Edelman on Brand Trust

really delighted to have you here. And it's on a day when you guys, you do this annually, and I think you recently did an adjustment to I think the most recent one or last year's. UM. But we're talking about the Edelman Trust Barometer Report and you take a look at brand trust specifically. Tell us remind our our listeners a little bit about this report and what you

guys found. So UM, we found something quite remarkable, Carol, which is that, in fact, trust has emerged as the second most powerful means um to stimulate somebody to buy a brand, right after price comes trust. Do I trust the brand ahead of ingredients, customer service? UM? Where I can buy it? UM, It's amazing and it's actually because of UM COVID nineteen and the protests around systemic racism, it's caused people to completely re evaluate how they buy brands,

and so tell us about how that manifests. I mean, what does that mean? You know brands so well, Richard? How will that ultimately influenced behavior? And how soon it's happening right now? UM, I'm a brand belief buyer, meaning if I see that a brand stands up for things that I believe in, then I'm going to buy it. And if I don't, I'll boycotted say bad things. UM. Switch. So people told us that they have switched brands in the last three months since COVID started as to whether

they feel a company UM has did appropriately. That's amazing. Also tried new brands and switched on that basis. So almost half the people. That's remarkable, And I was just thinking, you know, Richard, it comes on a day you heard Charlie Pellet talk about UNI lever halting US ads on Facebook and Twitter. Through you had we talked earlier about JP Morgan ditching customers who use its workers with racism. They're talking about customers who call into their call centers

they've already gotten rid of some customers. I mean, we're seeing companies really take action pretty pretty swiftly and rightfully. So, if I may add, I think I think this is

a big moment for brands. I think that brands in a certain way are the new corporation, meaning that there's this new expectation also Carol, that they're going to take care of workers, that the employees of KFC or whoever have to be protected with ppe with uh, you know, new ways of laying out the restaurants, making sure that the workers are good. Um, that's a big new responsibility for brands, and I think profound. Yeah. You know what's interesting, Richard,

and poor Carroll has been enduring this with me. All we get in my interview with Maverick Carter and Lebron James this week. You know, one of the things that Maverick Carter said was one of the ways this transcends this moment is if companies get beyond statements and get to action and you know, you just outline some things just there. Uh, but that does feel important and different.

And I wonder what you make of that, because you talked to CEOs all the time, and I'm sure, you advise them on what to say, but I'm guessing they're often more often turning to you to say, all right, I've said this, Now what do I do? Well? Interestingly, it falls in a bunch of buckets. The first is, let's fix history, so Antemima, cream of Weed, Uncle Ben's those are images that are dated, they have to change.

Then there is where we do at the present. Um you know Walmart's decision this week to stop selling um flags of the state of Mississippi because they have the Confederate Battle Battle flag within. That's amazing. Uh. And similarly, um, you know a brand like Dove deciding to run at last Sunday on the SPS saying that, um, you know, it's no Father's Day because too many black um fathers have been put in jail. That's a brand standing up and speaking up. And when that happens, a brand gets

four times more trust than standing aside. And race has always been the third rail of the American conversation. And when brands go into race, you know that it's a big moment because go ahead, no, no, you finished? Please please? No. I just think it's it tells you everything that belief driven buyers want brands to speak up that the new expectation is don't be a chicken, don't put your head down. You know, you need to stand for me. You need

to be out there for me. I love change what I wanted to, you know, jump in And I feel like, Jason, this kind of piggybacks off of something you said. But we had a guest on um linnair Irvin, she's president of the Center for Talent Innovation, and she said, you know, these these folks, these leaders who make external statements, They've got to first fix their home, their their houses internally and earn the right to make those statements externally about

getting rid of racism and being a diverse organization. So tell me, I'm curious in the conversation to having Richard that these companies that are making these great moves and statements, you know, publicly, how much are how much of the conversation is changing internally and not just the conversation but actions internally, so that what they say externally represents what they do internally in their organization, in other words, making

it diverse and getting rid of racism. So I think there are the first step obviously is fix your own house. Such that you have a diverse board, that you have a broader array of both black and Hispanic executives in your firm, and then educate and advocate so you know, then you have to pick up on the issues. And then the third is actually get involved in fixing things. So Ben and Jerry's ice Cream actually hires people who have had misdemeanors, felony misdemeanors, and they say, we don't care.

That changes the game because it enables someone who has been imprisoned to get a job and not be unemployed for the rest of his or her life. Yeah, it's faction, right, and we know ultimately so much of what's going on is a financial poverty issue, and it's economic and that's what it comes down to. Um, We're going to continue

our conversation with Richard Edelman. He's the founder and CEO of the global communications firm Edelman joining us on the phone in New York City talking about their Trust Barometer Special Report or Brand Trust. I. You know, we talked about it a lot, Jason, but I do feel like it's taking on a whole new meaning against the backdrop of the virus from the last four months, and also of course, of what happened in Minneapolis, what happened to

George Floyd. And you know we're talking about racism and diversity once again, right And and I think that Richard makes such an interesting point that for so long people wouldn't talk about companies. I'm not going near that, and now they are rightly getting dinged for not going. I mean, it's amazing how much that has flipped. UM and it slipped very fast. Can hit the snooze button anymore, that's right.

Heard that. Somewhere still with us is Richard Edelman, the founder and CEO of Edelman, joining us on the phone in New York City. We've been talking about Edelman Trust Barometer special report and looking really at brand trust. But Richard, I feel really bad. How are you doing? I meant to ask you that at the top. So, UM, it's a challenging time for the marketing services field because you know, everything from hospitality to travel to um the energy business,

car businesses is off. So you know, clients have been cutting budgets. But I've never felt more um inspired by

what I do. So, you know, working with clients on how they can keep their employees working effectively from home, or this incredible movement of brands to want to speak up on behalf of their customers is a great opportunity for us relative to ad agencies UM and and so literally we worked with Unilever UM in a week come up with a piece of content for UM for Father's Day that was so compelling about African Americans and families and good African American fathers. And you know that that

just excites me and makes me. And similarly, for Edge and Emoto, we came up with a campaign called take out Hate UM because Edge and Immoto makes MSG and supply Japanese and Chinese restaurants and people. As you know, we're blaming the Chinese and blaming those restaurants, you know, because of COVID, kung fluid or whatever. And we took out we did a campaign called take out Hate and we said, patronize those restaurants because these are good people.

And by the way, the food is delicious and it's ridiculous. So those kind of campaigns just excite me. Like hell and Richard, you know, I do wonder you know, given that you are so trusted by a lot of CEOs, I feel like you have the conversations that Carol and I as journalists, we always want to be in the room for because they're getting real with you. UM. You know you're always the guy that we want to talk to about those conversations. UM, and we know that you

have confidences to keep in all that. But you know, when you think about the conversations you're having with CEOs and members of boards of directors and things like that, do they feel different Because you've managed through so many crises, You've helped companies do so many crises. And I wonder, we keep asking this question about whether this will be different, and I wonder what you make of it. It's different than O one and oh eight by far. This actually

is UM, not just an economic change. It's a values change. And it's partly because we're in a very fraught political moment, but it's also because it feels as if COVID has scared the heck out of us, not just an economic sense, but in a personal in health sense, and so our values are different. And you know, people are spending more time at home and they're with their kids, and they're you know, they're not traveling, and and you know they're kind of figure out when do I have to go

back to the office. Do I have to go back to the office? And um, So the conversations with the CEOs are profound because they are having to make a lot of change very quickly, and they're realizing also that they have to step into the shoes of government in many cases because you know, this return to work and are we going too fast? And do we require masks? And what's the safe way for our employees. That's the that's the cold face that we're at the front of

right now. They can't hide behind government if I can, if I can piggyback on. I think what what Jason was also getting at was just you know, not just you know, the disparities that were revealed by the virus, but the last month in terms of racism, and you know, companies have been talking about setting up focus groups and taking steps to improve you know, diversity at their companies and yet Business Week kind of unbelievable cover last week,

has amazing cover this week too with Lebron James. In case you missed it, Jason did that story in that interview, but last week it was showing visually the lack of diversity in corporate America when it comes to black CEOs. Okay, it's a handful, and it's here we are. The number is for right. So we've been talking about this and companies have supposedly been talking about it and taking steps

not just this year, but for years, decades. We've been talking about it, and our guests have talked about you know, racism. It's been part of this country for four hundred years. So how do we how do we really move the needle, and how do we know it is different this time around that we actually get some action so that when we look around our companies it's diverse all the way

up to the top. I think that we have to do what you know we're doing in fun, which is we're putting a person African American on our board within the next thirty days, and we are promoting a person who deserves it too to the operating committee on the executive side. And we are going to go to primarily black colleges and find people as opposed to waiting for

them to come to us. And we're going to have very specific targets for how we change our company because we're not sufficiently you know, I think our diversity number is between black and hispanic, but within within senior management, it's you know, twelve percent, that's just not good enough. So we have to be intentional and we have to

be rigorous, and it has to be measured. And I think every company has to follow that pattern, um and say, you know, this is the moment to wake up, Um, this this is this is in America where half the millennials are people of color. Yeah, and let's let's let's move. Yeah, why to stay on TikTok? Because they get it right? Absolutely? Yeah, I mean that everything, everything has changed, and we just

hope that it's not for the moment. A lot of conversations about extending that into something that is asking you in anyways, Richard Edelman, always thoughtful. We really appreciate it. We appreciate all the time you spend with us. You've really been one of our go to voices through this entire uh pandemic and then the more recent crisis. As we go through a real reckoning because we know, Carol, companies are ultimately going to have to lead this. We

know it. It is this, This is an economic problem, it's a business problem, and ultimately, if companies don't, it won't get solved. Right, and they said, you know that right now consumers are looking at those brands, what they're doing, what changes they're making, and they are switching money talks