Think of it like this: If you want to help someone, you don’t start by guessing their age, job, or hobbies. You start by asking, “What are they struggling with?”
My interest in trust was sparked when I came across a video advertisement from DiDi, a vehicle-for-hire-service company based in China. The objective of the ad was to create awareness that DiDi verifies the identity and suitability of their drivers, thus showcasing the trustworthiness of the brand and prompting a sense of security in the user.
Screengrab from DiDi Advertisement. Future son-in-law displaying school certification as a form of trust
These ads use the analogy of meeting one’s future parents-in-law in a creative and light-hearted manner. The intriguing part was that the future son-in-law, did not utter a single word to the parents-in-law. Instead, he gained their trust by showing off his degree certificate, the housing deeds, a key to his Mercedes, and prestigious credit cards.
This setup may seem a bit superficial, but I’m sure that many of us have faced situations like this where we need to establish trust in an accelerated manner so that others can make quick judgement calls.
If trust precedes love, how might we apply this notion to online transactions or relationships (i.e., e-commerce, online dating, LinkedIn) where we could design trust to establish relationships in an accelerated manner.
Is trust an emotion, a thought, or an expectation of behaviour? To be clear, I am not a behavioural scientist. But I would like to attempt a metaphorical answer so that readers can better understand the connotations.
Here’s my metaphor: trust is like a sticky orb that grows and glows, attracting those around you. The more ‘sticky’ your orb is, the more trustworthiness you display, and the more people will ‘stick’ and be attracted to you. What is interesting here is that trust can be given. But — to accelerate the trust-establishing process — trust can also be bought, borrowed, or fabricated.
Giving trust
In the context of digital application, trust is given from one person to another party or organisation. This is usually represented in the form of positive testimonials, positive reviews, or ‘likes’. The more ‘trust’ that one receives and demonstrates, the higher the trustworthiness of the brand, which can eventually lead to higher conversions — as much as 34% higher.
Simply put, the equation of trustworthiness amounts to the ‘trust’ you are receiving. However, as a new entree (i.e., start-up, professional, or new product) looking to establish relationships in the competitive digital space, one of the challenges is figuring out how to build trust quickly.
Trust takes time to build, and it grows organically with time. To garner trust within a short period of time requires a significant marketing effort and resources. Thus, to solve this problem, one of the approaches that one could adopt is to buy trust.
Buying trust
Trust can be purchased from accredited third parties, usually taking the form of certification, awards, paid endorsement, or advertisements, which, in return, recognises their work in the field of professionalism or a validation of the product.
For example, to demonstrate one’s trustworthiness on LinkedIn, one can complete certification courses or attend a highly accredited business school and highlight these credentials on their personal profile page.
Displaying trust on LinkedIn through certifications and job titles
The concept of buying trust can also be applied in different contexts, such as purchasing SSL certificates to emphasize that steps have been taken to protect the website and gain approval from Google, buying reviews for your product listing on Amazon to improve sales, or buying vanity awards as recognition in your industry.
Buying trust may seem like a quick fix that solves scaling trust speedily. But, in some cases, the scepticism of authenticity is a growing concern. As fake reviews or fabricated school certificates has become a norm, users have become discerning in equal measure. One of my clients, who has been managing a hair salon website for 5 years, highlighted that web visitors are no longer easily convinced with text-only testimonials, as such reviews can be fabricated by using an anonymous identity.
One may claim that a testimonial in a richer media format, such as video, will carry heavier weight compared to a text-only testimonial — since it would be difficult for a filmed testimonial to remain anonymous. However, my perspective is that the user’s perception on its trustworthiness could be correlated to how easily the trust was attained.
For example, a video review from an anonymous user compared to an unpaid video review from a celebrity with a million followers. The latter would achieve a higher trustworthiness score as it can’t be purchased easily in the marketplace.
However, in a situation where trust can’t be purchased within your means, such as buying lunch for Warren Buffet, one might try to borrow trust instead!
Borrowing trust
Borrowing trust is like asking for a light. Seeking a free form of momentary support and trust, which, in return, raises one’s own trustworthiness through their gesture. Quite often, the trust is ‘borrowed’ from influencers, KOL (key opinion leaders), or celebrities, who have harnessed a large amount of trust through their network of followers. In fact, you may have encountered this type of ‘trust’ if you’ve been to a restaurant that displays photos of celebrities with the head chef. This is a form of ‘borrowed’ trust. Another example, one might also recall is how a Hanoi street-food restaurant preserved this ‘trust’ by creating a mini-museum of the table where President Obama had sat and eaten, which still attracts long crowds going to the restaurant till this day.
Photo source: Anthony Bourdain’s Instagram; Dam Ha Phu’s Facebook
In the social media landscape, the concept of borrowing trust can be in the form of tagging, following, or a ‘like’ from influencers. For example, on Twitter and LinkedIn, getting influencers to comment, follow, or like your post will get your profile exposed to the feeds of their network, which is a validating form of trust and acceptance.
Fans attempting to get attention from an influencer
Individuals using Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform where campaigns try to raise funds within a short period of time, often face challenges in gaining trust from backers quickly.
Acquiring a product endorsement from influencers or celebrities may seem like a far-fetched idea but there is a particular project, Lord of the Chord boardgame, which has executed remarkable ideas regarding how to borrow trust from celebrities.
The designers of the board game met with well-known musicians during fan-meeting sessions and, to grab their attention, they shared a personalised card design of the musician. The meetup session was recorded and the trust that was given by the musician gave potential backers the confidence to fund the project fully — within 75 min. of the campaign being launched — with the help of free endorsement!
Borrowing trust from notable musicians — Lord of the Chord
Borrowing trust from organisations is also often seen on websites, where a trusted organisation provides credentials and assurances of the company in question. This concept also applies to professionals when drafting their work experience for their LinkedIn profile page. For example, a UX designer at Google would garner more trust at a glance compared to working in a small pop agency. Thus, if you are working in a FAAMG or a reputable organisation and you have what it takes, flaunt it like a millionaire!
TechLead, a YouTuber highlighting his job experience in FAAMG
Are you rich? Then you are perceived as more trustworthy. A study to investigate the impression of trustworthiness suggested that people are more likely to trust strangers with a high income compared with individuals with a low income. This could explain why some YouTubers emphasise that they are millionaires in an open manner, which gives the notion of “Trust me! I’m doing it right because I’m a millionaire now” to the viewers.
From my perspective, riches shouldn’t only be confined to monetary terms. The currency of trust can also take the form of number of followers, prestigious clients, cost of projects undertaken, or positive reviews. And the next trick is to flaunt it.
Showing trust through community size and number of users acquired, Celsius Network
Displaying trust in the form of verified badges
However, as mentioned in the ‘Buying trust’ section, the perception of trustworthiness is correlated to how easily the trust is attained. Being a millionaire or having a million followers is not an easy milestone to attain. This would be a daunting task for an online scammer to fabricate — compared to the lowest hanging fruit, such as borrowing an identity to create a phishing website or fabricating fake reviews online.
Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, gave a TED presentation about designing for trust. He suggested that with well-intended design, designers can help users gain enough trust to stay in one another’s homes. However, if trust can be designed by a designer, wouldn’t a scammer have the same know-how to design and misuse the trust system?
To fix the problem, could blockchain be the answer? As Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Blockchain, concluded in his white paper, “We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.”
Rather than eliminating trust, I feel that, soon, how trust-based relationships are established in online transactions will undergo a change toward more transparency, accessibility, and authenticity.
Whether trust is bought, borrowed, or stolen to establish a trusted relationship, it is still a social entity that requires the human element to grow.
The advice I offered to my client: When it comes to designing a product landing page, a trustworthy LinkedIn profile, a sales funnel, or a credible Google business page, it will always be trust at first sight and love at second sight.
As the Dalai Lama puts it, “To earn trust, money and power aren’t enough; you have to show some concern for others. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket.”
Growing trust
