In the wake of the release of Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer report, which had worrying implications for trust across society, I’ve been speaking to six leading marketers about the importance and role of trust in B2B in 2025.
These interviews were the first clutch conducted as part of the research for my much trailed book on #thoughtleadership, and detailed extracts will be made available in the very near future – watch this space! In the meantime, here’s a taster:
1 – “Looking ahead [it is clear] how technology is going to disrupt what we do as thought leadership professionals, while recognizing that what we need to do to keep ahead of is focus on trust. Trust has always been important, but it’ll be more important than ever,” says Rob Mitchell of FT Longitude.
2 – “Trust is fundamental to how you think about the sales process. It’s what helps you get invited to bid more often. It’s what helps you close deals, helps you cross and upsell, helps you charge a better margin for your products and services,” says Andrew Mildren of Edelman (You can download the Trust Barometer here.)
3 – “When you’re selling to people they are buying from you based on trust. And they’re not just buying the brand, they’re buying from our experts that they trust and they value for their counsel in the industry,” says Vito Labate of Capgemini (Gold winners in the Thought Leadership category at the B2B Marketing Awards 2024.)
4 – “We still make quite defensive purchasing decisions. We buy from brands we know – the old adage of you won’t get fired if you buy IBM still rings true today.” Ash Lockyer, Babel PR (You can download Babel’s ‘B2B Tech Barometer’ report here).
5 – “Trust needs to exist across the organization… traditionally market research and advisory companies like ourselves would talk to the head of Consumer Insights or the head of Market Insights,” says Ananda Roy of Circana (Bronze winners in the Thought Leadership category at the B2B Marketing Awards 2024.)
6 – “Ultimately thought leadership has to be something that’s distinctive to the brand. If you’re just coming up with messaging or insights that are generic or could be produced by anybody, that’s not thought leadership,” says Benedict Buckland of Alan Agency (You can download ‘Thought leadership: A brand-building manifesto’ here.)
It would also be remiss of me to mention that my old friend Stuart Maister has just written a book on this topic, so if you might want to check out what he’s been up to.
