marketing, legal, business-plan, brand, advertisingWhat exactly does it mean when a company says that it is “trusted” by a list of other companies? e.g. https://www.blossom.io/
Especially in this case, my belief is that there is no reciprocal (or whatnot) relationship between blossom and any of these other companies.
By trusted could their lawyer logic be, “this company does not mistrust us, therefore they trust us.”?
I would take that to mean that they are, in fact, being used by those companies.
While I can see where you’re coming from with the “lawyer logic” you proposed, that doesn’t really take into account the trademark issues. Most companies have limitations on the use of their brand assets to say that you can’t use them in a way that makes them look to be endorsing you, and since that’s what this company is doing, they either have a special license (which would indicate that it’s true) or they’re breaking the TOS.
I’m certainly in no position to comment on which end of those this actually is, but it looks like a pretty legit site so I’m inclined to give them at the very least, the benefit of the doubt.
But yes, speaking to the more broadly applicable case, I would read “trusted by” to mean “used by,” and I suspect most other people would as well. As such, it could quite possibly be called false advertising (since it’s heavily misleading) to use it to express nothing more than “a lack of mistrust.”
This is standard marketing linguistics. “Trusted by” sounds deep. But in context, it simply means “used by.” Whether or not it fools anyone into reading more in, the way we’re wired, the message got through better, so it has a positive value.
That’s the theory, anyhow. But file this under “stuff to try.” It’s possible that for a different proposition or brand, this effect wouldn’t work, or could even be negative. Fact beats opinion: split testing copy is a habit that gives outsize rewards.
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