You Brand

Governments, economies and communities require trust to function and a society without trust ultimately dies. Even so, surveys keep on showing us that mistrust in on the rise. Besides politicians it’s usually managers, bankers and marketeers that we trust least. Why did our trust compass break?

Is it because of a general moral decline? Or because the value ‘trust’ was considered to be old-fashioned, meaning it didn’t sell well in a society shaped by an ‘anything goes’-mentality? Or because of the communication breakdown between producers and consumers in a world dominated by one way media before the Internet arrived?

The results are devastating: Companies have lost brand control, but many still refuse to realize and accept that.

Restoring trust therefore belongs on top of the agenda. That implies a change in corporate attitude: more entrepreneurship and less management. Entrepreneurship meaning discovering the chances, implementing the innovation, tapping the resources and using them and bearing the risks. Back in 1912 Joseph Schumpeter called this ‘creative destruction’.

Consumers are the most powerful ‘resources’. Including them in the corporate architecture of value creation will ultimately lead to a new, more successful business model.