Research: Post-recession? Brands need high TrustR
By Steve Mullins. Brand demands. Millward Brown has come up with a new brand metric – the TrustR Score – which sets out to measure how effectively brands meet the more demanding expectations of the post-recession consumer.
More demanding expectations?
Well, Millward Brown believes the world is now populated with more sceptical and less acquisitive consumers and that, for brands to succeed in this environment, they need to understand and respond to consumers in a new ways.
“Trust remains essential. It is the customer’s belief, cultivated over time, in the efficacy and reliability of the brand,” the research firm says.
And recommendation is a separate component of the consumer-brand relationship. It’s the customer’s belief that the brand continues to perform consistently and fulfils its promise.
So, trust plus recommendation equals TrustR, a new index where an average score is 100, a good one 105+, and a poor one 95 or lower.
And on Millward Brown’s global scorecard, 27% of brands get a good rating, while 23% are doing badly.
The research firm looked at 22 markets and came up with the ‘Number 1 TrustR’ brands in each country (see below). So, Nokia comes out tops in China, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Taiwan and Thailand, while Pampers dominates in the UK, France and Germany. Amazon is the leading TrustR brand in the US.
How significant is this?
The brand-customer bond is 10 times greater than the average brand-customer bond, says Millward Brown. The brand is nearly seven times more likely to be purchased. And it shows a high likelihood of short-term, market-share growth.
