To reach Generation Y, get ready to engage differently

Between the BP oil spill and privacy issues at Facebook and Google, the concept of brand trust is coasting at mighty low levels these days. But some marketing experts -- including Paul Parkin, founding partner of SALT Branding, an integrated brand consultancy in San Francisco -- don't think the issue is always that brands are less trustworthy. It's that most companies haven't kept up with swiftly changing definitions of brand trust, especially among different age groups.

"In the digital age, consumers understand the concept very differently," says Parkin, whose clients range from Disney and Coca-Cola to start-ups like Jawbone and Mintfolio. Marketing Daily asks him why:

Q: Doesn't the word 'trust" mean what it always did?

A: No, because we experience it very differently. Once, it was based on solid and physical things -- people would look shopkeepers in the eye, shake their hands, touch their product -- and maybe buy it. Companies defined their brands themselves; they created advertising and told their story. But that's changed radically. As the culture moves increasingly online, there's an entirely different basis for the relationship. It's not physical, and it's not defined by the marketer.

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