The Death of Trust and the Rise of Transparency

By every measure available, Trust is steadily being eroded. Trust in governments, trust in the process of democracy, trust in the police and trust in many long established brands are all down. A primary force in this dynamic shift has been the internet and social media. Polls show that the general public, with more news sources than ever, is increasingly skeptical of the narrow and carefully framed presentation of issues on traditional news media such as cable news. Gallop polls put trust in media at an all time low and still sinking:


http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-time-low.aspx

And the trend is much bigger than the MSM's slide. A steady drumbeat of events have worked to lower the public's expectations of their government: the Warren Report, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Reagan/Iranian hostages deal, the Iran-Contra deal,...fast-forward to... the stealing of Florida and the 2000 Presidential election, 'Saddam has WMD', Citizens United (SCOTUS says "corporations are people&quot , the bank bailout of 2008, Wikileaks, and Edward Snowden's disclosures.

There is an old saying: People who don't trust can't be trusted. The basic thinking there being that those who expect misdeeds from others are factoring what THEY would do in a similar situation. Certainly there is a lack of trust being projected by our government -- TSA, NSA, mass data collection, drone surveillance, and infiltration of every group from the Quakers to BLM. This is in part, fueling the public's further distrust of government.

Some have made distrust of the government into a business and that too is eroding whatever trust is left -- Alex Jones, gold sellers, the "prepper" movement and gun sellers have all cashed in on distrust.

Since our culture is so obsessed with food, the $1 trillion US food business is an easy place to see the war between those demanding more transparency and the old guard:

http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/the-war-on-big-food/?src=longreads

McDonald's marketshare has been in steady decline since around 2007. There is a lack of trust in the company's willingness and ability to deliver healthier food options at a time when the cost of being sick is catastrophic. McDonald's is feeling the heat so intensely that they recently rejected a GMO potato designed especially for them. Likely they did not want to have a conversation with the public about a potato designed to resist browning after pre-slicing and which allegedly produces less carcinogens when fried.

In contrast, Chipotle has been growing its marketshare by seeming to embrace transparency. The consumer is no longer wow'd by jingles, celebrities and low prices -- with trust destroyed the consumer is demanding more transparency about what they are eating, how the animals are treated, "pink slime," etc. Chipotle spent millions to create an ad which embodies the journey from betrayal and distrust to a kind of peer-to-peer marketing and transparency:



As effective as that ad is, Chipotle was immediately accused of "talking the talk but not walking the walk." They are improving and I think the exchange points to the challenge of politicians and corporation embracing transparency -- it's all or nothing.

Demands for more transparency have led to body and dash cams for police, apps which track the politics and donations of major corporations, apps which tell you which big brands own other brands, live streaming bloggers, getting unfiltered news from Twitter and Wikileaks.

The transparency genie is out of the bottle and governments and big brands should embrace transparency because attempts to fight it only deepen the distrust which is fueling this change.