Trust is the proverbial bad penny for financial services. Pages of analysis have been devoted to rebuilding it. Has any of it made a difference? By understanding trust more deeply trust can be rebuilt.

Richard Madden, Chief Strategy Officer at Kitcatt Nohr Digitas, has been reading my book and shares his thoughts on brand and business trust in his regular Marketing Week column.

From Lehman brothers to BP to Toyota to British politicians’ expenses to global warming science and even the global financial meltdown, brands and their consumers have suffered from serious, catastrophic collapses in trust.Through a series of blog posts and excerpts from my new book Why Should Anyone Buy from You? we will create insights around strategy, brands, marketing and communication that will help you create trust in brands and understand the twenty-first century mission for marketing: the re-humanization of business.

Fear is the ‘lower order’ stick and the brand is the ‘higher order’ carrot. Think of all the ads which claim that if you don’t buy this or that brand you are running mortal risk. The soap and detergent ads that destroy our invisible enemies – bacteria – and protect our children. One ad campaign or another may not have effect on the overall level of fear in society but, combined with the media and all other fear-based messages from other brands, it does contribute to the overall negative impact.

The 5th August launch date of my up-and-coming book WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUY FROM YOU? is fast approaching.My book is about the collapse of trust in business and brands and what you can do about it for the good of society, your customer and your business. We developed this 1 minutes video to introduce the book.

Trust in business is at an all-time low. If your customers don’t trust you, you can spend as much time, effort and money as you want on marketing campaigns, branding and advertising and it will barely move the needle. This revealing book shows how the only reliable route to sustainable business growth and profit is to build trust in your company.