategies. For example, given the local nature of trust, global reputations can only be built by empowering local operations to articulate the global strategy in a way that is mindful of local market sensitivities. US companies, for example, should focus on building credibility in markets where they are less popular by engaging with their local stakeholders.

Given the myriad of information sources that opinion leaders turn to, regular dialogue with a variety of stakeholders is important in all markets. And the growing credibility of the opinions of "average people" make it more important than ever that companies inspire both customers and employees to act as ambassadors.

For more information on this research go to: www.edelman.com