Dandy

During the recent whole BBC/phoneline shenanigans I happened to catch the BBC Director General giving an interview about the whole saga, and he came out with a quote that really resonated with me… “You have to start trusting the public if you want the public to trust you”. It’s a simple statement, but as creative whose job is to take briefs and turn them into ideas to engage the public, I could really relate to it.

We are always hearing how the public hate spin, and dislike being manipulated and yet, again and again I see and hear organisations feeling the need to control everything and not take the honest option - to just be straight with people.

People aren’t stupid, if a product is distinctly average and you try and sell it as something amazing, it will eventually get found out. And if that means products and services need to improve before they can truly be paraded as great - then that can surely only be a good thing. A lot of the new brands that are succeeding and improving their profile, very much understand this is the way forward.

In the long term people will trust you if you are genuine with them, and it usually makes for a far more natural story. And at the end of the day we should be able to conduct ourselves, in life and work, how we would want to be treated - if we fail that rule, it’s not good.

So as the saying goes, honesty really is the best policy, it’s certainly our policy.