Trust in the Digital Age
Why trust is so important now. The digital age has brought a lot of good, but it has also brought cyber crimes, the dark web, identity theft, privacy invasion, reputation damage and other growing harmful activities. What this means to marketers is that trust should be embraced as a key brand tenet, and guarded and nurtured as a brand equity component. Before the digital age, trust was a focus of the product promise. Did I receive what I purchased? Did it perform the way I expected? This has been a focus of the Better Business Bureau (BBB), who says they are "instilling consumer confidence and advancing a trustworthy marketplace for all." But now trust expectations have expanded and customers are asking: You will honor my privacy? You won't take my digital footprint/click-stream data and use negatively? You will protect my personal data including contact, health and government? You will protect my financial data from cyber criminals? Thes...