Build Brands, Be Trusted

Are you buying the right quality of gold jewellery? Diamond jewellery? Are you buying good quality bottled water? Clean water? Are you buying good quality fabrics? Ready-made clothing? Are you buying good quality electronics? Mobile phones? Are you ordering good quality food from the restaurant? Snacks?

The questions go on and on and on.

There is a great marketing opportunity based on trust deficit, because consumers like to buy trusted brands. When they doubt the quality, the good quality trusted brands win in terms of sales, market share, and profit growth.

Many a time, the consumer has a doubt and is not absolutely sure about the quality or the claim made by the marketer. There is a trust deficit.

For many years, consumers have been going to the local chakki (flour mill) with grains of wheat to be ground into wheat flour. A family member would always stay on to check that there was no adulteration or theft of quantity while wheat was being ground into wheat flour. This was a trust deficit.

Today, branded atta is easily available, and a number of atta brands have been able to use trust deficit as a marketing opportunity and build large brands of packaged branded atta.

Brands like Aashirvaad are growing in market share rapidly, along with other brands like Annapurna, NatureFresh, Patanjali, and Pillsbury. This is a great example of how using trust deficit as a marketing opportunity benefits the consumer and drives profitability for the marketer.

In our daily life, we come across many such occasions of trust deficit – instances for various categories of products and services. In the interest of the consumer and in the interest of the company’s growth, it is important that trust deficit be removed and trust surplus be brought in.

By building brands, you are able to convince the consumers and convert trust deficit into trust surplus.

After all, trust is just another word for brand.

Kisna diamond jewellery of the Harikrishna Group has been able to remove trust deficit by offering the best quality designs in the VVS category. The group has removed trust deficit and brought in trust surplus by marketing real diamonds in the VVS quality Kisna brands.

To further enhance trust, the Kisna brand offers only VVS quality and not VS and SI. This builds trust among consumers, and sales and market share of the dealer go up, as the fear of being cheated is removed. Kisna is today highly regarded as a trusted and growing brand.

It’s the same with Aashirvaad atta, as also Raymond and Siyaram suiting. Other instances are: Lux soap and the brands from the Maruti stable and the Tata Group.

Whether it is a child or a senior citizen, every consumer is looking for trusted brands.

Brands like Fevicol, Taj, Indigo (the airline), Dettol, Frooti, and Appy have all been able to gain the consumers’ trust, increase their business, and satisfy the consumer.

When a cable wire is bought, the consumer is worried about the claimed vs. actual length—are they the same, or is the cable shorter? And when one buys milk, the worry is about whether the quality claimed matches what is actually given. This is why brands offered in tetrapacks by Amul, Mother Dairy, and Nestlé are trusted and accepted.

Organizations like CFBP (Council for Fair Business Practices) help in monitoring and encouraging trusted brands. It also pulls up brands that suffer from trust deficit through its complaints & grievances cell.

Marketers must understand that brand trust gives them a ‘thrust’ in terms of sales, market share, and reputation. In a growing economy, there will always be good marketers, as well as not-so-good marketers. A good marketer with trusted brands will be able to use trust deficit as a marketing opportunity, while the not-so-good marketers, burdened with trust deficit, will be left behind—because consumers will ignore them.

After all, the reason people buy brands is that they seek quality, whether tangible or intangible. Consumers prefer brands with high perceived value.

Building trusted brands is a great marketing opportunity to serve the consumer well and grow. Converting trust deficit into trust surplus is indeed a great marketing opportunity!