Consumer’s evolving trust equation with brands

• The business case for brands and enterprises to act responsibly

Brand equity and loyalty are precious commodities and ones that are constantly evolving. At the start of the industrial age, consumers’ relationship with brands was rather simple. A brand could earn the love and trust of consumers by offering quality products and services. The better the quality, the more loyal consumers were to the brand. This was largely due to the limited choice available in any given market.

With globalisation, this started changing. Any enterprise could build products or services in markets with lower production costs and offer them with great ease in other markets. This meant that brands were offering high-quality products at a wide array of price points. Quality was still a vital attribute that consumers sought. However, brands had to find other ways to stand out in the marketplace. They had to go beyond communicating functional attributes and engage with consumers on an emotional level.

The Rise of Consumer Engagement

The advent of digital social media platforms gave brands countless new ways to engage with their target consumers. They had the opportunity to deliver more dynamic campaigns that adapt to evolving on-ground situations in near real-time. Brands were able to remain highly topical, rolling out content related to business global or local events - everything from cheering the home team and running live promos through a cricket match to holding real-time consumer sentiment polls and everything in between. These mediums also allowed them to create more captivating content - images, animations, videos, etc. - that had a more significant impact on consumers when compared to traditional media. All this led to a sustained spike in the level of engagement.

However, the conversation between brands and their audiences is now a two-way street. It is no longer a monologue with just brands talking about their product or their service. Now, consumers are responding to everything a brand says, does or does not do. While this has helped enhance the level and quality of engagement, it has also led to people holding brands more accountable for their actions or lack of the same.

The rise of digital media platforms has also created a heightened dialogue about social issues. People are more aware of everything that is happening around the world - be it in their local community or a country thousands of miles away and are actively expressing their views on them.

With this, they expect organisations - Governments, Enterprises, NGOs and everyone else to raise their voices about these issues and scrutinise the views of these organisations, as and when they are expressed. Furthermore, just as they vote governments in or out based on their performance around issues that concern them, people also vote brands in or out of their consideration set based on the same.

The Role of Trust in Purchase Decisions

A report by global communications firm Edelman - the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust, The New Brand Equity - notes that the level of trust consumers has in a brand has become one of the key factors influencing purchase decisions. It is almost as important as product or service quality and perceived value. One of the key findings of the survey was that ‘highly trusted brands are seven times more likely to be purchased.’ Of the over 14,000 people surveyed in 14 countries, 61% were prepared to advocate a brand that they fully trusted and 57% of them were even prepared to purchase a new product or service from such a brand.

The Edelman study also found that ‘consumers believe they have the power to force brands to change (63%) and want to exert that power on brands to make society better (78%)’. Thanks to social media, consumers are closely observing every move brands make. They will be quick to identify brands that take genuine action for the betterment of society and vote with their wallets.

Seeing that consumers seek to back brands that earn their trust through such actions, it has become all the more important for brands to take cognisant action of the fact that they exist for the people and allow themselves to be guided by people, culture, purpose and society. Brands can do so only by moving beyond business goals and transforming themselves into agents of positive change by playing a greater role in the lives of individuals as well as society at large.

At HEINEKEN, we have had the opportunity to play a role in driving such change through our portfolio of over 300 brands in over 190 countries. 

From helping combat toxic masculinity and gender violence by promoting a more inclusive, modern and respectful model of masculinity to destigmatising and championing responsible drinking through global campaigns such as ‘When You Drive, Never Drink’, we have always been committed to supporting the communities we operate in. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we stepped up our efforts in this regard with the rollout of several targeted initiatives.

#SupportOurStreets

With lockdowns being imposed from time to time to control the spread of COVID-19 and save lives, it became more important than ever to champion and support the many people and F&B businesses that make streets the lifeblood of every community. 

Tiger® launched #SupportOurStreets - an initiative across Asia to help local pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, and food courts tide over these difficult times. We pledged more than € 950,000 – MYR 1.5 million by HEINEKEN Malaysia and SGD 1 million by Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore - in the form of cash funds and vouchers. 

People could use these at their favourite local Food and Beverage (F&B) outlets. This was aimed at helping local F&B outlets to generate more cash to survive and rise back. #SupportOurStreets was expanded to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam and supported local talents from the region by connecting them with an audience digitally.

#BackTheBars

Bars are hives of activity - places where people meet, laugh, share and have a good time. However, they are one of the businesses to have been drastically affected by the realities of the new normal. Seeing their struggles, we launched our #BackTheBars campaign as part of our larger #SocialiseResponsibly global initiative. Aimed at supporting the HoReCa (Hotel / Restaurant / Café) industry around the world, the campaign sought to remind consumers of the importance of behaving responsibly.

Going to town with its call to action - ‘socialise responsibly to keep bars open’, we reiterated the fact that only by respecting health and safety guidelines would consumers be able to help bars to remain open and enjoy their evenings with friends. We also set up donation platforms for local initiatives which support bars and restaurants.

These campaigns enabled us to lend our voice to address the need of the hour - educating the public about the importance of basic COVID safety practices and enabling them to support affected businesses in their community. Leveraging the strong bond that people tend to have with their local dining and entertainment venues, this campaign showed them how they could support these much-loved local businesses by acting responsibly during the new normal.

The Need for Enterprise-wide Commitment

Initiatives such as these go beyond the purview of the marketing or brand teams and require the involvement of people from across all functions; from the board and the c-suite to finance, procurement and production to sales and distribution.

Just as consumers and members of the public have expanded their engagement with brands and influenced their decisions, all internal stakeholders too need to get more involved in shaping their in-house brands. Only then will the brand have access to diverse sets of inputs that will enable it to truly understand emerging societal issues and ways in which it can bring about positive change.

Armed with these invaluable insights, brand custodians need to take bold steps to lend a voice to their brands - one that stands for the right things. This needs to extend beyond brand tag lines or campaign slogans and translate into concrete on-ground action.

While this is the right thing to do from an ethical standpoint, studies quoted earlier show that it makes strong business sense too.

The wheels of change have begun turning with several brands already making conscious efforts in this regard. However, as with all things of this nature, a lot more can and should be done. Let us resolve to work together on accelerating this movement.

The writer is the Director Sales and Marketing, HEINEKEN Lanka Ltd. Having joined HEINEKEN Lanka Ltd., in 2017 as the Director of Sales and Trade Marketing overlooking Brand Marketing, Trade Marketing, Sales and Route to Consumer, Oshan has 17-years of experience in the Corporate Sector having worked at Fonterra Brands and Ceylon Tabacco Company. Whilst at Ceylon Tobacco Company, he handled markets such as Bangladesh and Pakistan. A past pupil of Trinity College, Kandy, Oshan holds an MBA from Cardiff Metropolitan University UK.