In February 2009 I wrote a post entitled: Corporate Australia Cops a 'Bloody Nose' in Edelman's Latest Trust Findings.
I've referred to Edelman's Trust Barometer survey countless times over the years in blog posts, tweets and various presentations. Today, I work for Edelman Australia so it's pretty cool to be on the 'inside' for a change!
The 2011 survey was launched in Sydney on Monday. A few bullet-points of findings that jumped out at me (along with some commentary from my good self) include:
2011 Australian Edelman Trust Barometer
View more presentations from Matthew Gain.
- Trust in government has increased by 11 per cent from the previous 12 months (note this is the institution of government, not any particular government) - this could be due to the fact Australia came through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed and that the world didn't fall in, thus reaffirming the public's faith.
- Non-government organisations (NGOs) remain the most trusted institutions in Australia - partnering with the nonprofit sector continues to provide companies with effective means to enhance their trust with the public.
- Trust in the media continues to remain around the 30 per cent mark - to the cynical among us, that means 70 per cent of people survey distrusted the media.
- In terms of spokespeople, a majority of people trust an independent academic or expert (69 per cent) or a technical expert from within the company (67 per cent) - is your organisation taking full advantage of your inhouse specialists or 'friends of the firm' who happen to also be relevant experts?
- The CEO has made a comeback in the trust stakes after being in the doldrums for the past couple of years - this shows people look to company leaders in times of crisis (further reading on this point here).
- After 'online search engine', a large number of people surveyed sourced information about a company via 'online news sources' and the company's website - this provides a fantastic opportunity for brands to be more active online generally (and the social web in particular) - to ensure their online presence is content rich and 'socially friendly' rather than bland and static (as many corporate websites are).
View the Trust Barometer executive summary.
More about the research methodology.
Additional media coverage - further reading.
Servant of Chaos (Gavin Heaton) has also written a good piece here.
