It’s a low trust world. Now what? 

How low can trust go?

 

If you’re corporate America, the answer is still downwards— this according to some of the latest research on customer trust. The metric has continued to drop year-over-year, part of the decades-long decline in trust in everything from the media to experts to the legal system to higher education to government to the overall breakdown in personal trust in America.

 

But if trust is a bust, the marketplace doesn’t seem to be bothered by it much.

 

Consumers keep spending, businesses keep growing, capital markets keep functioning, the stock market keeps climbing, generative AI and other innovations keep pushing the bounds.

 

Are we surprised? Not really.

 

While it’s obviously better to be trusted than distrusted, we’ve either factored low trust in, adapted to it, or perhaps we should consider another possibility: that our interactions in the marketplace are, in fact, governed by a different currency.

 

The currency of value — yes, that old standard.

 

But perhaps not so old after all.

 

Indeed, value may be the one metric that is truly attuned to the forces shaping – and reshaping – our modern marketplace. High value to be more exact.

 

High value is just what it sounds like. It’s something that meets your needs and has worth. And, as a result, you will gladly spend time, effort or good money on it.

 

Like the convenience of fast and free shipping of e-commerce, or the cashless utility of your digital wallet, or the algorithmically satisfying TV fix we get through streaming, or the meal kits that make home cooking possible in the time it takes to peel a pre-packaged carrot or two.

 

The high value things for me might be different than the ones for you – that’s how value works.

 

When done right, high value doesn’t just create more customers. It creates new categories and increases the surface area of opportunity. Even if that surface happens to be scrubbed by a wildly popular smiley-faced yellow sponge. It can be right under your nose.

 

While high value isn’t a new-to-the world concept, people today see it in a different light. It’s undergone a realignment. According to a recent study by The Weber Shandwick Collective, three of four people globally say what they value most — from companies and brands — has changed in the last five years, especially as a consequence of the pandemic.

 

The most interesting part isn’t the degree to which it’s changed, but how it’s changed: people say what they value today is markedly less social and societal and fundamentally more personal and emotional.

 

Unlike the self-involved “me” generation of the 70’s, today’s post-pandemic “me” consumer places more value on their own safety, security, health, and happiness. A new value equation that is centered around the primacy of the personal, the “me” over the “we.”

 

No, it’s not the end of brand or social purpose.

 

But it is no doubt a fundamental “zag” or regression to the mean. Consumers are telling companies and brands to first and foremost get back to basics – to meet their most intrinsic personal needs at a time when those needs are under strain. Their message: “don’t tell me what you value, provide the value that I need.”

 

And the larger implication is this: consumers will turn to the companies and brands that can do that whether they trust them or not.

 

Just look at the latest gold rush on Tik Tok — from expensive cologne for teen boys to a new craze for Kindles. A thumb-stopping reminder that when trust is reduced to what’s trending, the herd mentality will lead to stampedes. For many, there is personal value in that too.

 

A bigger question is whether the winners in a high-value, low-trust world will succeed even when there appear to be widely unacceptable personal and societal costs.

 

Take high value superpowers like the tech giants. You may not care that the top AI platforms may give you the wrong answers. Or that the leading search algorithms are a closely guarded black box. You may not worry what they do with your personal information.

 

When the upsides deliver such powerful personal value, many don’t dwell on such downsides for long.

But even that tide now seems to be turning.

 

One sign: more states have now moved to ban smart phones in the classroom, as they struggle to stem learning loss and confront the deterioration of children’s mental health.

 

Another is what experts believe could be the most significant court ruling in the history of the Internet. A ruling that could — for the first time — hold social media companies liable for the harmful consequences of their algorithmically-suggested content.

 

This, taken together with the recent blocking of X in Brazil and the move by French prosecutors to charge the founder of Telegram for crimes related to illegal activity on the app, could signal the beginning of a new era of accountability.

 

Because value — no matter how high — shouldn’t be pursued at any cost.

 

So now what?

 

It’s unrealistic to think that the transactional nature of value has supplanted society’s inherent desire for trust. In fact, business leaders in that same customer study are nearly unanimous in saying that building trust not only improves the bottom line, but is a moral responsibility as well.

 

And yet, the study shows that leaders continue to overestimate the degree to which customers actually trust their companies to begin with.

 

So the trust gap is only widening.

 

Perhaps it is precisely the consistent, reliable delivery of value — by more companies to their customers or, say, by more public officials to their constituents — that is the surest path to ultimately restoring the trust that’s been lost.

 

In a way, it’s built into the equation: high value demands you deliver something of worth and keep delivering it again and again. High value with high accountability as part of the bargain. Even if trust continues to go lower, that’s a marketplace where everybody can win.