Interview: Richard Brett on communications that build belief

Trust has long been a cornerstone of brand communications. As organisations face growing pressure to demonstrate business impact, communicators must consider how to build brand belief in ways that align with operational reality and commercial outcomes.

According to Ogilvy's latest Believability Index, earning belief requires a more nuanced approach across Asia Pacific. In this interview, Telum Media speaks with Richard Brett, President, Ogilvy PR & Influence, Asia Pacific and ANZ, and Chief Client Officer, Ogilvy Australia, about why credibility has become a commercial imperative, how brands can adapt their communications strategies to different markets, and why operational delivery matters just as much as the messages they communicate.

The recent report from Ogilvy suggests that trust is built differently across Asia Pacific, rather than through a one-size-fits-all communications approach. What do you think is the biggest misconception brands still have about building trust today?
Trust is just one metric for communications, and it is a long-term, abstract feeling. By contrast, believability is a hard, transactional reality that is made in the moment.

In a post-truth world flooded with misinformation, our research shows that consumers don’t have the bandwidth to ‘trust’ implicitly anymore. They run every brand claim through a believability filter. If you fail that filter, it directly drives customer churn and has a direct impact on revenue. Our work clearly shows that believability is a commercial metric that business leaders can no longer ignore in today’s social media age.

The second major misconception is relying on social listening dashboards alone to monitor consumer sentiment. By doing this, brands are only managing the vocal minority. The vocal complaint is just the exhaust fumes of a lost sale. By the time someone posts on social, the revenue is already gone. Brands need to be more proactive in measuring believability early and take the right action – not just monitor noise.

The study finds that consumers in institutional-trust markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China place greater weight on official and credentialed sources. When planning a campaign, how do you determine the right mix of media relations, creators, community voices and paid amplification to balance between credibility and business objectives?
The most important thing is to have a localised proof strategy. The core truth about a brand remains the same across markets, but the messenger and the channel ecosystem must adapt.

For instance, if you are launching a new healthcare initiative, the core message might be ‘better patient outcomes’. In an institutional-authority market like Singapore, you would lead that campaign with your Chief Medical Officer, government partnerships, using mainstream media relations and corporate channels best suited to that credentialed mix. In a relational-authority market like Australia, you lead the same campaign with the same message but with patient testimonials, community creators and frontline nurses, using peer-to-peer and organic delivery channels. Same truth, different proof – and a fit-for-purpose media mix.

It may also be useful to do what we call a ‘Believability Gap Audit’ before undertaking a major new campaign across markets, which can measure where your brand sits on the believability scale, and identifies how to bridge the gap between your communications and operations. It protects a brand’s bottom line by ensuring it never makes a public promise that its operations cannot deliver.

In markets where consumers place greater trust in lived experience and peer recommendations, how does the role of mainstream media change? What unique value can it still provide in building brand belief?
For proactive communications campaigns, the role of mainstream media doesn’t change as much as the use of spokespeople alters. For instance, Australia is the most evidence-demanding market in the region. Our research shows that 54 per cent of Australians demand ‘lived experience’ – they want unvarnished truth from a peer or customer. In a market like that, mainstream media is still crucial as a channel to deliver the message at scale, but the messenger or spokesperson needs to shift from a subject expert to a peer.

It also plays a crucial role in helping brands recover from a mistake and rebuild brand belief. Consumers wary of performative corporate empathy still demand a public apology for an organisational error (50 per cent in Australia), but also an active, operational correction (58 per cent). That gap is so narrow that it means consumers expect both simultaneously. On that basis, mainstream media can still play an important role in providing the channel for an apology – but organisations must recognise it must also be backed by corporate action.

The report suggests that social media sentiment can overlook "silent disengagement". How should communicators identify these hidden reputation risks, and what signals should they pay closer attention to?
Firstly, they need to stop relying on lagging indicators. Social sentiment merely tells you who is already angry. Most dashboards are only tracking the approximate 5.5 per cent of people already complaining, not the 92 per cent who are quietly taking their money to your competition.

To predict the silent exit, communicators need to instead start measuring their ‘Say-Do-Gap’. This is where Corporate Affairs data (what you are promising) is measured against your CX and operational data (churn rates, app uninstalls, cart abandonment, and frontline friction). When the two data streams are mapped together, the behavioural friction-building patterns can be identified before the customer leaves. Much like the Believability Diagnostic Tool we built here at Ogilvy, which helps C-suite leaders to predict and prevent silent customer churn through analysis of corporate messaging and verified customer and employee sentiment.

What should regional communications teams stop doing if they want to build genuine brand belief?
First, stop relying solely on traditional sentiment metrics. Social media listening tools only scrape the internet for keywords to tell you if people are happy or not. As a lagging indicator, this does not help build brand belief; it only tracks the vocal minority who might be voicing concerns.

Second, stop relying on communications measurements as the only way of testing whether consumers believe your brand. Operational efficiency must match a brand and its organisational promise. If delivery fails, so does believability, regardless of what is being said in a communications campaign. A more proactive, early intervention to ensure the ‘Say-Do-Gap’ is reduced is a better way of building long-term brand belief.

Third, communicators must also understand that while publicly communicated organisational purpose, such as environmental, social, and governance, is still important, it does not protect a brand during a crisis or product failure. Cognitive science shows us that consumers suffer from ‘Belief Bias’. If your core product fails, consumers instantly label the brand as incompetent. Once that happens, their ‘Belief Bias’ causes them to actively reject ESG or purpose claims as inauthentic.

Finally, it’s important to reject a one-size-fits-all approach to communications across multiple APAC markets. Segmenting communications architecture both across different markets and different generations needs to become the new norm. Credibility has become a premium currency across the region, with every brand communication a transaction. Both channel and messenger need to be adjusted to match the specific requirements of each market and each age group.