They used to construct the buildings that housed banks as if they were impenetrable stone fortresses.  The symbolism was obvious: your money is safe with us.  From kids with jars of pennies to young families and businesses of every shape and size, everyone put their hard-earned greenbacks into the hands of the banker, a person above reproach – someone you could trust to protect your money.  Today, that trust is at question.

Once-heralded banks are now seen as symbols of greed and deceit, and politics is equated to corruption.  It’s safe to say that the state of trust in 2008 is but a shadow of its former counterpart.

Who could have ever imagined that in the early stages of the 21st century the idea of a mattress being a safe place for money would be discussed, let alone acted on? So, who do you trust?  What factors foster trust?  And is the trust issue limited to the financial sector?  I think not.  Eaten any tomatoes with salmonella or E-coli in the last six months?

As a marketer of products, I think that today marketers must “over” prove their trustworthiness, because consumers today are “resistant to being sold to.”  This is true across the country, unbounded by belief or status: blue state, red state, urban, suburban and rural.

Welcome to the age of retrusting.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 8:41 am and is filed under BRAND, NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.