The world stands at a critical juncture in institutional trust. It’s not good.
According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, we face a profound “crisis of grievance,” where 61% of global citizens hold moderate to high levels of grievance against institutions, business leaders, and the wealthy.
This erosion of trust, coupled with unprecedented levels of skepticism about “post-truth America,” presents both a challenge and an opportunity for communications professionals.
While business remains the most trusted institution globally, even this position is precarious, with trust levels stagnating at 62% and showing signs of vulnerability across multiple demographics. The traditional approaches to communications are no longer sufficient in this environment, where 70% of people worry that journalists and media sources deliberately mislead them, and 68% express similar concerns about business leaders.
This environment presents a complex set of challenges. Media fragmentation and rising skepticism make message delivery and trust-building increasingly tricky. When audiences question the foundations of institutional communication, the conventional playbook of news releases, media pitches, and corporate statements no longer suffices.
Yet, within these challenges lie significant opportunities. And you know I’m always looking for the silver lining!
We are uniquely positioned to bridge the trust gap, serving as strategic advisors who can help organizations navigate this new landscape. The Edelman data suggests audiences crave authentic, transparent communication and value organizations that understand their needs and concerns, which really is no surprise in the post-pandemic era.
With 63% of the global population expressing fears about prejudice and discrimination—an all-time high—there’s a clear mandate for more inclusive, thoughtful communication strategies.
This is where the PESO Model becomes invaluable. More than just a framework for organizing communication channels, it offers a strategic approach to building trust through integrated, measurable communications efforts. By leveraging the strengths of each channel while ensuring message consistency and authenticity across all touchpoints, organizations can begin to rebuild trust systematically.
Key Institutional Trust Breakdown
It’s always fun to see what the Edelman Trust Barometer details, and 25 years in, this year is no different. I’m sure it’s not surprising, but it reveals a fundamental breakdown in institutional trust, marked by what they’re calling a “crisis of grievance.”
This crisis manifests across multiple dimensions, with 61% of global citizens holding moderate to high levels of grievance against institutions, business leaders, and the wealthy.
Key institutional findings paint a sobering picture:
- While business maintains its position as the most trusted institution at 62%, this represents stagnation rather than progress.
- Government trust languishes at 52%;
- Media at 52%; and
- NGOs at 58%.
More troubling is the trend line—these figures represent a consistent decline across all institutions over the past several years.
Worse, there is a 13-point trust gap between high-income and low-income populations, with high-income groups showing 61% trust levels compared to 48% among low-income groups. This disparity extends across all institutions but is most pronounced in business and government.
Age demographics reveal another concerning trend: young adults (18-34) show the highest levels of mistrust and grievance, with 53% approving of hostile activism as a means for change—significantly higher than other age groups. This suggests a generational shift in how institutions must approach trust-building.
For communications professionals, these trends create specific challenges.
First, the data shows unprecedented skepticism toward information sources, with 70% worried about deliberate misinformation from journalists and 68% expressing similar concerns about business leaders.
Second, the traditional authority of institutional voices has eroded, with 63% of respondents finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between credible and deceptive information sources.
This context demands a fundamental rethinking of how organizations communicate with their stakeholders. Traditional top-down approaches are no longer practical in a landscape where audiences are skeptical of messages and the messengers themselves.
PESO Model As a Trust-Building Framework
The PESO Model offers a comprehensive framework for rebuilding institutional trust through integrated communications. I’m not saying it will save the world—far from it. But what I am saying is that with a strategic, integrated approach, every one of us can be accountable for saving the world.
Each channel serves a distinct purpose: paid media provides controlled message delivery, earned media builds credibility through third-party validation, shared media enables direct audience engagement, and owned media allows organizations to tell their stories authentically.
The integration of these channels is where the real magic happens. The Trust Barometer reveals that 63% of respondents find it increasingly difficult to distinguish credible information sources. Organizations can build a more cohesive and trustworthy voice by ensuring consistent messaging across all channels while leveraging each channel’s unique strengths.
Each media type plays a specific role in trust-building:
- Paid media establishes reach and reinforces key messages while maintaining transparency about sponsored content.
- Earned media provides third-party credibility, not necessarily traditional media, but social media news anchors, podcasters, newsletter authors, influencers, and product reviewers. This is particularly important because 70% distrust traditional media sources.
- Shared media enables direct dialogue with audiences and demonstrates responsiveness to community concerns.
- Owned media offers platforms for authentic storytelling and transparent communication about organizational values and actions.
With trust metrics at historic lows, organizations must validate their communication efforts through robust measurement frameworks. This means moving beyond traditional metrics like impressions and engagement to measure actual trust indicators:
- Message credibility across channels
- Audience sentiment and perception shifts
- Quality of engagement and dialogue
- Effect on stakeholder behaviors and trust levels
By integrating these measurements across all PESO Model channels, organizations can demonstrate real progress in rebuilding trust while continuously refining their communication strategies based on stakeholder response and needs.
Paid Media Strategy for Trust Building
Now, let’s talk about how each media type can help build trust, even up against the challenges we face, particularly with paid media.
With the Trust Barometer showing 61% of people holding grievances against institutions, throwing more ad dollars at the problem isn’t the solution. But paid media, when wielded strategically and ethically, can be a powerful tool for rebuilding trust.
Think of paid media as your opportunity to put your money where your mouth is. Rather than glossy corporate messaging, focus on transparent communication that acknowledges concerns and showcases real action. When 67% of people believe wealthy organizations aren’t paying their fair share, your paid strategy needs to demonstrate corporate responsibility without coming across as performative.
The key?
Integration and measurement.
Every paid campaign should reflect broader trust-building initiatives across your PESO Model framework. Move beyond traditional metrics like impressions and click-throughs. Instead, measure shifts in trust sentiment, message credibility, and behavioral indicators that show increased stakeholder confidence.
This means rethinking everything from ad placement to message development. Be transparent about paid content while maintaining editorial integrity. Use paid channels to amplify stories of organizational accountability, community investment, and ethical business practices.
Always remember in doing this work that authenticity is non-negotiable. In an era of deep skepticism, your paid media strategy needs to reflect genuine organizational values and actions, not just marketing objectives.
Earned Media in the Era of Distrust
To boot, when 70% of your audience worries about journalistic misinformation, earned media becomes both more challenging and more important. We’re not just pitching stories anymore—we’re rebuilding faith in information itself.
Success in this environment requires a fundamental shift in how we approach media relations. Gone are the days of spray-and-pray news releases and superficial media relationships. Today’s earned media strategy must be built on a foundation of rigorous fact-checking, deep relationship building, and unwavering commitment to truth.
Make it easy for journalists and influencers to verify your claims. Position your experts as reliable sources who provide context and clarity, not just quotes. When challenges arise—and they will—be open and honest about it. The Trust Barometer shows that audiences can handle bad news; they just can’t handle dishonesty.
Your measurement strategy needs to evolve, too. Focus on quality over quantity. Track message accuracy and pull-through, not just the number of stories placed. Monitor how earned media coverage affects overall stakeholder trust levels. Most importantly, integrate these metrics with your broader PESO Model measurement framework to understand how earned media contributes to trust-building across all channels.
Being a trusted source for journalists means being a trusted source for everyone. Build that reputation methodically, maintain it religiously, and measure it consistently.
Shared Media’s Role in Authentic Engagement
The Trust Barometer highlights a critical insight about grievances: they thrive when ignored. Shared media has evolved far beyond a broadcasting platform; it’s now our most immediate trust-building environment. But here’s the challenge: 40% of people see hostile activism as a viable path to change, with that number jumping to 53% among young adults.
This means reimagining shared media as more than a content distribution channel. Smart organizations are transforming their shared media into dynamic trust sensors, providing real-time feedback on stakeholder sentiment and early warnings of emerging issues. They’re using these platforms to demonstrate organizational values through immediate action and authentic community management.
Online community management has become a sophisticated practice of trust-building. It requires real-time grievance addressing, proactive engagement, and consistent demonstration of organizational values. The most successful organizations aren’t just monitoring conversations; they’re fostering constructive dialogue and turning potential conflicts into opportunities for deeper stakeholder connections.
Take the Spin Sucks Community as an example: one of the biggest challenges we have is people using the PESO Model without credit or simply taking it and making it their own. It’s copyrighted so that’s a big no-no, yet it happens all the time.
We spend a good amount of money on legal fees to protect the copyright and to follow up with people who are infringing on that. But without the Spin Sucks Community, our job would be even harder and more expensive.
I get emails, texts, and DMs weekly from people who have seen it out in the wild without attribution and they report it to us. This allows us to follow up and educate the poor soul who has violated the copyright. And, in most cases, they make it right.
Not only has this allowed us to fiercely protect what is ours, it has built trust in ways I never even imagined. It has taken years of transparent communications and building authentically, but it works.
Gone are the days when follower counts and engagement rates told the whole story. Modern shared media measurement demands sophisticated analysis of sentiment evolution, response times, and resolution rates.
Particularly where community is concerned inside shared media, we measure:
- Quality of community interactions
- Speed and effectiveness of issue resolution
- Sentiment trends over time
- Effect on broader trust metrics
- Community growth and health indicators
Owned Media’s Trust Premium
And now my favorite of the media types: owned media. Your owned channels offer unfiltered opportunities to demonstrate trustworthiness—and that’s both exciting and terrifying. With 68% of people worried about business leaders deliberately misleading them, owned media demands radical transparency.
This isn’t about churning out corporate content. It’s about creating evidence-based narratives that prove your commitments through data and demonstrate expertise and experience. Every owned touchpoint—from your website to your annual report—should reinforce your dedication to honest, open communication.
Effective owned media strategy in today’s environment requires:
- Regular updates on progress toward public commitments
- Transparent communication about challenges
- Clear documentation of decision-making processes
- Consistent engagement with stakeholder feedback
- Integration with the other PESO Model channels
And then measurement becomes critical. Look beyond page views to understand how effectively owned content drives trust-building behaviors. Are stakeholders spending time with substantive content? Are they returning to key trust-building pages? Do they share your transparency-focused materials?
But the real power comes from the integration of the media types and measure it all together.
The PESO Model Framework
The Trust Barometer findings make one thing painfully clear: siloed approaches to communications no longer work. True PESO Model integration isn’t about taking tactics from each media type calling it a day. It about building an ecosystem where every element amplifies trust-building efforts.
Think about your measurement framework as a trust dashboard. Each PESO Model channel contributes distinct trust signals: paid media shows us message resonance and perception shifts; earned media demonstrates third-party credibility; shared media reveals real-time sentiment and community health; owned media tracks depth of engagement with transparency efforts.
But here’s where it gets interesting—and challenging.
These metrics need to interact.
When you amplify earned media through paid channels, does it boost credibility? When social conversations drive traffic to owned content, does it deepen engagement? Your framework needs to capture these cross-channel dynamics and their collective effectiveness on trust.
With 61% of people holding grievances against institutions, your integrated approach must show real progress. This means deploying unified messaging frameworks, coordinated response protocols, and stakeholder feedback loops that span all channels.
And, when you measure efforts, your dashboard should track communications metrics and trust indicators and grievance reduction.
Practical Implementation Steps
So how the heck do you implement all of this? Let me give you an example of what the next 12 months could look like.
Start with a thorough audit of your PESO Model integration. And, if the program or campaign isn’t integrated, start there. Map your current state against trust-building objectives. Then build your roadmap.
Your first 90 days should be about foundation-building. Build your roadmap to do the following:
- Establish baseline trust metrics across the PESO Model media types
- Create cross-channel messaging framework
- Build integrated measurement dashboard
- Train teams on trust-focused communications
- Audit existing content and channels
The next quarter focuses on execution. You’ll do the following:
- Launch pilot programs demonstrating PESO Model integration
- Monitor early trust indicators
- Adjust based on stakeholder response
- Scale successful approaches
- Begin implementing cross-channel measurement
Months seven through nine, then focus on scaling and reporting. You’ll do the following:
- Expand successful programs across channels
- Deepen integration between all of your efforts
- Enhance social listening and response protocols
- Develop advanced content measurement frameworks
- Begin quarterly trust measurement reporting
The last three months get you to a regular cadence and put your program on steroids. You’ll have the following:
- Full PESO Model integration across all major initiatives
- Sophisticated cross-channel measurement in place
- Regular trust metric reporting and analysis
- Team optimization based on year’s learnings
- Strategic planning for year two initiatives
Throughout this implementation, you’ll want to prioritize your resources around analytics and measurement capabilities and content management systems that enable integration. You can start with Google Analytics and a spreadsheet and then move to Google Data Studio (which I guess is now called Looker) to integrate your metrics into one dashboard.
You’ll do ongoing team training and development. This might be webinars or lunch and learns, or it could be a section in town hall meetings or watercooler conversations. However, your organization is built for learning, and development is how you’ll do this. Become part of the ongoing development programming.
And you’ll provide an opportunity for robust stakeholder feedback. It won’t be easy and it will sometimes hurt your feelings, but it will be important. If you want to build trust externally, you have to start doing it internally.
The PESO Model Can Rebuild Trust
The trust crisis revealed in the 2025 Trust Barometer demands we transform our approach to communications. But here’s the opportunity: an integrated PESO Model, laser-focused on trust-building and measured rigorously, gives us the framework we need.
This isn’t just about technical expertise or channel management. It’s about organizational commitment to transparency, authentic engagement, and measurable trust-building across every touchpoint. The future belongs to organizations that evolve communications from message delivery to trust cultivation.
