The Residue of Expensive Decisions

Abstract

The two words get used as synonyms and they are nearly opposites in structure. Reputation is a stock of statements — the reviews, the coverage, the analyst notes, the thing a friend says at dinner. It is backward-looking, socially transmitted, and cheap to accumulate. A company can buy reputation. It cannot be bought quickly, and it cannot be bought entirely, but with enough spend, enough sponsorship, enough consistent visual identity and enough well-run PR, a firm can substantially manufacture what is said about it. Trust is a forecast. It is a prediction, held by a specific person about a specific counterparty, concerning behaviour under a specific condition: the condition of divergent interest. It is not "I like them." It is "I believe that when it costs them, they will still do it." That prediction cannot be bought, because the thing being predicted is behaviour under cost, and the only admissible evidence is prior behaviour under cost. Advertising is evidence of a budget. It is not evidence of anything else.