Brand trust is closely tied to what people experience, what companies do with their data, and whether promises match behavior. The statistics below show how trust affects purchasing, loyalty, advocacy, and the credibility of brand communication.
Contents
- The current level of brand trust
- What people want brands to provide
- How trust is earned or lost
- Trust, spending, and customer experience
- Authenticity and social impact
- Communication, influence, and the trust gap
The current level of brand trust
Edelman’s 2025 Brand Trust, From We to Me research reports that 80% of people trust brands they use. That result puts brands slightly ahead of employers: 80% trust brands they use, compared with 79% who trust their employer. The same source reports that 65% trust business, while trust is lower for NGOs at 60%, media at 55%, and government at 54%.
The picture also varies by income. Among high-income consumers, brand trust rose from 64% in June 2022 to 73% in June 2025. Among low-income consumers, it rose from 47% in June 2022 to 60% in June 2025. These are measurements for specific income groups and dates, so they should not be treated as a single overall trust rate.
The longer-term context remains demanding. In Edelman’s 2019 In Brands We Trust, 90% of consumers globally said it was more important that they could trust the brands they buy. In the same research, 81% said they must be able to trust a brand to do what is right when buying.
Brand trust is also uneven across company types. Deloitte’s Brand Connection research reports that trust toward niche brands increased by 29.2 percentage points over five years, while trust toward big brands increased by 20.1 percentage points over five years. The figures describe change over a five-year period, not the final trust level for either group.
What people want brands to provide
Trust is not limited to product performance. In Edelman’s 2025 Brand Trust, From We to Me, 68% say it is very or extremely important for brands in their life to provide community. Education follows closely: 62% say it is very or extremely important for brands to teach and educate them. Meanwhile, 61% want brands to help them do good, 59% want brands to give them optimism, and 51% want brands to make them feel good.
These results point to a broader role for brands. People may judge a company not only by whether its product works, but also by whether its presence is useful, encouraging, informative, and connected to a community. For a personal brand, that can mean making expertise accessible, helping an audience take action, and creating a reliable sense of belonging.
Culture is another important trust signal. Edelman reports that 73% say a brand’s trust would increase if it authentically reflected today’s culture. By contrast, 27% say trust would increase if a brand ignored culture and focused solely on products. The two figures describe different preferences, making authenticity and relevance more influential than a universal rule about whether brands should comment on culture.
How trust is earned or lost
The Adobe Trust Report identifies several behaviors that can earn trust. Eighty-four percent say trust can be earned by keeping data safe, and another 84% say it can be earned by providing transparency and control over how data is used. Apologizing and treating employees well each receive 76%. Providing personal experiences is cited by 69%, while 68% cite demonstrating strong social responsibility.
| Trust-building behavior | Share saying it can earn trust |
|---|---|
| Keeping data safe | 84% |
| Transparency and control over data use | 84% |
| Apologizing | 76% |
| Treating employees well | 76% |
| Providing personal experiences | 69% |
| Demonstrating strong social responsibility | 68% |
The data makes privacy and transparency the leading measured trust builders in this set. It also connects internal behavior with external reputation: treating employees well is cited at the same rate as apologizing. Trust, therefore, can be affected by customer-facing conduct and by how a company treats the people who work inside it.
The cost of breaking trust is substantial. Adobe reports that 55% will never give a company business again after it violates their trust. Among Gen Z, 60% say they will never purchase again once trust is broken. A single trust failure is not automatically permanent for every customer, but these figures show why recovery cannot be assumed.
Government data practices are also a source of uncertainty. In the Adobe report, 53% believe governments are making good-faith efforts to protect personal data and provide transparency and choice around its use. At the same time, 30% say governments still make it too difficult to protect, understand, and choose how their data is used, and 28% do not trust either local or federal/central governments to use personal data respectfully.
Trust, spending, and customer experience
Trust is connected with the amount customers are willing to spend. Adobe reports that 44% will spend at least $500 per year with the most trusted brands, while 29% will spend more than $1,000 per year with the most trusted brands. These are separate spending thresholds and should not be added together; the second group is a higher-spending subset of the first threshold concept.
The effect also appears in broader brand behavior. Edelman’s 2019 In Brands We Trust found that 68% say that when a brand earns full trust across product, customer experience, and societal impact, they will buy first, stay loyal, advocate for, and defend it. When they trust only the product, 47% say the same. The comparison suggests that product quality alone is a weaker foundation for a complete relationship than trust across several dimensions.
Product experience remains the strongest of the individually measured trust reasons in that Edelman research: 87% trust a brand for its product experience. Customer experience is cited by 56%, and impact on society by 38%. These percentages describe reasons people trust a brand, not a ranking of overall brand trust levels.
Adobe’s B2B and B2C comparisons show another experience gap. Among work decision-makers, 61% say their B2C buying experiences are better than their B2B experiences, while only 7% say their B2B experiences are better than their B2C experiences. In the same report, 42% say B2C brands are more trustworthy, compared with only 9% who say they trust B2B brands more.
For people building a professional reputation, the implication is practical: an audience may compare a business service with the smoother, clearer experiences it receives elsewhere. Clear information, predictable steps, and respect for the customer’s time are part of the trust experience even when the offer itself is specialized.
Authenticity and social impact
Clutch’s 2025 authenticity survey reports that 97% say authenticity influences whether they support a brand. Eighty-five percent have purchased from a brand because it felt authentic, and 70% are willing to pay more for brands they perceive as real. These findings connect authenticity with both support and willingness to buy, not just with awareness or favorable opinion.
The Edelman 2019 research adds a caution about societal positioning. Sixty-nine percent say trusting a brand matters more because they want it to serve as a conduit for societal change. Yet 56% say too many brands are using societal issues as a marketing ploy, and 53% believe brands are less than truthful when talking about their impact on society.
Those results place a high burden on claims about purpose. People may want brands to contribute to change, but they also question whether those claims are sincere. The distinction matters for personal brands as well: a point of view gains credibility when it is connected to consistent actions and useful work, rather than appearing only as promotional language.
Meaningful Brands’ 2021 research describes the wider trust and relevance problem. It reports that 75% of brands could disappear overnight and most people would not care or would easily find a replacement. In the same research, 71% have little faith that brands will deliver on their promises, while only 34% think companies are transparent about their commitments and promises.
Together, these figures describe a market where authenticity can create preference but generic or unsupported promises can quickly become interchangeable. A recognizable voice, clear commitments, and evidence of delivery help address the gap between being noticed and being trusted.
Communication, influence, and the trust gap
Trust changes how people receive brand messages. Edelman’s 2019 research found that 76% pay attention to communications from a brand they trust, compared with 48% who pay attention to communications from a brand they do not fully trust. At the same time, 74% are actively avoiding advertising. Attention is therefore available, but it is not guaranteed by simply placing more promotional messages in front of people.
Independent voices can matter especially to younger adults. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, 63% trust what influencers say about a brand more than what the brand says about itself. Edelman also reports that 74% trust the message more when the sequence is peer voices plus owned media. The source’s sequence finding supports a combination of outside credibility and a brand’s own explanation, rather than relying exclusively on either one.
The difference between product trust and broader trust appears again in Edelman’s findings. While 87% trust a brand for its product experience, only 56% cite customer experience and 38% cite impact on society. A brand may therefore have a strong product-based reason to believe without having equal credibility in service or social-impact claims.
For a personal brand, the statistics suggest a clear trust pattern: demonstrate expertise through the work, make the audience experience straightforward, explain how information is handled, and make claims that can survive scrutiny. Authenticity matters to 97% in the Clutch survey, but the broader data shows that authenticity is strengthened when it is supported by delivery, transparency, and consistent behavior.