Human-Driven Experience

4The Battle for Trust in the Digital Age—The More We See, the Less We Believe

Trust is the glue of life.

It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication.

It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

—Stephen Covey

In the 1950s and 1960s, we were very much in the Mad Men era of marketing, which was all about being clever and resonating with people who you intuited or divined were your audience. There were lots of broad statements made about large segments of the population, such as the familiar “What's good for General Motors is good for America” or this 1964 ad for Samsonite Silhouette luggage: “Silhouette is you … slender, fast-paced, daringly elegant.”¹

These statements and slogans were the fundamental elements of trust. Customers received the brand promise—it was usually simple, and the reality of the experience might have been hit or miss. Reviews, forums, social, and modern channels didn't exist for consumers, so you relied on authoritative figures or pitchmen to provide the confidence.

In truth, the American population was not as homogeneous as marketers thought it was, and people weren't quite as receptive to the kinds of broad statements that many marketers were routinely making. As it turned out, the American Dream could be segmented into a lot of different pieces. In addition, the concepts of need states and behaviors versus expectations also came into play, further parsing customer segments.

As the digital age started to take hold, ...