The role of trust in consumers’ brand considerations

Gaining the trust of consumers is crucial to the success of many brands. Increased trust leads to greater brand consideration, which in turn should lead to more sales.

Research suggests that one way of engendering trust is by providing consumers with competitive information in a way that is seen as altruistic by being geared towards customers’ needs. However, while much theory has been written on the subject, no field experiments have been conducted to support this belief – until now.

Working with a once-dominant American automotive manufacturer that had seen its markets decline because of increased competition, a research team including ERIM Assistant Professor of Marketing, Gui Liberali, conducted two field experiments over a two-year period.

In year 1, the automotive manufacturer provided experiential, product-feature, word-of-mouth, and advisor information to consumers in an experiment that ran for six months.

Results confirm that competitive information can indeed lead to trust, and to brand consideration and sales. However, contrary to current theory, these effects are significant only for information that is positively-valenced, i.e., it holds an intrinsic attractiveness for the consumer.

The year-2 experiment tested whether a signal – that the firm was willing to share competitive information – would engender trust, brand consideration, and, ultimately increase sales.

Here, and again contrary to many theories, the signal alone did not engender trust, brand consideration, or increase sales. The signal was not effective because consumers who already trusted the auto manufacturer were more likely to opt-in to competitive information.

Based on the research, the company concluded that providing competitive information does build trust, brand consideration, and increases sales, but only when implemented cost effectively to sceptical consumers in categories where it has good vehicles relative to competitors. This more-nuanced trust-based strategy is considered to be more profitable than a general strategy of trust signalling.

• Download Competitive information, trust, brand consideration and sales: two field experiments from Science Direct.