For Complex Businesses in Sensitive Situations
For Complex Businesses in Sensitive Situations
It’s not easy to convince hard-hatted engineers and hard-headed accountants of the value of ‘the fluffy stuff’, is it?
Regulated businesses take great pride in spending billions on hard solutions. But when they budget for the future, they often baulk at allowing a fraction of a percent of investment on soft power.
You can understand why. With capex, you can see what you get. In contrast, trust – and the methods for building it – can seem annoyingly intangible. But creating trust is not a black box process. There are time-tested, evidence-based principles for building your reputation.
Trust is a business-critical measure. Customer experience feeds into regulatory scrutiny; subjective views often shape the objective conditions under which you operate. So it’s important and useful to understand the framework for success.
Here are 5 simple principles drawn from decades of marketing effectiveness research. You build trust by communicating with the people you serve in a consistent, considerate, recognisable way – it’s that simple.
Follow these guidelines to build customer satisfaction, suppress complaints and impress regulators.
Discover the playbook that works:
Invest in your reputation as if it’s an asset — because it is.
Infrastructure is for those who like to look ahead. When you invest for the future, you’re seeking real world impacts in sustainable service delivery. And yet, intangible value drives the world’s most successful companies.
As a result, infrastructure businesses often miss out on added cost-effective opportunities to shape service outcomes and shift customer beliefs and behaviours through active communication and persuasion.
There’s a welter of evidence that well-known businesses do better. The Mere Exposure Effect tends to bring a halo of positive attributes: customers score you higher and are more likely to forgive you when things go wrong. Consistency allows you to ‘ladder up’ and multiply the effects over time (in a way that short-term tactics don’t).
So, let long-term reputation form part of your investment plans. Think of it as part of your planned maintenance programme.
It’s not easy to convince hard-hatted engineers and hard-headed accountants of the value of ‘the fluffy stuff’, is it?
Regulated businesses take great pride in spending billions on hard solutions. But when they budget for the future, they often baulk at allowing a fraction of a percent of investment on soft power.
You can understand why. With capex, you can see what you get. In contrast, trust – and the methods for building it – can seem annoyingly intangible. But creating trust is not a black box process. There are time-tested, evidence-based principles for building your reputation.
Trust is a business-critical measure. Customer experience feeds into regulatory scrutiny; subjective views often shape the objective conditions under which you operate. So it’s important and useful to understand the framework for success.
Discover the playbook that works:
Invest in your reputation as if it’s an asset — because it is.
Infrastructure is for those who like to look ahead. When you invest for the future, you’re seeking real world impacts in sustainable service delivery. And yet, intangible value drives the world’s most successful companies.
As a result, infrastructure businesses often miss out on added cost-effective opportunities to shape service outcomes and shift customer beliefs and behaviours through active communication and persuasion.
There’s a welter of evidence that well-known businesses do better. The Mere Exposure Effect tends to bring a halo of positive attributes: customers score you higher and are more likely to forgive you when things go wrong. Consistency allows you to ‘ladder up’ and multiply the effects over time (in a way that short-term tactics don’t).
So, let long-term reputation form part of your investment plans. Think of it as part of your planned maintenance programme.
Reach all of your customers and communities.
In the modern world of hyper-targeting in digital media, it’s tempting to focus on specific segments or niches in your audience. You can be drawn in by the siren song of targeting metrics. These are often easy-to-report but largely immaterial for business growth.
The evidence is that strategies which prioritise broader audiences do better. They achieve far better business outcomes than narrow targeting.
The reason is obvious even if you think about the rolling research that forms your regulatory ‘customer experience’ scores. There’s a strong correlation between campaign exposure and higher trust. So, the more people you sweep up in that net the better.
But the bigger dynamic is that you become part of the public conversation: your message is a shared ‘social object’ rather than a private communication. That context alone makes your communications seem more important.
The question of reach becomes clear when you think, for example, about the implicit targeting of organic social media. By definition, your followers are your loyalists (if not just your friends, family and employees). It’s hard to shift their views because, well, they’re already your biggest fans. You are ‘preaching to the choir’: a tiny subset of the available audience.
That’s why it’s better to stick to strategic measures which are harder to gauge but move the business in the right direction. To shift the dial, you need to reach people who are not your ‘friends’. And that means communicating broadly to the wider public.
Reach all of your customers and communities.
In the modern world of hyper-targeting in digital media, it’s tempting to focus on specific segments or niches in your audience. You can be drawn in by the siren song of targeting metrics. These are often easy-to-report but largely immaterial for business growth.
The evidence is that strategies which prioritise broader audiences do better. They achieve far better business outcomes than narrow targeting.
The reason is obvious even if you think about the rolling research that forms your regulatory ‘customer experience’ scores. There’s a strong correlation between campaign exposure and higher trust. So, the more people you sweep up in that net the better.
But the bigger dynamic is that you become part of the public conversation: your message is a shared ‘social object’ rather than a private communication. That context alone makes your communications seem more important.
The question of reach becomes clear when you think, for example, about the implicit targeting of organic social media. By definition, your followers are your loyalists (if not just your friends, family and employees). It’s hard to shift their views because, well, they’re already your biggest fans. You are ‘preaching to the choir’: a tiny subset of the available audience.
That’s why it’s better to stick to strategic measures which are harder to gauge but move the business in the right direction. To shift the dial, you need to reach people who are not your ‘friends’. And that means communicating broadly to the wider public.
Give more than you take.
What are most people interested in? Themselves, largely.
Certainly, the ins-and-outs of complex multi-stakeholder infrastructure businesses hold few fascinations for most people. (Except perhaps when something goes wrong.)
The kinds of fundamental services on which the average home or business relies are usually taken for granted. Accordingly, it’s hard to get attention for regulated industry topics – even when they are important for the future of the country or even the survival of the species.
Usually, people do not warm to finger-wagging or alarmist chat. In a turbulent world, they want to feel good about themselves. They want optimism. They want simple solutions (preferably delivered and/or paid for by someone else if possible).
And so you face a conundrum.
Trust is built by the frequency with which you initiate communication on topics that matter to the audience.
So, you can’t just broadcast your corporate affairs strategy and expect to be repaid in warmth and trust. The trick is to re-frame your message in a way that people care about – combined with a little emotive creativity to make it work in the ‘attention economy’.
This triangulation – ‘what you want to say’; ‘what the customer wants to hear’; and ‘what will cut through the market noise’ – is the perfect litmus test for campaign planning.
It’s possible that, based on your own in-depth knowledge of the subject and its nuances, you can persuade yourself that infrastructure, the challenges and solutions, are interesting in themselves. Be wary of this kind of myopia meets solipsism.
From his research into ‘what makes people read’, the copywriter Alastair Crompton suggested 12 successful angles:
Animals, Babies, Cars, Disasters, Entertainment, Famous Personalities, Fashion, Money, Sex, Sports, War and Weddings.
It might be hard to build his kind of ‘human interest’ into your corporate comms but you get the point. In the modern era, it’s also said to be BUFI topics that work: whatever is Beautiful, Useful, Fun or Inspiring.
If you can make your regular outreach work creatively – in ways that engage with customer’s lives and interests – you’ll be rewarded with higher trust.
Give more than you take.
What are most people interested in? Themselves, largely.
Certainly, the ins-and-outs of complex multi-stakeholder infrastructure businesses hold few fascinations for most people. (Except perhaps when something goes wrong.)
The kinds of fundamental services on which the average home or business relies are usually taken for granted. Accordingly, it’s hard to get attention for regulated industry topics – even when they are important for the future of the country or even the survival of the species.
Usually, people do not warm to finger-wagging or alarmist chat. In a turbulent world, they want to feel good about themselves. They want optimism. They want simple solutions (preferably delivered and/or paid for by someone else if possible).
And so you face a conundrum.
Trust is built by the frequency with which you initiate communication on topics that matter to the audience.
So, you can’t just broadcast your corporate affairs strategy and expect to be repaid in warmth and trust. The trick is to re-frame your message in a way that people care about – combined with a little emotive creativity to make it work in the ‘attention economy’.
This triangulation – ‘what you want to say’; ‘what the customer wants to hear’; and ‘what will cut through the market noise’ – is the perfect litmus test for campaign planning.
It’s possible that, based on your own in-depth knowledge of the subject and its nuances, you can persuade yourself that infrastructure, the challenges and solutions, are interesting in themselves. Be wary of this kind of myopia meets solipsism.
From his research into ‘what makes people read’, the copywriter Alastair Crompton suggested 12 successful angles:
Animals, Babies, Cars, Disasters, Entertainment, Famous Personalities, Fashion, Money, Sex, Sports, War and Weddings.
It might be hard to build his kind of ‘human interest’ into your corporate comms but you get the point. In the modern era, it’s also said to be BUFI topics that work: whatever is Beautiful, Useful, Fun or Inspiring.
If you can make your regular outreach work creatively – in ways that engage with customer’s lives and interests – you’ll be rewarded with higher trust.
Develop a recognisable, positive look and feel so everybody knows it’s you.
Similarity is the single most problematic source of forgetting, according to psychologists Tversky & Kahneman.
So if you want your messages to stick – and to deliver better value-for-money – it literally pays to be distinctive.
Campaigns which develop ‘mental availability’, outperform rational, information-led campaigns by around 10x on major business metrics.
So, aim to get noticed and build rapport. If you make it easy for customers to recognise and recall your organisation – even just basic sonic or visual cues – it’s like a multiplier effect. By using distinctive brand assets, each investment in reputation builds on previous activity and reinforces the mindset you want to create.
Develop a recognisable, positive look and feel so everybody knows it’s you.
Similarity is the single most problematic source of forgetting, according to psychologists Tversky & Kahneman.
So if you want your messages to stick – and to deliver better value-for-money – it literally pays to be distinctive.
Campaigns which develop ‘mental availability’, outperform rational, information-led campaigns by around 10x on major business metrics.
So, aim to get noticed and build rapport. If you make it easy for customers to recognise and recall your organisation – even just basic sonic or visual cues – it’s like a multiplier effect. By using distinctive brand assets, each investment in reputation builds on previous activity and reinforces the mindset you want to create.
Keep it personal, optimistic, and benefits-driven.
Regulated industries are often run by people with ‘blue’ behavioural styles – analytical, precise, logical.
Most people aren’t like that. They decide on emotion first and justify rationally after, gathering evidence to support their viewpoint.
And so, as the poet TS Eliot observed, ‘humankind can bear very much reality’. Especially if it cuts across existing beliefs.
So what do consumers want from the commercial organisations in their lives? They don’t want abstract information and the dead leaves of logic.
In the Edelman Trust Report for 2025, you can see how people are burned out with ‘bad vibes’ and worse experiences. Almost 70% say they want organisations to help them ‘feel happy, confident, inspired, safe, and calm’. Over 60% want the warmth of optimism: they want to believe that their future is in good hands.
As a guide to communications for regulated industries, the opportunity couldn’t be clearer.
Keep it personal, optimistic, and benefits-driven.
Regulated industries are often run by people with ‘blue’ behavioural styles – analytical, precise, logical.
Most people aren’t like that. They decide on emotion first and justify rationally after, gathering evidence to support their viewpoint.
And so, as the poet TS Eliot observed, ‘humankind can bear very much reality’. Especially if it cuts across existing beliefs.
So what do consumers want from the commercial organisations in their lives? They don’t want abstract information and the dead leaves of logic.
In the Edelman Trust Report for 2025, you can see how people are burned out with ‘bad vibes’ and worse experiences. Almost 70% say they want organisations to help them ‘feel happy, confident, inspired, safe, and calm’. Over 60% want the warmth of optimism: they want to believe that their future is in good hands.
As a guide to communications for regulated industries, the opportunity couldn’t be clearer.
You understand the challenges of running a complex long-term business: balancing day-to-day performance (and problems) with regulatory scrutiny, customer apathy and long-term investment plans. How do you square that circle?
The surprisingly simple answer is not to consider public trust as an outcome. Think of trust as an enabler – it’s the oil that makes the machine run smoothly. As a strategic and creative agency, we have an award-winning track record in working with regulated businesses. Let’s have a chat.
You understand the challenges of running a complex long-term business: balancing day-to-day performance (and problems) with regulatory scrutiny, customer apathy and long-term investment plans. How do you square that circle?
The surprisingly simple answer is not to consider public trust as an outcome. Think of trust as an enabler – it’s the oil that makes the machine run smoothly. As a strategic and creative agency, we have an award-winning track record in working with regulated businesses. Let’s have a chat.
If you’d like to find out more about our success in building trust and commercial outcomes for regulated industries, please email [email protected]
If you’d like to find out more about our success in building trust and commercial outcomes for regulated industries, please email [email protected]