Richard Edelman from Edelman: Business Must Begin To Do Things With The People, Not For The People

Richard Edelman, President and CEO at Edelman opened on Monday 3rd the 2017 Hispanicize CMO Summit, discussing the findings of this year’s Trust Barometer study. Together with Claudia Romo of Unicef, they talked about Hispanics lack of trust after U.S. presidential elections and what this means for brands. “Hispanic community trust imploded after the elections, now they are the group with less confidence in institutions. They don’t trust media anymore, nor business, not even NGOs” he said. “This is something we have to fix.” He highlighted that one of CEO’s flaws today is that people are distrusting them more and more. Despite this, he noted that Hispanics are more concern about their families and friends’ opinions -people that are more like them-, and are not that influenced by mass media, so mistrust must be tackle through those channels. “Businesses must begin to do things with the people, not for the people. Each company should create their in-house communications team, be part of wellbeing activities and regain people’s trust” he added. “This is the time for businesses. You can’t hide and wait to avoid the truck crushing you.” To increase the number of companies that want to talk to U.S. Hispanics, Edelman recommended to show more successful strategies and the profit they gain by addressing this group. “Is a PR problem, one of financial muscle and showing those successful cases.”