APR 5, 2007

Building Trust in a Brand

Banks 0 Comments Marketing

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Successful marketers know that you must build trust with consumers before you try to sell them anything. Often times when working with our clients we suggest placing customer testimonials on their websites to help build trust, like we did on Meineke’s Franchising website. If a customer can see that others have trusted your company and had a good experience, inherently they will be more likely to trust you as well.

However, some company’s try to build trust the wrong way. They will try to look larger than they are, use fake testimonials, or even claim fake acknowledgements—like a former boss of mine did while working for MediaPlay back in high school. Back then, I was in charge of creating all of the in-store signage. One day he instructed me to design a sign to be hung near the cashiers that read “Voted Charlotte’s Best Music Store”. I remember thinking that the sign was not going to fool anyone and likely would backfire, making people distrust the store.

Today I found one of the best examples of an ad designed to build trust amongst a company’s audience. Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock, a company that protects people from identity theft, put this on his company’s homepage:

My name is Todd Davis

This is my social security number 457-55-5462

I'm Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock. Yes, that really is my social security number. No I'm not crazy. I'm just sure our system works. Just like we have with mine, LifeLock will make your personal information useless to a criminal. And it's GUARANTEED.

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