Big companies have lost public’s trust
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai participated in his first public testimony before Congress in more than a year. Throughout 2018, Pichai, and tech peers from Facebook, Twitter and Uber, have seen their brands take public thrashings in the media, as well as in Congress, for not doing enough to combat hate speech or protect their users’ sensitive data. Just a few years ago, these Silicon Valley giants were the trusted brands advancing America’s future. Today, much of that goodwill is spent.
Since the global financial crisis, smaller companies that connect locally with customers — providing more personalized service and demonstrating values that resonate within their local communities — are now more esteemed, more readily trusted than the oldstyle giants.
If you grew up as I did in the ’60s and ’70s, your view of the world was populated with big companies that held an extremely prominent place in society and in your life. They were your family’s employers, the backbone of the economy, the makers of the products you trusted. From the Ford Motor Company to Kraft Foods, from ITT to U.S. Steel, these companies were deeply respected.
They were also impersonal, monolithic and made their decisions opaquely. Their brand personalities were very similar: sober, trustworthy, male-dominated, responsible and rich. They were substantial, serious men in three-piece suits.
Even as recently as a decade ago, the large companies — like Google — were the most highly respected in the United States, with scale translating directly into trust and esteem. But, when I try to imagine their style working today, I just can’t see it.
Several corporate giants have recognized this change and corrected course. These larger companies now “act small” to engage the local community. For example, Adidas and Twitter teamed up to stream high school football games while Domino’s is doing road repairs that customers request, and they aren’t alone. For its community stores, Nike hires 80 percent of its employees from within a 5-mile radius. And when asked by management for ideas to better tie Westin to the communities it serves, a housekeeper came up with a winning idea to turn hotel bed linens into pajamas for kids in need.
Customers today also look to companies to have an opinion on what’s right and wrong. In today’s world of fake news and alt facts, firms that speak out on the issues that they believe will help the communities they serve are lifting up public perception of their organizations.
This change in perspective is the byproduct of several societal shifts. In business, Millennials are nudging Gen Xers and Boomers out of power while the first wave Generation Z are now their interns. Collectively, their values are remaking corporate cultures and amplifying the pressure for companies to speak out on social issues and champion diversity, inclusivity and dignity in the workplace. At the same time, government dysfunction created a void in leadership now being filled by private enterprise.
The Harris Poll’s research confirms what you may already feel to be true. Eighty percent of consumers don’t believe government alone can solve the societal issues we now face. While more than two-thirds of them want companies to get more involved in social issues, nearly 79 percent believe that big companies’ leaders will not be the ones to do it, and that they are more concerned with looking out for themselves. The majority of consumers (56 percent; and 64 percent of Millennials) say they trust smaller brands over larger ones to solve societal issues, up from 44 percent in 2017.
To sum up, the bigger you are, the less trusted you are, and companies that have the best reputations are smaller, or they have found a way to connect more personally — or “act small.” It’s in embracing this change of relationship that modern companies are reorganizing themselves, not only to better embody corporate values, but to create more value for the customer, the marketplace and society.