The Chief Executive Officer of Kantar Millward Brown Nigeria, Mrs. Ugo Geri-Robert, has reiterated the importance of trust as one of the factors in building brand success especially in a competitive environment. Geri-Robert made this assertion while delivering a lecture as the lead speaker at the World Consumer Rights Day [WCRD] symposium organised by the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria, BJAN, held in Lagos recently.
Speaking on the theme ‘Building Trusted Brands: The Nigerian Experience’, Geri-Robert explained that “trust is first established when brands demonstrate competence and integrity.”
According to her; “trust is not actually a football, it is not what you say, keep and just drop outside the gate, trust is a journey with knowledge at different levels, one level of trust will graduate to another until you arrive at that level of trust.”
While noting that level of trust includes aspirational, emotional, motivational and functional, she said trust is essential to brand building as one cannot thrive without it. She added that if a producer does not know the level that his consumer is with him, he probably would not be speaking the right language that the consumer would understand. ”Trust is currently number one leadership competency in today’s changing environment. It can help improve the results focus, communication, collaboration, leading change, innovation, strategy, as well as problem solving. Trust can be learned and measured, it is part of functioning mechanism of credibility and behaviour, and it is measurable and can be deliberately created,” she said.
Speaking further, the Kantar Millward Brown boss, giving an example of Toyota, said the car manufacturer had to recall many of its products (cars) off the streets and showrooms when it was discovered that the airbags installed in the cars were faulty. According to her, the car manufacturer had to jettison profit while trying to ensure they build trust in the minds of their customers. “The first thing you’ll think of is this brand actually has my back.”
Also, using GTB as another example, she noted that consciously or unconsciously, most of the branches of the bank do not have fence because they are trying to build trust in the minds of their customers.
Geri-Robert added that whether one likes it or not, all these little things are what make consumers stay with brands. She stressed that talking about financial inclusion, the penetration of people that have account is still so low, but that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other financial bodies were working on it. ”As at date, GTBank is actually the bank that is ahead and they have put things in place to actually make financial inclusion a reality. Also, Zenith Bank has been working to join the race, but they have realised that this is not just about words, it is about technology, the space you are occupying, your staff, because when you talk about friendly as an ingredient of building trust, it has to be in the company’s DNA. There are many customer service organisations whose staff do not know the definition of customer service. This means helping customers efficiently in a friendly manner. It is essential to be able to handle issues for customers and do your best to ensure they are satisfied. Providing good service is one of the most important things that can set your business apart from the others,” she said.
Also speaking at the event, Precise Media CEO, Mr. Bolaji Okusaga, said that the whole idea about creating customer relations structure did not speak to being a customer-centric brand. ”The first thing you do when you are trying to build a brand is to first understand the man who consumes the brand, how the brand defines the man, what he does, how the person relates and the associational attribute that goes with that relationship. Through the life circle, you are nurturing all of those key association and key points of verification that speaks of trust,” he said.
Head of Communications and PR, Google Africa, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, in his own submission, pointed out that one of the greatest advantages of technology is being able to make its data and make it quick. He said: “Technology helps us to scale, you build a solution and you can scale all over the world. The challenges of scaling are specialisation, the moment you begin to scale, you are doing it for a mass. At Google today, we have seven products that have minimum of one billion users. How do we personalise products for one billion users? At the moment, there are about over 3.5 billion people on the internet, it is estimated that one billion users will come from country like Nigeria and in the next 2-3 years there will be over four billion people on the internet,” he said.
Earlier, at the event, the newly elected executive members of BJAN were inaugurated and the executives sworn to oath of office. The new executive members include; Princewill Ekwujuru of Vanguard (Chairman), Afolabi Idowu of The Nation, (Vice Chairman), Lukman Ishau of Marketing Space,(General Secretary), Adejuwon Osunnuyi of The DailyBells, (Assistant General Secretary), Akeem Salau of Vanguard, (Financial Secretary).
Others were Bunmi Awolusi of News Echo, (Treasurer), Fadare Adekanmi of The Octagon, (Auditor) and Olufemi Adeyemi of Brand Icon, (Chief Information Officer).
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