Buxton Midyette, VP of marketing and promotions at American cotton company Supima, added that transparency and brand integrity go hand in hand, and that brands have to maintain their integrity with both suppliers and consumers.
Having an actively managed affiliate program that requires transparency and brand alignment can alleviate many of the issues with problematic publishers.
To respond to demands for transparency, food brands have just announced an initiative called Smart Label, that will enable consumers to learn more about what goes into their food – including whether ingredients were genetically modified.
"Consumers today have a desire for transparency from brands, and that desire is only going to increase," said Björn Bernemann, vice president and general manager for the Tropicana brand in North America.
But as customer expectations for greater transparency escalated, brands realized they needed to adjust their strategy.
Driven only by loosely defined and sporadically practiced methodologies that promote at-will disclosure and transparency, many brands, intentionally or deliberately, are blurring a consumer's ability to discern the distinction between partisan and genuine experiences.
For Jeff, transparency gives brands power, giving people content whenever and wherever they want it.
Brand voice guidelines should be accessible to every department, regardless of if those departments employ the voice on a daily basis or not so that there is transparency around branding best practices.
With all the talk of transparency and brands needing to be "in service" to consumers, the opportunity to serve our very own communities in which we work is substantial and in tune with the times.
Building consumer trust lies both in brand transparency and product provenance.
