Retailers and brands need to evolve their channel-mix for consumer engagement in an age where trust is harder to earn and keep, says Bernd Bude, CEO of ADvendio.
Loyalty is made up of several attributes, but chief among them is trust. And earning that trust is a lot harder than it used to be due to two main reasons. The first is that people are less trusting than they used to be, particularly in governments, institutions and the media, particularly since the pandemic when the public was at its most vulnerable and dependent. The second is that, in a cut-throat market, there are more companies competing for our trust, and using increasingly sophisticated techniques to earn it.
The good news is that trust has shifted to companies – and, more specifically, to brands. A survey by Edelman in its Trust Barometer 2022 found that business beats government by 53 points on competency and 26 points on ethics. We can already see the results in the way that many brands engage with their customers not simply as buyers but as members for life, part of a community of people committed to positive behaviour around health, the environment, mental health, leisure, lifestyle and so on.
Trust is hard won, but easily lost
This places brands in a strong position in terms of reach and influence, but also leaves them open to losing trust if they are not present and relevant everywhere. We are now well past the time when consumers went to a single place to source information about a product they were thinking about buying. Now, partly because they have so many places to go and partly because they are generally less trusting, they will look more widely and deeply before jumping in.
The evidence that UK shoppers are now demanding more ‘blended’ product recommendations, both from traditional ad channels, as well as from brands and retailers they already trust, comes from our latest poll of 1,000 UK shoppers. The research revealed that product recommendations from retailers customers already shopped with had overtaken content from traditional media channels, including TV, print and social, when it came to offering ‘trusted’ content.
Recommendations from retailers shoppers were already loyal to was the top most trusted source of product recommendations for 41%, followed closely by traditional TV ads (40%). Curated content delivered by trusted and familiar brands also topped traditional print and social media sources (26% versus 20% and 18% respectively).
Trust leads to sales
This shift towards wanting to be served ad content from already trusted brands calls for a greater cross-channel approach to shopper engagement, which means retailers should consider a blend of 1st party and 3rd party channels within their advertising strategies to deliver increased interaction, conversion and sales.
First party data is an important element in building trust because the retailer continues to own and control its own data, without any privacy fears because it is not shared. Trust is also maintained and convincingly communicated through accurate targeting as first party data is used to focus marketing spend on particular groups such as current shoppers, lapsed shoppers, competitor shoppers or possible shoppers.
Our research bears this out; half (50%) of UK shoppers now want to receive highly curated, personalised advertisements and brand communications from the retailers they already shop with, rising to 65% of Gen Z and 62% of Millennials. Moreover, two fifths (38%) of consumers say they would be more likely to buy from a product recommendation they received from a retailer they already regularly shopped with, highlighting the importance of building in first-party data and audiences into omnichannel ad strategies.
This logic extends into the store. The same research showed that 51% of shoppers are more likely to convert when served shelf-edge digital ads as part of the retailer’s retail media strategy.
36% said immersive digital adverts in-store would make them more likely to try a product they hadn’t bought before, driving up confidence, consideration and conversions at the shelf-edge. The hard link between on line and store is established in the finding that 38% of UK shoppers said they had already bought something in a supermarket as a result of seeing it advertised on a digital screen.
Ultimately, first party data is the glue that enables retailers and brands to operate across multiple channels, media and locations, and ensure a clear, consistent and compelling experience for customers whose trust is so valuable to them.
