Trust Is The Strategy
The new reality: trust is scored in real time
Honesty in marketing isn’t new. What’s new is this: trust is no longer cumulative, it’s dynamic. Customers don’t form an opinion and hold it. They rescore brands constantly across emails, updates, posts, policies, and even silences. Trust now behaves less like a long-term reputation and more like a live stock ticker. Every message moves it up or down, especially the uncomfortable ones.
Trust has to show up in every communication
Most brands are decent at communicating exciting news:
Product launches
Growth milestones
Awards, partnerships, funding
The copy is polished. The visuals are sharp. The optimism is dialed to eleven. But trust isn’t tested in celebration, it’s tested in friction. That includes:
Delays
Mistakes
Price increases
Supply issues
Policy changes
Missed expectations
Customers don’t expect perfection. They do expect honesty. And the brands that win long‑term are the ones that communicate with the same clarity, humanity, and respect whether the news is exciting or uncomfortable.
What trust-driven communication actually looks like
Trust-driven brands consistently do three things:
1. They tell the truth early (not after Twitter finds it)
Silence creates suspicion. Delay feels strategic, even when it isn’t.
Proactive communication says:
“We respect you enough to tell you what’s happening.”
Reactive communication says:
“We hoped you wouldn’t notice.”
Guess which one builds trust.
2. They explain the why, not just the what
Customers are remarkably reasonable when they understand context.
“We messed up” is honest.
“We messed up, here’s why it happened, and here’s what we’re changing” is trust‑building.
The goal isn’t over‑justification, it’s clarity. Transparency reduces imagination. And imagination is rarely generous.
3. They sound human, not corporate
Trust erodes fastest when language feels engineered. Customers can smell legal‑approved, brand‑safe, responsibility‑dodging copy from a mile away.
Human communication:
Uses plain language
Acknowledges impact
Takes ownership
Avoids euphemisms and buzzwords
If your apology needs a glossary, it’s not working.
When being “technically correct” destroys trust
One of the most common modern brand failures isn’t lying, it’s hiding behind accuracy. We see it constantly in airline, tech, and subscription-brand messaging around price increases or service changes. The language is legally sound:
“To continue delivering value, we’re updating our pricing structure.”
Nothing in that sentence is false. It’s also emotionally empty. Customers already understand what’s happening: costs went up, they’re paying more, and the experience may not improve immediately. When brands avoid saying that plainly, customers don’t feel informed—they feel managed. And being managed kills trust faster than bad news ever could.
Airbnb: Clear communication during disruption
During major policy changes and global uncertainty, Airbnb leaned into direct, transparent communication with hosts and guests. They explained what was changing, why it was changing, and how people would be supported, even when no option made everyone happy. That honesty didn’t eliminate frustration, but it preserved trust.
Smaller brands win here too
This isn’t just a big‑brand advantage. Smaller companies often do this better:
A founder email explaining a delay
A social post owning a mistake
A pricing update that explains rising costs instead of hiding them
These moments don’t weaken brands—they humanize them.
The thesis we believe brands must own
Trust isn’t built by what you say when things are going well. It’s built by how you communicate when they aren’t. Brands don’t lose trust because things go wrong; they lose it when communication is optimized for optics instead of clarity. There is no neutral communication anymore, every message is either a deposit or a withdrawal.
The brands that win long-term won’t be the loudest, cleverest, or most polished. They’ll be the ones customers believe. Not because they never mess up, but because they never hide.
Trust isn’t a campaign. It’s the strategy.
