Consumer Trust and Brand Messaging is More Important than Ever.
Consumer Trust and Brand Messaging is More Important than Ever.
Brand statements about major news events are seemingly the new normal. It’s a new age for how brands not only engage the thorny theatre of politics — but engage and gain the trust of their consumers. Expectations have shifted (that may be putting it lightly).
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The exception has become the expected: brands are now engaging major news events, particularly in the political sphere.
Market Research and analytic insights are helping companies uncover what is important to people in these extraordinary times – and brands are jumping in, even in a politically divided nation, to message and speak to those consumer values directly. Consider the past several years, as AdAge has carefully tracked. Brands have been increasingly weighing in on everything from the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter, to the pandemic, and this acrimonious election that meets its apotheosis today. Expectation may be giving way to a new brand requirement.
Brand messaging is how corporations aim to humanize themselves — it’s the mechanism by which organizations become people and build trust with their consumers.
Companies and their brands are now a ubiquitous (and integral) part of American life. For most of us, our political representatives in Congress are much further removed from the fabric of our day-to-day lives than, say, the brands in our Amazon cart.
It wasn’t so long ago that brands would seek to avoid even a whiff of controversy, but those days are seemingly in the rearview mirror. Brands once remained mum on topics deemed impolite for polite company — namely sex, religion, politics. But things have shifted, and fast. Even traditionally apolitical companies have jumped in, as Chevron did on January 6th:
And many companies are being even more explicit about subjects like immigration, women’s rights, and gun control — such as Chobani championing refugees.
2018 was a turning point, and things have shifted even more since then.
We are in a new age of brand messaging and in particular political engagement — and market researchers and analytics professionals are providing data-driven insights and intelligence to help marketers in an increasingly difficult job – which is making sure messages match the moment – and what their customers value.