GUEST ESSAY: 'The Edelman Trust Barometer; the Elites Have Spoken,' by Elliot Schreiber

Guest essays and posts are welcome on The Low Down.

Today we are fortunate to have a contribution from Elliot Schreiber, a distinguished expert on brand and reputation. Elliot is Professor of Marketing and Director of Corporate Reputation Management at Drexel University as well as President at Brand and Reputation Management LLC.

His essay refers to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of global attitudes towards business which was released this week, as it has been for several years, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum at Davos. The Barometer's executive summary was emailed to those who receive the newsletter associated with The Low Down. For a copy please contact us.

The Edelman Trust Barometer: The “Elites” Have Spoken,
By Elliot Schreiber, January 28, 2011

The 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer is out and the findings are surprising to say the least. They are so surprising that they actually bend credibility. The bottom line, as the study says, is that trust in business and government is up versus past years in Western societies.

When I read data like this I remember one of my research professors in graduate school saying: "research often shows us that common sense is not always common". There are many reporters, then, who will rush to publish this data because it suggests that the general gloom and doom about our economy is "so yesterday", that things seem to be looking up and that we are gaining confidence and trust in institutions again.

But wait a minute! We are not talking about research debunking common sense here. We're talking about data that fly in the face of what we have been witnessing in the US and around the world. How can we square the Edelman data with the political and social upheaval occurring in the US and rest of the world?

The answer is found in what I used to tell my CEO and now tell my clients and students. The result of data has to be looked at against who the respondents were. The Edelman Trust Barometer focuses exclusively on "the educated, informed publics". That is, as the study notes, "25-34 year olds and 35-64 year olds who are college-educated, household income in the top quartile for their age group, read or watch the news several times a week, and follow public policy". In other words, these people are the very definition of the "social and political elite" worldwide, who those who feel trapped at the bottom are railing against. These are the same groups that are the focus of attacks by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and even John McCain. The Tea Party could use the Edelman data as proof of their claim that the "Washington crowd" (aka political and social elite) continues to feel good about the world. These data may be factual for the elite, but they may be the continuing "fuel on the fire" of those who feel that they are on the bottom looking up. On the other side of the political spectrum, the Democrats continue to focus on social inequities and have made many corporations and CEO their "poster children" for greed. This doesn't occur without strong support from the electorate.

Jon Low of Predictiv has been blogging about global unrest due to perceptions of blocked economic opportunity for those who are not part of the top demographic strata. He points to trends in China, Egypt, Iran, the UK and in the US. As Low notes, in the US where 70% of the economy is consumer-driven, we face prospects of limited growth and high unemployment when consumers lose jobs, homes, pensions and health care. This will create more angst, not less. Low suggests that this "bottom up" pressure will likely impact governments and corporations more than growing "top down" satisfaction.

I am in no way suggesting that the Edelman Trust Barometer is not important. It is. As a "data point", it suggests that we likely will see more optimism in communications coming from Wall Street and commentators in the major media. This is important because economic ups and downs are partly psychological. We need to hear that there is "light and the end of the tunnel" if Western societies are to start investing, hiring and spending again. That is important and the data suggest we may hear better news from the political and economic elite. But, and this is a big but, we need to understand the parameters of the data so that we do not use it inappropriately.