Go to the profile of laurence.rabino
laurence.rabino

Digital Digest #259: A Matter of Trust

Digital Digest: What Edelman Canada is reading in digital marketing, technology and strategy. Fresh links served up weekly. This edition of Digital Digest was edited by Jill Pastirik, Charlotte Macgregor, Erin Collett and Emily Miller.

Earlier this week, we hosted our annual Trust Barometer event in Toronto, revealing that trust in all four Canadian institutions (business, NGOs, government and media) have climbed to their highest levels since 2012. With that in mind, Canadians still believe that leaders aren’t meeting expectations when it comes to transparency and acting ethically. Trust is tricky. As Warren Buffet so eloquently put, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Despite his wise words, we still see campaigns that make you go, “how did this get approved?” This week’s Digital Digest takes a look at some recent campaigns that may be compromising levels of trust and gentle reminders to sleep on some ideas before executing.

What game? I’m here for the commercials and Coldplay-Bey concert
Despite the decline in TV ad spending (digital’s clearly winning this one), brands are still willing to shell out the big bucks to have their product featured in between your chicken wings for Sunday’s Big Game. In fact, it’s not just the Super Bowl itself that’s appealing to advertisers — companies are increasingly willing to release their clips in lead up to the big game to build hype and boost brand engagement for the weekend ahead. All’s well that ends well, right? We think that if it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only seconds to destroy it, here’s something for all commercial-happy companies to consider: make sure your ad is timely, hits your messaging, and is audience appropriate. As some brands have learned the hard way, the only thing worse than spending $5 mil on a 30-second spot is having it ruin your reputation, too. [CNN] PepsiCo. mentioned in this article, is an Edelman client. Budweiser, LG and Hyundai mentioned in this article, are competitors to Edelman clients Heineken, Samsung and VW Group, respectively.

What’s trust got to do with it?
Remember the flood of Instagram montages featuring your friends’ best IG posts of 2015? Better yet, remember heading to the #2015BestNine generator online, and finding out which of your selfies garnered the most engagement in the last year? Well, turns out that the fun little Best Nine tool was more than a sentimental year-end perk for Instagram users. As it turns out, the generator was producing a list of potential users for a new dating app that launched this week. Sneaky. The app, Nine, is designed to match IG users based on composites of each user’s top nine Instagram posts (posts that have received the most likes, of course), and links each user to his or her matches. The app’s creators believe it will match people based on their personalities, but we find this difficult to believe in light of frequent arguments that Instagram is not an accurate depiction of its user’s lives (see: Socality Barbie). While we’ll have to wait and see if Nine proves itself as a trusted dating app or another platform to go (cat) fishin’, we now know one thing: best to read the fine print before we trust that a fun social media tool isn’t something more. [Tech Insider].

Better keep walking
Fitness apps and gadgets are all the rage; tracking your steps with Fitbit, recording calories with an app — there are so many options available for users looking to get in shape. Just download or purchase and you’re on your way to fitness bliss! #Fitspo. Not naming any names, but we have a few people in our office who are obsessed with their step goals. Now what would you do if you found out that these gadgets were not so reliable after all? Unfortunately for the Fitbit lover near you, the University of Toronto recently discovered that popular pedometer apps and gadgets are unfit for use in medical interventions (read: you didn’t actually take 30 thousand steps yesterday). It turns out they’re generally pretty unreliable in tracking your exact movements, ultimately over-counting your steps. Talk about a #FitnessFail. This issue poses a big question — can we truly trust technology when it comes to our health and wellness, or is it all just a big marketing façade? [Business Insider] Fitbit, mentioned in this article, is a competitor to Edelman client, Omron.

Tech updates:

  • Instagram extends video ads to 60 seconds [Warner Bros., mentioned in this article, is an Edelman client]
  • Twitter is testing a dedicated GIF button on mobile
  • YouTube developing live 360-degree video capability [GoPro, mentioned in this article, is a competitor to Edelman client, Canon]

Edelman Canada’s Digital Digest is a weekly bundle of links, served up on Edelman Canada’s Our Ideas blog. It’s also available by email. If you know someone who would like to be added to the mailing list, have any questions or just want to share some thoughts on anything you read here, email me. Let’s get a conversation going.