A collapse in brand trust is happening right now. The data shows it.
We all love to rail on brands when they don’t meet our expectations. “Cancel Culture” is one thing that’s popular across the entire political spectrum. When faced with the latest corporate “outrage” we all love to smash the BOYCOTT THEM!!! button. However, we know all of those boycotts don’t ever amount to much. As Grant Ennis explains in his book Dark PR [1] most people quickly forget a brand’s transgression and move on. We either mellow over time on the transgression or we are confronted by another even more outrageous scandal which leaves us quickly forgetting past transgressions.
What we are witnessing right now is the cumulative impact of all these scandals, incidents and missteps. Incidents that perhaps haven’t resulted in a noticeable sales impact but have festered in the back of our minds over many years and are now showing up in data on Brand Trust. This is not a temporary dip in corporate reputation; the data points to a structural, systemic collapse in brand trust. [2]
Leading global tracking studies show that years of consumer grievance over inflation, data privacy violations, and corporate overreach have hardened into a deeply skeptical mindset. [2, 3, 4]
The defining metrics of this trust collapse break down into several distinct categories:
1. The Slide from “Grievance” to “Insularity”
According to the definitive global benchmark, the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, consumer psychology has drastically narrowed. [1]
- The 70% Guardrail: 70% of people globally report they are now unwilling or hesitant to trust anyone—including brands—who do not explicitly share their core values, information sources, or cultural backgrounds. [1]
- The Peer-to-Peer Shift: Top-down brand authority has evaporated. Data from the Edelman Brand Trust Report shows that 84% of consumers trust friends and family and 80% trust everyday peers, while trust in CEOs (58%) and paid influencers (58%) has bottomed out. [1]
2. Economic Grievances: Shrinkflation and “Greedflation”
The cat is out of the bag. Those little annoyances like opening a Pringles packet and finding it’s half empty are leading people to ask bigger questions. Plus the long-term financial stress most people now experience has made consumers highly sensitive to corporate motives. [1]
- Profit Over People: Global consumer tracking highlights that the number-one driver of brand distrust is the perception that companies are prioritising excessive profit margins over fair pricing during an ongoing cost-of-living crunch. [1, 2]
- The Backlash on Giants: This is highly visible in regional data. For instance, Australia’s Roy Morgan Risk Monitor tracks a massive reputational cratering for major supermarket duopolies (like Coles and Woolworths) due to active allegations of price gouging and misleading discounts. [1]
3. The Tech and AI Deficit
“If it’s free, you are the product” and “Enshittification” are concepts more and more people are familiar with. People can see that digital services are no longer getting better, they are noticeably getting worse, and brands are alienating the people they serve. [1] With companies like Palantir [2] seen by many as just plain evil, and the whole of Silicon Valley being tarnished with the label “Technofascism” [3] this isn’t helping either.
- The Rise of Tech Distrust: Public anxiety over ethical data usage and automated customer service has pushed backbone tech infrastructure into dangerous territory. [1, 2]
- The OpenAI Factor: In a telling shift, Roy Morgan data revealed that OpenAI (including ChatGPT) entered the top 20 most distrusted brands for the first time. This was driven by widespread consumer suspicion regarding aggressive monetisation, lack of transparency, and data ethics. [1, 2]
- Data Baselines: Basis Technologies research indicates that 70% of consumers are actively concerned about data privacy, viewing data governance as a non-negotiable minimum safety standard rather than a nice-to-have perk. [1]
4. The Rise of “Silent Churn” and Economic Protectionism
We might not be seeing this loss of trust in the sales data right now but it is bad for all brands. This collapse isn’t just about bad sentiment; it has direct operational consequences. [1, 2] This loss in trust costs a company and those costs are then fed back to customers. When a service gets worse we end up having to pay for the consequences as customers, until one day we eventually cancel our Adobe [3] subscription.
- Silent Churn: Consumers are no longer leaving angry feedback or complaining on public forums; they are simply abandoning checkouts or switching brands without a word the moment they sense deceptive UX design, sneaky fees, or “surveillance pricing”. [1, 2]
- The Flight to Local: Because global institutions feel volatile, the Edelman Special Report on Brand Growth indicates that two-thirds of global consumers now prioritise domestically headquartered brands over multinationals, choosing local proximity as a proxy for safety and accountability. [1] While that’s not leading to an immediate collapse in sales it pushes up operational costs.
The Cost of a Trust Collapse
My entire career has been spent building brand value and trust, as I now watch the world’s biggest companies destroy theirs in a race for ever bigger profits. The root of the problem is not just chasing bigger profits but chasing them at the expense of the customer experience. A short-term gain that leads to long term pain. Brands are cannibalising their own products and services and the data shows people are noticing.
Trust can take decades to build, but in the modern digital ecosystem, it can collapse entirely within 48 hours when an organisation fails to act with baseline human empathy. [1, 2, 3, 4] This ultimately makes things harder for a company, attracting new customers and new staff and capturing loyalty. The precious advocacy brands seek, that provides free PR on social media, is now turning into hostility. People who once helped Tesla build its brand now stand outside showrooms trying to tear it down. However until those profits do tank and people do start switching to better alternatives in significant numbers, expect to see trust fall even further.
