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The recently published 18th edition of Basic Marketing significantly increased the coverage of trust across a number of chapters.  Customers buy brands and products they trust — and one source of trust is certification labels.  Some certification labels have engendered customer trust, while others have been less successful.  This short Fast Company article, “Certification Labels That Make the Grade,” (January 12, 2011) describes five labels and includes data on awareness and whether it influences behavior.

As some of you may know, I have done a  fair amount of academic research on trust.  I believe that trust is a very important factor in marketing.  This article cites a recent study on trusted brands, “Study: Amazon.com is most trusted brand in U.S.” (CNET News, February 22, 2010).

Consumer reviews are playing an increasingly important role in buying behavior.  This means that traditional marketing communication vehicles are likely to be less influential.  As a nice supplement to this article (“What Do You Think?  Companies are learning to make the most out of customers’ online reviews of their products,” The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2009), pair it with the results of a July 2009 Nielsen survey that asked consumers how much they trust various sources of information.  As this survey makes clear, 70% of consumers trust online opinions from people they don’t know.  I copied this table (right click on graphic, choose “copy image”) and pasted it into my PowerPoints (right click on the slide and choose “Paste”).  Before showing the results, I asked students which sources of information they trusted the most and the least – choosing a set of five from this list.  The article and survey can lead into discussions about what marketing managers can do with consumer reviews.  For a related story, see “Amazon:  Turning Consumer Opinions into Gold,” (BusinessWeek.com, October 15, 2009).