Trust is something that I value with everything that I do. When it comes to purchasing decisions, my instincts are highly based on brand value and what they stand for. However, I personally prefer when I can trust these brands. I look at it with three perspectives; price, quality and trustworthiness.
- Price and quality go hand in hand.
- Price reflects what I believe the product or service is worth relative to quality. If the quality goes up then so does the price and vice versa. One of the traits that I value is a sustainability. I believe that if a product is made more sustainably then the product has even more value. An example would be any Patagonia product as they are of superior quality, but they also are sustainable with their decisions. For example, take a look at the quick video I have linked below explaining their new sleeping bag. In the video, a product is displayed of higher quality with sustainable pieces; replaceable zippers (don’t have to through out the sleeping bag), and traceable down material.
- However, the most important factor is if you trust what information is being provided. This is true from a product/service perspective and a brand perspective. If consumers believe what is being said and the company lies about it then the companies reputation is a ticking time
bomb. Do not lie to get ahead.
- The best example of this was the Volkswagen emission scandal in the United States. (Diesel Dupe). Essentially, Volkswagen admitted to using a defeating device for their diesel cars which could sense when the cars were being tested for emissions and could reduce them. They marketed a variety of cars by “trumpeting its cars’ low emissions.” (BBC)
By lying to their customers, Volkswagen lost trust with stakeholders and consumers. Now not every example of trust has to be from a learning standpoint. If companies are transparent then trust wont be a huge concerning factor. However, when examples like Diesel Dupe are occurring, its hard to trust these big companies.
My final point is that if companies want to put forward sustainable practices then we should be able to trust them. Be transparent and honest.
Another Great Company: https://4ocean.com/
References
Hi Tyler,
These posts are doing a wonderful job consolidating the ideas we are discussing in class. Providing some interesting insight for the rest of the class.
Moving forward – if you want to integrate the hyperlinks right into the text you could engage your classmates even more or perhaps even ask questions for your classmates to answer.
I’ve really enjoyed reading all your posts, and I look forward to reading further!
Tess
Hey Tyler,
You’ve brought up some great points in this post! Sometimes companies will completely lie about something to make themselves sound better (like in the Volkswagen case), and sometimes there is just the “marketing white lies” that words things to sound a little better than they actually are.
For example, for my first blog post I wrote about a company called Honest. Ironically enough, news came out they were 100% honest with their marketing and labelling on their products. This created a lot of backlash from their consumers – not so much to kill their company but certain wasn’t good from a PR standpoint.
My question for you is if you found out a company you’ve always loved has been telling these “marketing lies”, would you still support it? Will it depend on their response? And what is the appropriate response when news like this comes out? Love to hear your thoughts!