The importance of trust in branding is well-supported and highlighted in the literature which also explores ways to enhance it. We focus on the role of the firm's marketing communication efforts to contribute to trust as an element for brand differentiation both as an attribute on its own and as a brand personality trait. The article advocates applying a strategy-oriented Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) because it emphasizes the importance of bringing together and orchestrating all corporate media and messages to project one clear, consistent and coherent brand image. This idea has much to do with the concept of IMC that is being hailed as a major communication development of the 21st century.

Trust is undoubtedly the most powerful word in branding because without the magic touchstone of trusted brands, shopping for almost everything would be an overwhelming experience. This is mostly because of the fact that it costs nearly seven to ten times as much to acquire a new consumer as it does to keep a current one. The Brand Keys 2001 and also 2003-06 Customer Loyalty study makes the current brand management practices more focused on winning consumers' trust in order to build a relationship and thus expand the loyal customer base.

Well, the logic is clear that in the consumer market there are several unidentified customers which makes it increasingly difficult and unlikely for the company to initiate and develop personal relationship with everyone. However, customers build and maintain a loyalty or an association towards a particular brand which indeed acts as an alternative human form of contact between the company and the customers. For instance, you can witness that the contemporary brand building activity through advertising always use words which are associated to personal relations such as belief, faith, etc. Examples include `Don't trust your luck, trust RAA Plus' (Royal Automobile Association) and `Trust is Tampax'. Companies rely on trust to smoothsail them right to the consumer's mind across the sea of competition.

Advertising Express Magazine, Marketing Strategy, Integrated Marketing Communication, IMC, Brand Trust, brand Management, Marketing Communication, Customer Loyalty, Royal Automobile Association, Brand Strategy, Consumer Relationship Management, Communication Management, American Association of Advertising Agencies, AAAA, Brand Communication.