Stuart Hazlewood from DDB NY: Brand managers must find their company´s ideals and present them on social networks to generate trust

The CSO of DDB New York, Stuart Hazlewood, analyzed the truths and lies about brands on social networks for Advertising Week and concludes that it is all a matter of generating trust. “In the digital and social universe advertising has found an enormous echo chamber where brand messages are either amplified or ignored, reproduced in hi-fi or distorted, celebrated or rejected” highlighted Hazlewood. “There’s lots of advice out there on how to respond effectively to complaints on owned social channels. But brands that try to sweep any negativity under a digital rug need to confront the reality that their owned social platforms only account for a small corner of the echo chamber. Conversations and comments on Amazon, CNET, Slate or Huffington Post will happen despite a brand manager’s best efforts to control the dialogue.Hazlewood´s recommendation for brands is to bear in mind that networks are places where people go to find justification for the way they feel about things; about candidates; about politics; about celebrities; about the news; about products, about brands and about companies. “We humans seek out the truths we want to be true.Ultimately it is a question of trust; consumers will inherently feel they can trust your messaging or they cannot. Or in social media, they will instinctively trust some comments and safely ignore or vehemently counter-argue the others.”