Rory Sutherland, Chairman, Ogilvy and Mather on the value of consumers, employees and shareholders in the business and why trust takes a backseat in businesses today.

Toshio Yamagishi from the University of Japan created a series of experiments to examine the question: Are people who trust dumb?Through thousands of questions asked to students and several experiments conducted with them, he found that far from being an irrational thing to do, trust is in fact a skill honed by the highly intelligent.

“All institutions, but especially financial services ignore a lack of trust at their peril. There is often a dichotomy between what companies say they are about and what they actually do – their actions and their words are different. Organisations need to be more forensic about their activities, the impact of their actions and how they are perceived.”

The picture of who we trust: Over the 16 years between 1993 and 2009 Ipsos MORI in its ‘Trust in Doctor: Annual Survey of public trust in professions (2009)’ measured a 22% decrease in the trust held in business leaders and a 10% decline in the trust held in politicians. Even the trust ascribed to the ordinary man or woman in the street saw a 16% fall.

Watch Steve Jobs delivering an Apple presentation to witness a brand completely in control of the development and evolution of their narrative. Don’t fall into the short-sighted trap of focusing on one campaign at a time, especially when the pressure is to acquire new customers or drive volume. Any new communication must be seen within the context of past and future promises.

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.

We are so much smarter than the average business or marketer gives us credit for. We are also so much smarter than a brand or segmentation analysis.People know.They know where a business “is” and whether it should be trusted.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.What we have witnessed over the past few days with the closure of the News Of The World and the fast creep of the flames to other newspapers is proof that this aphorism is true.And let's be clear despite the best efforts of the Murdochs' to stem the blood loss what we are witnessing is a fundamental reshaping of the balance of power in the British media.

What does a ceiling in Starbucks tell us about the experience they deliver? Brands are planned and developed centrally but they are always experienced locally. Bridging that gap is the challenge and yesterday in Starbucks a ceiling showed how difficult this can be.

Video showing a great example of Innocent is using its brand and marketing for social good and driving a powerful values led connection with people as well as driving shelf presence and standout.

I contributed an interview to an article published by Marketing Week on Marketing Moving Beyond the Boardroom. There are many challenges for marketing how we respond to these will determine whether marketing prospers.

My from the 3rd CMO Conference in Zurich on the challenges for marketing as we move from shareholders to stakeholders. The pressures to change the marketing model are huge and this is both a threat and an opportunity for marketing.

Vodafone have got rid of the CMO position replacing it with a Chief Commercial Officer. Is this the start of a trend or just a one off and what does it mean for the Vodafone brand and marketing in general?

A great example of loyalty communications from Virgin Media with their Wow you're amazing email and web animation.

My presentation at the 3rd Annual CMO Conference in Zurich later this month will be on - Leadership in Marketing: from shareholder value to stakeholder value

Will Metro Bank rise to challenge the UK retail banking incumbents? They certainly have the right pedigree and are challenging the status quo by doing things differently and apparently the inert UK customer is responding positively.

What is the Future of Marketing? Marketing is on a collision course with the future. Our current marketing paradigm is inextricably linked to the driving of consumption and the creation of habits of consumption. Economic growth has been the single minded outcome upon which we have built our brands, our marketing models and our rasion d'etre. But unabated growth cannot continue. My hunch is that the future of marketing is not merely, or even, a "more consumer focused / digital / growth oriented / sustainable" (delete as appropriate) future but a complete reversal of the current paradigm.

It's just been confirmed that I'm going to speak at the 3rd European Chief Marketing Officers Conference in Zurich on the 30th September.I attended last year and you can read my thoughts here.It's a really great conference and this year the headline act is Jim Stengel who was CMO for Procter & Gamble. I remember meeting Jim once whilst I was at P&G (although he won't remember me!)I'm going to speak on re-thinking marketing as a driver of humanity in business. If you've got any ideas on this then please drop me a line!

Welcome to my new site and the integrated RE:Thinking Marketing & Brands blog. After many late nights its ready. Simpler, easier to use and more content rich. Sign up to the RSS or email feed. Thanks for reading. Justin

I read with interest Mark Choueke’s call for Marketing Leadership in this week’s Marketing Week. Mark and I have discussed this topic before and I am delighted that he is taking up a theme with which I have been concerned for a long time. However I would push even further than Mark suggests.I believe the future of marketing can be at the centre of a new approach to business that is built on balanced positive human outcomes. “Putting the human” back into business is where the leadership businesses, brands and marketers of the future will win.