Trust and transparency are crucial elements for consumers. Consumers want to be able to trust the brands they are buying and are actively looking for transparent brands. Being transparent in the eyes of the consumers means to be sustainable and using non misleading claims. The use of blockchain technology can also help benefit brands when trying to shows consumers they are being more open.
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FMCG Gurus research shows that many consumers across the globe are struggling to trust corporate brands. Across the food, drink, and nutritional supplements sectors three in ten consumers are untrusting of brands. This has significantly gotten worse in the last two years as a 25% of global consumers feel they are less trusting of brands. One of the key reasons why consumers feel this way is because of misleading claims. One of the top reasons why is that consumers feel brands can make misleading product claims in order to charge a higher price (42%).
Trust is an essential part in a consumer’s decision-making process. If a person does not trust the brand, they will be less inclined to purchase the products. Across the three sectors - food, drink, and nutritional supplements - consumers believe it is important they trust the brand.
It is important that brands adopt a trust and transparency model when moving forward. This is because consumers associate trusted brands with being better quality (50%). If brands can build trust and be transparent with consumers, they can start to rebuild better relationships creating a stronger bond with their audience.
So, what do consumers associate with brands and manufacturers being transparent? One of the key ways consumers want brands to be transparent is to be able to express product information in a simple and easy to understand format (65%). This can be done by adopting a clean label concept or by reducing ingredients providing more raw and pure products.
Sustainability is also a key way for brands to be more transparent with consumers. FMCG Gurus research shows that 63% of consumers are concerned about the environment. Consumers are actively looking to improve the welfare of the planet and adopting a good for me, good for earth approach to their diets. This is seen as consumers state they want brands and manufacturers to be using only recycled materials (66%) and to demonstrate that they are environmentally friendly (63%). This is a key way to build trust and be transparent with global consumers.
The use of blockchain technology can be used to help the issue of transparency. Blockchain is a source of information that is centrally stored that allows food, drink and supplement manufacturers and brands to store all product information onto a database that can be accessed by consumers for research purposes. Such information includes information on farming and treatment of animals, factory information around production, expiry dates and how products are transported. Five in ten consumers feel this is appealing and would be likely to use the source.
The author, Will Cowling, is Marketing Manager at FMCG Gurus. The article is based on the company's Global and Regional Blockchain survey Q3 2019 and Global and Regional Sustainability survey Q3 2019.
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