Is trust a must?

Imagine a room packed full of people, each jostling for space, food and survival. There's a door to the room, but it only works one way - people can come in, but cannot leave. And, the room keeps filling up, cramming more after more. The people in the room face paranoia, fear, aggression and as time progresses and as the crowd grows, only one objective remains - to survive. Now, imagine the crowded room to be your mind and the teeming people to be brands that enter incessantly. This, perhaps, is the closest picture of the chaotic state of the stakeholder's mind in a brand stuffed world.  

Businesses are 'transactable ideas' that need their stakeholders' trust to even exist, let alone endure. A trusted idea automatically becomes an accepted idea and in its degree of acceptance lies its transmission quotient. And so, when a business establishes strong trust bonds with its stakeholders, through its offerings, communication or existence, it continually reinforces its brand - its life-force. Ideas which combat trust and promote morbidity, eventually getting snuffed by the stronger trust forces. As brands establish trust in those they engage with, they become a very part of the stakeholder's mind, almost reflecting it in their brand persona.

As hundreds of thousands of brands battle for the stakeholder's mindshare, one can only imagine the gruesome outcome. Warring brands often take dangerous and undesirable shortcuts, and victories, if any, are mostly pyrrhic - maiming the victor's brand as much as it does the losers. More than anything, the unfortunate result of negative brand action most often is that the reward being fought for - the stakeholders mind - also gets severely injured in the battle. Brands must therefore remain very aware of two things; firstly, that they are capable of wounding the stakeholder's minds by what they say and do, and secondly, that the minds of the stakeholders' are already in much agony due to previous brand actions. Brands which tread carefully and build trust help alleviate the pain and find a permanent place with stakeholders, and those that do not, may get noticed, but will be associated by the stakeholder with anguish and grief.

Machiavelli's wrote in his book 'The Prince', what seems most appropriate for Brand Trust as well- "Princes who acquire their principalities with ease, keep it with difficulty, and those who acquire it with difficulty, keep it with ease." Drawing a Brand Trust analogy from his book - if a brand acquires trust with much effort, it will keep it with ease, and if it acquires Brand Trust without much effort, the brand will keep it with difficulty.  This, however, is not to say that one must focus solely on gaining trust, for such unilateral focus is counter-productive. Instead, it requires the brand to go about its action and communication as normal, so that each such is infused with trust enhancing ingredients. 

With every brand trying to mean everything to everyone, if there's any differentiator between closely competing brands, it is trust. As trust becomes more ephemeral, so does the need to hold on to it with greater care and caution. And, if a brand acquires the trust of its stakeholders, those that impact it in the now and in the future, such a brand is destined for eternal greatness.