What do you want to be "Most Trusted" or "Most loved"?

One of the things that has occupied a lot of board room time, is the question that as a marketer where do I, peg my brand on the perceptual landscape of my consumers?

Now, research typically throws two kinds of options- Brands that are respected/trusted more than they are loved (they call it the "most respected/trusted brands") and Brands that are loved more than they are respected/trusted(they call it the "most loved brands")

But curiously so, it seems that a Brand can not occupy both these perceptual spaces at the same time...

Now, whys should that be so?

May be it is because, Trust and Love are two distinct values, at least in the minds of the consumer.

I remember having worked on Sony, with one Sony executive telling me that one of the global conundrums that the Brand wrestles with, was that despite years of bringing out good products consistently- products that were really ahead of the curve, consumers still thought of Sony as not youthful enough.

They trusted the Brand but in the list of most loved Brands it was still not up there.

Contrast this with a Brand in India- we have one Brand that has consistently being ranked as the "most trusted" and that is Colgate.

And I dont think Colgate executives have sleepless nights over this. Colgate to me is one Brand that has made a conscious choice to be on the trust end of the spectrum than on the love end...

But Sony and Nokia are different. In the last few years we have seen them consciously try to straddle both the spaces.

But I guess this ain's possible.

It seems that being most trusted/loved is the "accomplice of the market leader". Market leaders typically will be scoring higher on the trust and respect co-relates and challenger Brands on those of Love's.

This conundrum gets doubly complicated if the market leader has a huge heritage as well..

But what confounds me is that Nokia despite being a young brand, (I mean it really came into its own only in the late 90's) could never be as loved as say, Apple or Blackberry...

Just watch this video, Nokia thought of the Smart phone platform much before Apple or Blackberry was on the scene...but still user communities found the latter far more "cooler" and "loved" than Nokia....