Lord Puttnam advises marketers to build trust

Speaking a Marketing Society Q&A, Labour peer Lord David Puttnam outlined his concerns about business leadership, and offered up solutions based around creating trust.

Puttnam said business leaders have a “responsibility to take actions for what they do” as we reach the “advent of personal responsibility”.”Trust and leadership,” he said, “we want it, we need it and we’re not being offered it.”

“Advertisers have had to develop a speed of response and had to be careful about reputation,” he continued.

“From top to bottom, you need to assure you have an extreme level of trust because if you haven’t, the responsibility of reputation is impossible to carry out,” he added.

Discussing the issue of trust and branding, Puttnam referenced instances where CEOs hadn’t taken personal responsibility.  “We are in danger of becoming a victim society with levels of manipulation we do not understand,” he said.