7. Rule #5: Rebuild Brand Trust
A powerful brand is more than a trademark. A powerful brand is a trustmark. Trust is an important prerequisite for building long-term brand loyalty. Trustworthiness is a key component of brand power. Without trust, there can be no brand loyalty.
When you trust a brand, you become committed to it. Trust is the most important prerequisite for building long-term brand loyalty. Trust facilitates persuasion. Trust facilitates the acceptance of new information. Trust is a relationship criterion more than a transaction criterion.
How do we define trust? Trust is “a generalized expectancy held by an individual or group that the word, promise, verbal or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon.”1 We define brand trust as the “generalized expectation that the promise of a brand can be relied upon.”
Trust cannot be bought. It must be earned and re-earned. It accumulates over time. It is lasting, but when damaged, the bond can break quickly. It can take years to build and be lost overnight. Trust is a necessary ingredient for long-term commitment. And once a brand bond is strengthened, it is difficult to break. When it does break, however, it can break with suddenness. Although trust is a valued prize that takes time to build and adds to the bottom line, it can be easily violated.
For example, trust is key in the consumption of bottled water: We assume there are no chemicals, lead, poisons, toxins, and so on. Perrier had a brand trust advantage that it quickly lost in the early 1990s.
In February 1990, Perrier, the brand that made bottled mineral water chic, was forced to recall its bottled water in the United States after tests showed the water contained benzene. Initially, Perrier did not respond except for the recall. Perrier did not see the issue as a global one. Perrier did not provide a consistent response nor did it coordinate messages to the public. The result was a confused and concerned consumer. What could happen to me as a daily drinker of Perrier? Initially no answers were provided, and when the answers came, they were not consistent depending on geography.
The brand was reintroduced later that year, but another problem soon arose. A claim made on the bottle’s label was proven to be false and raised the issues of truthfulness and trustworthiness with consumers.2 Eventually, in 1992, the brand was sold to Nestle. However, the brand never did regain its pre-1990 market share, and today faces a whole host of rivals.3
A consumer may try a new, unfamiliar brand out of curiosity, or because of an exceptional price offer. But if your goal is brand loyalty, you must build trust.
Today, trust is an increasingly important challenge. When things are uncertain, people look for touchstones of trust. Trust is comforting. Trust minimizes perceived risk. Trust facilitates persuasion. It eases the acceptance of new information. People are more willing to accept a line extension from a brand they trust. Trust contributes to creating an enduring brand relationship.
The practice for rebuilding trust is extremely challenging. Leadership must focus on evaluating both internal and external commitment and behavior. This was critical for revitalizing the McDonald’s brand.
At our consulting firm, Arcature LLC, we have a four-point approach to internal marketing, which is discussed in this chapter.
Crisis of Credibility
Customers are not only more knowledgeable, demanding, quality conscious, and value conscious, they are also more skeptical, more questioning, and far less trusting. There appears to be an “antitrust” movement in the making.
There have been some visible trust-erosion cases—Enron, for example, or Firestone tires on Ford SUVs. As Sophocles once wrote: “When trust dies, mistrust blossoms.”4 Trust is under attack. People are losing trust in political leadership, public education, religious leaders, business, and so on.
Rebuilding trust is critical. Al Golin, Ray Kroc’s public relations man, says in his book, Trust or Consequences, that “To build a brand, trust has to be an integral part of any strategy.” He says that trust is “the great intangible at the heart of truly long-term success.”5 For enduring brand loyalty to exist, trust must exist.
Trust can be an enormous asset. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Whole Foods, H&M, Nordstrom, In-N-Out Burger, Amazon, eBay, and Procter & Gamble that have the deep, lasting trust of their customers have a huge advantage over their competition.
Rebuilding trust is an important component of brand revitalization. The importance of building trust is just common sense. But it is also true that in many instances, common sense is not common in brand management.
Five Principles of Trust Building
To help the revitalization of a brand, here are five trust-building principles:
You Are What You Do
Trust must be displayed before it can be declared. Customers must consider your brand worthy of trust before they commit to trusting your brand. Saying “trust me” does not track with today’s customers.
Yet, marketers use the “trust me” approach as often as politicians. In 2006, ABC’s World News ran print ads for its prime time news anchor, Charles Gibson, which said, “Trust Charles Gibson.”6 CNN refers to itself as “the most trusted source in news.”
Rockwell Collins, providing electronic communication and aviation solutions, refers to itself as a company that is “building trust every day.”7 This follows a 2004 advertising campaign that stated “Trust Matters.”8
Of course trust matters. But it doesn’t come so easily that a print ad will create it. Declaring “trust me” does not create trust. It is not what you say; it is what you do that counts.
Provide iconic tangible evidence that what you are claiming can be trusted. Iconic products or services are tangible demonstrations of the truth of your claim. When revitalizing a brand, it is not enough to say, “We are listening to you.” “We are changing.” Iconic tangible expressions of this claim of change are essential. This is what the launch of a chicken Caesar salad did for McDonald’s in April 2003. This is what the relaunch of the Nissan Z did for the Nissan brand in January 2002.
Trust is the conviction that brand will live up to expectations. This means that the promised expectation of the brand can be relied on.
Starbucks promised a special third place—a place away from home or office—a convenient café experience where you could relax alone or sit with friends, savoring a variety of great tasting, personalized, freshly prepared coffees while drinking in great coffee aromas. When that promise became muddled and Starbucks lost touch with its very essence, customers became disappointed. Starbucks lost brand trust. It is taking the return of Howard Schultz to remind the company what the brand is all about.
Remember when United Airlines promised that its skies were friendly? Many customers today probably do not find the trip from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to New York’s LaGuardia Airport a friendly experience. Do not overpromise. Promise what you can deliver and deliver what you promise.
Creating a predictable pattern of behavior is a critical component of trust building. Extraordinary guarantees are a way to foster predictability. Nordstrom built its reputation as a trusted brand by providing unconditional guarantees without question. Lands’ End was launched with the simple promise of “Guaranteed. Period.”
FedEx built a business on guaranteeing that your letter would be at its destination overnight. To compete, the US Postal Service established an overnight service as well. But over the years, the Postal Service has not lived up to its promised behavior while FedEx has consistently continued to provide overnight, next-morning delivery. Which one do you trust?
Customers had lost trust in McDonald’s. We needed to demonstrate that we were worthy of their trust again. So, we embarked on a series of trust-building activities. Again, it is not what you claim. It is what you do that matters.
Customers wanted new choices to satisfy their evolving dietary desires. In 2003, Jim Cantalupo announced expanded choices for Happy Meals with such items as fruit slices, carrot sticks, fruit juice, water, milk, yogurt beverages, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other items depending on the country.
Reflecting the views of the health community regarding “energy balance” as a critical health factor, McDonald’s promoted Bob Greene’s walk across America. As Oprah Winfrey’s trainer, Bob Greene had become a recognized fitness expert. Canada developed a school program encouraging physical fitness. While encouraging physical fitness among children is an important message, for McDonald’s the critical issue is the food. Overemphasis on physical activity over the food as the key message will be viewed as an attempt to excuse McDonald’s from being responsible.
In 2003, McDonald’s introduced an adult Happy Meal with a new salad, bottled water, and a pedometer. Over time, new menu items such as yogurt parfaits, a grilled chicken salad in China, tuna in the Caribbean, protein platters in Canada, a Japanese vegetarian bagel sandwich, and the Fruit & Walnut Salad in the United States were introduced. McDonald’s disbanded “super sizes.”
In Australia, by partnering with the highly respected Food Group, McDonald’s was soon perceived to be a leader in the important social issue of our food and its effect on health and well-being.
In the UK, with the participation of the BBC, a series of two-minute animated messages were created to entertain and educate children to eat more vegetables.
Happy Meal toys are an important contributor to McDonald’s sales. Children love the Happy Meal toys. Parents trust that these toys will be safe. Under the leadership of Peter Schaefer and Rhonda Urbik, in 2004 McDonald’s raised its already high specifications for toy safety. Working with Bureau Veritas and Intertek Labs, McDonald’s innovated in developing new, higher standards for safety assurance. The McDonald’s standards exceed accepted government standards. Safety testing is conducted every step along the way beginning with toy design evaluation through finished product. Even in the 2007-2008 environment of a variety of toy recalls, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys can be trusted.
Here’s why McDonald’s Happy Meal toys are safe. It begins with Rhonda Urbik, McDonald’s Director of Safety and Security, who is passionate about the safety of Happy Meal toys. Under her leadership:
• All Happy Meal toys are made exclusively for McDonald’s by McDonald’s own safety-approved suppliers. They’re not “off-the-shelf” toys or made by anyone else.
• When it comes to toy safety, we take nothing for granted. We watch every step of the process. McDonald’s toy safety record far exceeds the record for the toy industry overall.
• McDonald’s suppliers do not use lead-based paint on Happy Meal toys. This safety step has been a McDonald’s mandate for more than 20 years.
• Happy Meal toys are tested time and time again. They’re backed by a proactive safety program that starts with the design of the toy and continues throughout the entire process, long before a Happy Meal toy makes it to the production line.
• Testing toys is nothing new at McDonald’s. We have been testing and retesting our Happy Meal toys for decades. Testing is performed hourly, daily, or weekly depending on the toy’s production cycle. Typically, each year more than 1,000,000 safety tests are conducted on McDonald’s toys.
• McDonald’s safety process is backed by a team of more than 300 professional injury data analysts, human factor scientists, safety engineers, design engineers, quality engineers, and test engineers around the world.9
Actions speak louder than words. When it comes to building trust, customers want to see that you are trustworthy so they can believe that you are trustworthy.
Lead the Debate; Don’t Hide from It
Ray Kroc once said: “The leader has got to be willing to take risk, stick his neck out, be optimistic, be progressive.”10
Staying silent when big issues are at stake is not a signal of leadership. Silence means agreement. Trust is too important for silence. Leaders stand up for what they stand for.
Chipotle is not as big as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, or KFC. But trust leadership is not about how big you are, but about how big you act. Steve Ells, the founder and CEO of Chipotle, stands up for what he stands for. His personal passion and brand mission is to “change the way people think about and eat fast food.”11
Steve Ells recognizes the negative connotations of fast food. But, he also knows that the problem with fast food is not that it is fast. He sees the problem with fast food as the food. Steve is proud to serve great food fast. Chipotle is not just creating a better-tasting burrito. Chipotle serves Niman Ranch pork and free-range chicken and uses organic beans and sour cream with no BGH. Chipotle is the largest restaurant buyer of humanely raised meat. Chipotle has committed to suppliers to serve 52 million pounds of naturally raised meat in 2008, a 40% increase over 2007. As Steve Ells stated, “We want to influence the supply chain in the United States.”12
Steve’s personal motto, “food with integrity,” is reflected in the entire Chipotle experience. He knows that without genuine integrity, there is no brand credibility. To Steve, brand integrity crosses all aspects of the brand, from how you treat your suppliers to how you treat the environment to how you prepare your food and to how you treat your employees and customers.
Instead of being defensive about serving great food fast, Steve Ells believes that standing up for your principles is serious business and good for business.
Going on the defensive is also a wrong approach. For a brand to be taken seriously, a defensive posture implies that you have something to hide. When you are silent or when you hide, others can create the truths about you. Others will recast your profile. A brand will have a reputation. The only question is who will have the strongest voice in managing that reputation. It is not in a brand’s interests to let outsiders trample on a brand’s truths.
You must also make sure that all employees understand the key messages. Managers should go through message training, as they did at McDonald’s, so if asked by a supplier or if interviewed by the trade press, they each know exactly what to say.
Nike handled the issue of poor factory conditions in Asia not by being silent but by instituting new rules and making visible, vocal strides toward changing their overseas manufacturing commitments. Nike did not hide from the problem. It took a visible approach to eliminating the problem. CNBC has a one-hour special on rotation focusing on the Nike brand, the Nike culture, its innovative core, and its remarkable and forthright approach to visibly handling, not hiding, its overseas labor practices.13
After 2007’s disastrous holiday toy season, a season riddled with recalls, the major toy companies increased their inspections in China. The major toy retailers imposed stricter regulations as well. MEGA Brands, a Canadian toy company that experienced toy-safety issues, working with Intertek Labs has instituted a new safety testing standard that is the highest in the toy industry, exceeding government standards.14
The Arrow Is Aimed at Fast Food
The fast food industry, in particular, is a major target in the ongoing global health debates. As the market leader, McDonald’s is the poster child for these attacks. McDonald’s was criticized and ostracized by commentators, consumer advocate groups, dietary experts, legislators, regulators, lawyers, authors, filmmakers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and others.
As the biggest and most visible fast food company, McDonald’s was continually singled out as a major contributor to the global health problem. This is both a penalty of leadership and a benefit of leadership. When a leader speaks, the world listens.
Rather than hide from an issue, lead the debate. Take positive action. Tell your story.
When it comes to the debate on important social issues, be an active participator, not a defensive spectator. As some of the negative perceptions of eating fast food took hold, the perception of the food quality became more and more negative. Silence on the issue of McDonald’s food was detrimental to the brand. Through a range of initiatives, McDonald’s spoke out publicly about the high-quality food it provides its customers.
In Australia, McDonald’s engaged in a fully integrated marketing and product development program emphasizing quality and trust. McDonald’s Australia was assertive in its public participation as a leader in the important social issue of food and its effect on health and well-being. Guy Russo, managing director, became a respected leader in that country, positioning McDonald’s as part of the solution.
In the UK, among other communications, a program using the distribution of 17,000,000 brochures described how McDonald’s was changing.
In France, a country where McDonald’s kind of food was considered to be contrary to the entire concept of French cuisine, under the leadership of Denis Hennequin, as we said before, McDonald’s became a respected business. Like the experience in Australia, Denis did not hide from the debate.
Through an extensive communications program combined with local adaptations to the menu using French foods, McDonald’s became a trusted venue. The brand image in France was that McDonald’s was a restaurant brand born in America but nurtured in France by the French. Denis’s leadership in France was recognized and rewarded with the leadership of Europe. By 2008, Europe was outperforming the United States in sales and earnings growth.15
McDonald’s developed and aired an “eat right and stay active” message in a youthful, spirited, contemporary manner. This message headline was “It’s what I eat and what I do.” This theme tied together various messages in various media including the Internet, local events, and so on. The short phrase instantly communicated in easy to understand language the rather complex concept of energy balance. It is important to both eat right and be active. The entire organization was introduced to the program via a satellite meeting.
“What I eat” comes first because this is the first responsibility of a food company. Focusing only on communicating the need to be more active shifts the whole responsibility to the consumer. Food companies also have a responsibility to help consumers make informed, smarter choices.
PepsiCo demonstrated leadership with its “Smart Spot” program. It is a symbol on more than 250 PepsiCo food and beverages indicating that these products meet the nutrition criteria of the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Academy of Sciences.
Trust leadership is more than just standing out. It requires speaking out. In revitalizing a brand, it is necessary to speak up for your brand if you want your brand to stand out.
Truth is not the same as trust. Truth is a fact. Trust is a feeling. To build your brand into a trustmark, you need both truth and trust. To be worthy of a customer’s trust, people need to see the truth not just read about it.
“Without openness, trust is blind.” This was a conclusion from the 2003 Brand Council’s Business Superbrands survey reported in the February 2004 issue of Brand Strategy. The study reported that in the UK managers see openness as a key driver of excellence in brand performance. These managers’ responses were interpreted as saying that openness “lifts the veil of secrecy and ambiguity” allowing the customer to see what is going on, and be a part of it if they so choose.16
There is a lot of talk about openness today. The April 2007 issue of Wired magazine was devoted to this idea. The cover “Get Naked and Rule the World” proclaimed that “Smart companies are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline, even admitting to their failures. The name of this new game is ‘radical transparency,’ and it’s sweeping boardrooms across the nation. So strip down and learn how to have it all by baring it all.”17
Openness is an important aspect of trust-building in a brand revitalization program. Take the McDonald’s Open Doors program. This was an idea first developed by Denis Hennequin in France. Teachers, parents, and children became visitors to McDonald’s restaurants, viewing the kitchen, seeing how the food is assembled, watching the grills being cleaned and the floors being mopped, having crew members and managers talk about the way the operation is run on a daily basis.
The concept was to literally open the doors of the restaurant for a “behind the scenes” view. The media were invited too. Everyone learned about the food—how it is delivered, prepared, and served. When the program began in France, it raised their corporate earnings.
Openness has its risks. Once you get naked, you had better be in good shape. And, the way things are going now, with Google you are already naked on the Web. Very little secrecy is left.18 Advertising Age followed this story and wrote their own article indicating that mistakes will happen, and transparency means no doctored view.19
A recent study by Michael Pirson and Deepak Malhotra also addresses the risks associated with transparency. The authors point out that building trust with one group of constituents may erode trust with another.20
Trusted Messages Must Come from a Trustworthy Source
The author Joseph Conrad said the power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.21 In reviewing McDonald’s communications, we realized that we were making sense, we just sounded wrong. Our voice was wrong for our priority segments.
Trust relies on a relationship of shared values. It relies on a sense of conversation and interaction. Trust is more than having the right argument; it means using the right voice. So, as we discussed previously, we changed the voice of the brand. Customers did not like being talked down to. They did not like being told what to do by a corporate behemoth. Our McDonald’s tone of voice was just all wrong for the modern consumer.
Numerous brands today are soliciting customer input as to product innovations and marketing. But it will all be for nothing if the way the customers’ ideas are played back to them is in a demeaning or disrespectful tone of voice.
Just as peer testimony is more trustworthy than corporate testimony, the voice of the customer is more trusted than a corporate voice. The decision was to have communications that reflected the most trusted voice: The choice of customers expressing what they love about life and how McDonald’s fits into that life.
As mentioned in Chapter 5, “Rule #3: Reinvent the Brand Experience,” the concept behind “i’m lovin’ it” was that our customers had a forever young attitude, loved life, and loved that McDonald’s fit into their life. The “i” reflected the voice of the customer rather than the voice of the corporation. “it” was the distinctive pleasure of the McDonald’s experience in their lives.
While peer testimony is the most trusted testimony, expert testimony is also trusted. Customers trust messages that come from trusted outside sources. Crest garnered immediate trust in the 1950s when it received the seal of the American Dental Association (ADA). In Spain, McDonald’s received the endorsement of pediatricians.
In Australia, a credible outside consultant was engaged, the Food Group. This is one of Australia’s most respected accredited groups of practicing dieticians. They endorsed the new menu items they helped to create.
McDonald’s created a Global Advisory Council of experts—doctors, nutritionists, and so forth, all well-respected in their fields—helping McDonald’s to address the important issue of obesity, particularly obesity in children.
Providing trustworthy information is critical. The challenge is to become a trustworthy source of information that is helpful, convenient, understandable, and valuable to your customers. Become an open source of information that is understandable, accessible, timely, and trustworthy.
Whole Foods provides information on its philosophy of food and connects consumers to other helpful sites. IKEA has an online responsive helper named Anna. Go online at www.ikea.com and “Ask Anna” for help if you need a new kitchen item or if you need a new kitchen. Petside.com is a wonderful online information resource for pet care. The site answers your questions and provides helpful hints on owning and raising pets.
Good Citizenship Pays
Being a good citizen has many different facets, but at its most basic it is about doing good deeds. There is a huge effort and allocation of resources at the corporate level in the area of doing well (businesswise) by doing good works. And being a good corporate citizen—once a company gets it right—helps the organization deliver enduring profitable growth in a complicated and uncertain world.
The January 19, 2008, issue of The Economist ran a special report on corporate social responsibility. The report began by saying that in a world rocked by corporate scandals, trust has eroded.
Because of this, companies work hard today to keep their reputations intact and free from blame. In addition, the article points out that doing good deeds plays a critical part in the hiring of employees and in employee morale: People want to work at a company where their values, ethics, and moralities are in sync with those of the company.22
Trust does not come from how big you are. It is a result of how big you act. For example, Starbucks has been visible in its support of programs for Earth Day, Clean Water, and Fair Trade coffee. Procter & Gamble announced in May 2007 that it would reduce packaging for its detergents by selling highly concentrated liquids in smaller containers. All these efforts and the social responsibility efforts of many companies speak to the practicality of building trust through good works.
Building trust through good works means more than mere sponsorship. It is more than a once-a-year promotion supporting a run for breast cancer awareness, an Earth Day event, or an annual Christmas donation. Building trust means integrating commitment to the cause on a sustainable, ongoing basis as a relevant reinforcement of the brand promise.
Consumers want assurances that your motivation is authentic. This means that the cause to which you commit your brand should be tied closely with your brand. Consumers can tell whether your attachment to a cause is opportunistic.
Pedigree Dog Food’s support of The Pedigree Adoption Drive is a terrific example of building trust through good works. PepsiCo, with the help of actor Matt Damon, through the Ethos water brand, donates a nickel for every bottle of Ethos water sold, to help children around the world have clean drinking water.
Rebuilding trust is a commitment a brand makes to its customers—and to its employees—on both local and global grounds. Market leaders have a special responsibility and a special opportunity. Market leaders like McDonald’s cannot solve a social problem alone. But as market leaders, their market influence is greater than their market share. Market leaders should commit to using their size and strength to set powerful examples for others to follow. If leaders do not lead, then others will attack the leaders for failing in their responsibilities.
Ray Kroc believed that doing the right thing is the right thing to do. He taught that good citizens give back to the community. He had passion about being a responsible citizen, a good neighbor, and a responsible leader.
McDonald’s partnered with Conservation International and several suppliers to develop guidelines for prioritizing responsibility in agriculture and food systems covering social, environmental, and animal welfare issues. McDonald’s has been a vocal advocate of beef safety through certification from farm to your plate. The decision was made to not purchase beef from the rain forests or recently deforested rain areas. McDonald’s has supported elimination of several torturous practices in the chicken and pork industries. The company pursues an environmentally sound fish sourcing strategy.23
For decades, McDonald’s has supported children in need through the Ronald McDonald House where the families of seriously ill children can live during the course of pediatric hospital stays. World Children’s Day was created as an annual day dedicated to the well-being of children and has raised millions of dollars for children’s charities. In addition to World Children’s Day other programs, such as the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile program and the broader Ronald McDonald House Charities, offer helping hands to children in need.
McDonald’s also has a heritage of local community involvement. Ray Kroc insisted that giving back to and becoming a part of the local neighborhood surrounding the restaurant was essential. “We should cooperate with the civic group and the community group in whatever is going on. If they need a new playground, if they need new playground equipment, we should do what we can to cooperate with them. We want their business. And, it’s not enough to just want their business to have them come over to our place and leave the money there. We’ve got to do something about making them feel friendlier towards us. And...wanting to come to our place because we are cognizant of the community and we show a spirit of cooperation. We have an obligation to give back to the community that gives so much to us.”24
Trust building is a major challenge for business, but the rewards are well worth it. At McDonald’s, we learned that trust could be rebuilt. It takes time and effort; it takes commitment, but it pays.25
The Do’s and Don’ts of Rebuilding Trust
Do
• Build trust measures into your Scorecard—Trust can be measured. If you do not know the degree to which your customers trust your brand, you are headed into brand triage.
• Become part of the solution for your customers’ important issues—Customers prefer brands reflecting values that match their own. You do not want customers who say, “Great brand, but it just isn’t me.”
• Behave predictably—Erratic behavior and changing beliefs and values confuse customers and dilute trust. Allow your customers to become familiar with you, your values, and behaviors. Familiarity breeds comfort.
• Provide information—If you do not, the customers will find it anyway. The Internet is an image-maker or an image-breaker.
• Reevaluate the tonality and voice of your communications—Communications that talk down to or demean customers may be funny and witty, but you may be insulting someone.
• Seek out credible third-party testimony—Borrowing credibility is acceptable. The halo effect may be just the thing your brand needs to rebuild trust. If your trust has run off, let someone else’s trust rub off on you.
• Become involved—Whether locally, globally, or both, find issues that show you care and then participate. In your customers’ eyes, you are what you do.
Don’t
• Don’t just talk, DO—Actions speak louder than words. Demonstrate; don’t just discuss.
• Don’t overpromise—Promise what you can deliver and deliver what you promise. Setting up expectations that you cannot meet will help disintegrate trust.
• Don’t be silent—Silence may be golden but only if you are in the library reading room. Speak up for your brand. State your goals. People need to hear what you have to say.
• Don’t hide—Smoke screens do not provide comfort, they create cover-ups. Customers want to know the truth. As Loren Baritz writes in his book, Backfire, “A secret is a private truth and that is an acceptable definition of madness.”26
1 Rotter, J. B., “Generalized Expectancies for Interpersonal Trust,” American Psychology, vol. 26, 1971, 443-452.
2 The Perrier bottle indicated that the water came directly from the natural spring and went into the green bottle. As it turned out, the “gas” to make the bubbles was added after the water came out of the spring. Perrier had to change its label to indicate the addition of “gas” in the bottling plant.
3 James, George, “Perrier Recalls Its Water in U.S. After Benzene is Found in Bottles,” The New York Times, February 10, 1990; see also, Haig, Matt, Brand Failures: The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time, London: Kogan Page Ltd., 2003, 129-131.
4 Sophocles, Oedipus Colonus, 1.611.
5 Golin, Al, Trust or Consequences: Build Trust Today or Lose Your Market Tomorrow, New York: AMACON, 2003.
6 Print advertisement, US News & World Report, October 2, 2006.
7 Print advertisement, Forbes, July 4, 2006.
8 Print advertisement, BusinessWeek, September 20, 2004.
9 WDTV.com, Breanna Burmeister, May 22, 2007.
10 Kroc, Ray, 1968 Toronto Leadership Video.
11 “Chipotle Commits to Serving More Than 50 Million Pounds of Naturally Raised Meat in 2008,” The Wall Street Journal Online, January 7, 2008; Chipotle Press Release, Chipotle Mexican Grill.
12 Cohen, Arianne, “Ode to a Burrito,” Fast Company, April 2008.
13 “SWOOSH! Inside Nike: CNBC presents an unprecedented look inside Nike’s $16 Billion Empire,” reported and anchored by Darren Rovell, CNBC Sports Reported, CNBC, 2007.
14 The problems in the toy industry were captured in numerous articles, a sampling of such are: Story, Louise, “Putting Playthings to the Test,” The New York Times, August, 29, 2007; Morgenstern, Gretchen, “Toy Magnets Attract Sales, And Suits,” The New York Times, July 15, 2007; Simon, Bernard, “Toy Story with a Tough Moral for Managers,” The Financial Times, August 9, 2007; Casey, Nicholas, “Toy-Safety Measures Expand,” The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2007; Tschang, Chi-Chi, “Bottlenecks in Toyland,” BusinessWeek, October 15, 2007; McIlroy, Megan, “How Mattel Can Win Back Parents,” Advertising Age, August 6, 2007.
15 Gibson, Richard, “McDonald’s Profit Rebounds on Strong Overseas Results,” The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2008. See also, Kardos, Donna, “McDonald’s US Sales Rebound,” The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2008, for additional US versus Europe comparisons in results.
16 Business Superbrands survey, Brand Strategy, February 2004; www.superbrands.uk.com; brandstrategy.co.uk; www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/features/2139749/branding-mark.
17 Wired, cover copy, April 2007.
18 Ibid.
19 Creamer, Matthew, “You Call This Transparency?” Advertising Age, April 30, 2007.
20 Pirson, Michael, and Deepak Malhotra, “Unconventional insights for managing stakeholder trust,” MITSloan Management Review (2008), 49(4): 43-50.
21 Conrad, Joseph, “A Familiar Preface,” A Personal Record, Britain, 1912.
22 Franklin, Daniel, et al., “Just good business: a special report on corporate social responsibility,” The Economist, January 19, 2008. For full list of acknowledgements, see www.economist.com/specialreports.
23 McDonald’s Worldwide Corporate Responsibility Report, 2004 and 2006.
24 Kroc, Ray, Phil Donahue Show, 1977.
25 People are loyal to trustworthy brands, and building brand loyalty pays off. Fredrick Reichheld reported that a bank found that a 5% increase in customer retention grew that company’s profits by 60%. In the life of an insurance company, a 5% increase in customer retention lowered costs per policy by 18%. Reichheld, Frederick F., “Loyalty-Based Management,” Harvard Business Review, March/April 1993.
26 Baritz, Loren, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.