Post-truth marketing: How do you build a brand when no one believes anything?

This morning, I read a Gallup report that trust in U.S. media has fallen to a record low of 28%. That means only 28% of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. Crazy.

What's also crazy is this is down from 31% last year and 40% five years ago. I mean, who can blame them? Almost all of American media is run by only six giant companies, and one media mogul that is practically responsible for the rise of Trump himself. Bias? We don’t know her, right?? Baby, bias is breaking down the newsroom door and claiming squatters’ rights. And you can absolutely forget about trust. This is not just a crisis for journalism; It’s a crisis for marketing (and society, and everyone who wants to know anything about anything).

Because when the public stops trusting traditional media, that distrust doesn’t stop at the newsroom door. It spills into every message, and every claim, which includes us/our ads. If belief has replaced fact as the currency of persuasion, marketers are now operating in a post-truth marketplace.

How we got here

Obviously distrust in media isn’t new, but it’s certainly metastasized. Decades of polarisation, algorithmic echo chambers, and brand-led “content” have eroded the idea of a neutral source. The 2010s promised transparency through the internet. Instead, we got filters, influencers, and AI-generated everything.

Historically, marketing has always borrowed trust from institutions. Press coverage, celebrity endorsements, and the glossy authority of a print ad. But those scaffolds have collapsed. The audience no longer assumes authority; they assume agenda. We’ve entered an era where everything feels like marketing. And thus, nothing feels believable.

Belief as the new brand currency

In a post-truth world, the facts matter less than the frame. People don’t want evidence, they want alignment. They believe what feels emotionally consistent with their worldview, not what’s empirically true. That’s not cynicism, it’s human behaviour. We’ve always been storytelling creatures, not fact-checking machines. But now, digital culture has supercharged our ability to live inside our own narratives.

The brands that succeed in this landscape aren’t necessarily the ones with the most credible claims. They're the ones that feel the most real. The ones that resonate emotionally, culturally, and morally with their audience. Think about Patagonia. Its authority doesn’t come from ad spend, but from a long-term coherence between what it says and what it does. In other words: truth has become experiential, not informational.

The new rules:

So then, how do marketers build belief when belief itself has become so fragile? The uncomfortable truth is that you can’t manufacture it, but you can earn it through coherence:

1. Do what you say, consistently. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and trust isn’t built through a single campaign; it’s built through accumulated proof. The internet remembers everything, especially the contradictions.

2. Anchor in values, not virtue-signaling. People can smell performative ethics from a mile away. Authenticity isn’t about saying the right thing; it’s about meaning it repeatedly.

3. Leverage transparency as strategy. Show your work. Open the black box of how things are made, priced, or sourced. Transparency doesn’t eliminate skepticism, but it does humanise it.

4. Invest in community credibility. Third-party validation now comes from micro-communities, not mass media. Build advocates, not audiences.

5. Tell smaller, truer stories. Grand narratives sound suspicious in an era of disinformation. Micro-truths at human-scale that are humble, and more importantly real, will always resonate deeper.

Cultural parallels

This isn’t the first trust collapse we’ve seen. The postwar era of the 1960s brought similar disillusionment with institutions. But, it birthed counterculture and the golden age of creative advertising. “Think Small” (Volkswagen, 1959) worked because it subverted authority with honesty. “Lemon” was radical because it told the truth when others didn’t.

We now find ourselves back here in a similar moment, where rebellion and sincerity are merging again. Only now, rebellion looks like humility. In a world that constantly lies, the brand that under-promises suddenly feels revolutionary.

The opportunity in disbelief

The Gallup numbers might sound bleak, but they’re also clarifying. If trust in institutions is collapsing, it means trust in people is rising. For marketers, that’s a cue to build horizontally, not vertically. Brands that embrace vulnerability, honesty, and participation will outlast those clinging to authority. The age of the brand as preacher is over; the age of the brand as participant has begun.

We may live in a post-truth world, but that doesn’t mean we have to market like it. The future belongs to brands that don’t just tell stories, but prove them, live them, and invite others to witness them unfold.

-Sophie Randell, Writer