The Circle of Trust (and Marketing's role)
Edelman just released their 2026 Trust Barometer and it indicates a drastic swing into insularity.
Worldwide, 7 in 10 of people are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone who has different values, facts, problem-solving approaches, or cultural brackground.
Between economic anxiety, geopolitical tension, and technological disruption with AI, it's no wonder people are narrowing their world to smaller, familiar circles.
This creates an opportunity for Marketers.
But only if we show up with the intention of creating trust.
So, what are people building trust on exactly?
Let's look at some of the items called out in the report, and how Marketers can look at incorporating this into strategies, tactics and narratives.
Let's Talk Values
It's no secret that values alignment leads to trust. But what does it actually look like to LIVE your values in your marketing?
It's a heck of a lot more than posting a list of values on your website, I'll tell you that.
When it comes to genreating trust, it doesn't happen just through reading something. Because, at this point, anyone can say anything publically, and that has nothing to do with it being the truth. And all of us have enough experience to know that, just because someone says they, "care about people", doesn't mean that they demonstrate it in a way that supports all people.
In marketing, we've gotten lazy when it comes to values. We think that talking about them is enough, and we'll leave the LIVING them up to other people. Sales. Customer experience.
But how fair is that?
Plus, if we're out in the world creating content and NOT actively thinking about living the values, what values are we creating from?
Whatever THAT is, is what people in the market FEEL.
In the last few years, companies have gotten more and more hesitant to take a stand on their values. But in a market built on trust, you have no option BUT to stand on something. And if it's not going to be YOUR values, I don't know what it's going to be.
Unless you're already a huge player in the market and already have brand trust, people aren't going to take a gamble on your products and services (even if they're the cheapest). For SME's, especially those in markets with a lot of competition or low barriers to entry, demonstrating your values is CRITICAL to gaining trust.
Data & Facts
We've all heard the narratives about "alternate facts" in the geopolitical conversations. And while I will always be a champion of The Truth, the fact of the matter is "the truth" is different for a lot of people. Different religions have different truth. People with different experiences have different truth. And to date, there's not a lot of "global truth" when it comes to business; and certainly not when it comes to marketing.
Which means two things:
You have to be able to stand confidently behind YOUR facts, and
Your clients are going to be people who AGREE with those facts.
Now, in our landscape of "big data", there's a TON of data that can be collected; and not all of it is meaningful for you. Marketers can easily get caught up in collecting so much data they don't have time to understand what's meaningful and what's not unless...
...you know what you need to know.
About your customers.
About their experience.
About how your product or service is meeting expectations.
All of this information is about the relationship between you and your customers. And anything that's NOT about that, doesn't really matter.
That includes all the activities that you're tracking that DON'T contribute to creating a relationship with your customers. And if you're not being diligent - and HONEST - about what is and what isn't contributing to your customers, your data doesn't align with their data.
And you break the trust.
Problem-Solving Approaches
I love this one, because it sits outside of the list of things we normally think about aligning on. And it's also one of those things that I encourage my service-based clients to really look at.
How YOU are out solving problems in the market either matches how something else thinks the problem can be solved, or it doesn't.
Take Marketing Authenticity as an example.
I believe - STRONGLY - that finding what you would do is the key to creating a system that is yours that can scale to meet your needs. That's not by nature true or false. It's what my experience says AND it's how I've decided to solve the problem of Marketing Systems not delivering results.
Now, I could go out and try to convince people of that. But that would be like trying to convince someone who doesn't need a refrigerator to buy a refrigerator.
They just won't do it.
But when I share my approach, and how it's different from other ones, people get to try that on and see if it fits.
And if it does, trust gets built.
Your problem solving approach is likely different than your competitors. It's probably even driven by a gap in the industry created by your competitors. So publicly looking just like your competitors doesn't serve you OR your potential clients, because they can't get something else to try on unless you give it to them.
So...give it to them.
And it will either bring people closer OR allow them to better access to the solution that will work better for them.
Cultural Backgrounds
I think particularly in product-based businesses, companies have been attempting to look culturally generic to attract a wider audience of people. Especially B2B Tech, people assume that the product speaks for itself, and the people behind the scenes are irrelevant.
But when buyers are buying based on trust, looking generic does you a disservice.
And almost always ends up in price competition.
In a trust economy, the cultural make-up of your organization becomes HIGHLY relevant.
Your primary language. Cultural celebrations. Food choices.
All of these things become trust builders; and that trust gets extrapolated to your brand.
Similar to the challenge with values, it's easy to understand why companies might want to stay away from cultural expression...because there will be people who DON'T match your culture. But in erasing it, you minimize the possibility for ANYONE to align with your business, and you miss out on YOUR people too.
There's lots of space in the market. Room for you AND your competitors. I mean Apple and Microsoft are both TRILLION dollar companies. And most of us probably don't need to make a trillion dollars to cover our costs right now.
Getting Aligned with Buyers
If 70% of people are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone who doesn't align with them in the above 4 categories, that's going to get extrapolated to how they make their buying decisions. We can think it's only an interpersonal response, but we also all know that the behaviors that make up our personal lives can't help but influence our business decisions.
With actually opens a cool door as well...
...your people are LOOKING for YOU.
Actively.
Which might not have been true before.
And if they align with you...
...they're less likely to trade that away for price.
So, if you can truly be yourself in the market, your likelihood of winning increases.
And no, that doesn't mean you'll ever get 100% of the market.
But hey, if Apple can be a trillion dollar company with only 16% of the OS market share (and 28% of the smartphone market), you'll probably do OK.
A Word of Caution
While all of the above is true and actionable from a marketing perspective, there's one more important thing from the Edelman report I'd like to call out:
76% of people believe that insularity is a problem.
31% think it's a moderate problem. And 45% think it's a large or crisis-level problem.
When people start to distrust their differences so much that they start actively trying to make things worse for one another, we have a BIG problem.
And as Marketers...I do NOT support this.
I believe that the most meaningful insights are found in the biggest gaps.
And if we start to build marketing teams, strategies, and plans that are actively trying to make things WORSE for our competitors, we're all going to lose.
So while this might create clarity on one side of the coin, it calls forth an important distinction as well.
A believe that we ALL have a place in the market.
That we are all solving people's problems in different ways.
And in so doing, MORE problems get solved.
This is good. Important. Critical even.
So, by all means, go out and create trust with people based on who you are.
AND...let's set an example of how we can do that while still making space for others to do it differently.
As Marketers, we get the opportunity to lead by example.
We get to be in the 30% of people who champion being OPEN to people who have a different experience than us. Because we know how important it is to have a holistic data set to make good decisions.
Let's be a spark in the darkness that helps swing the needle back towards being open and supportive of our fellow humans.
✨I for one believe in being a champion for that 30%✨
Who's with me?
