Towards a trusted future: how brands can navigate misinformation

Who, and what, can you trust these days? 

AI is accelerating the volume of misinformation online and social network traffic is down year-on-year as people retreat from increasingly inauthentic content. This evolving context will create new challenges and opportunities for brands seeking to engage with their customers. At the very least, the future for trust looks uncertain.  

Generative AI and dark social pose profound challenges for the future – not just for marketing, but at a socio-political level.

Democratic elections will create an inflection point for the future of online trust, with most commentators predicting a tsunami of misinformation. 

Begun, the misinformation wars have...

Somewhere between 50% - 70% of the world’s population will vote in democratic elections this year. This will create an inflection point for the future of online trust, with most commentators predicting a tsunami of misinformation – fuelled by powerful and easily accessible generative AI tools. 

Brands and business are trusted institutions, but that trust – as we all know – is hard won and easily lost. 

Indeed, a report out this month from Europol (the European Law Enforcement Agency) shows experts believe that as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026. Put simply: more and more of what we see online will be created wholly or in part by a generative AI – be it the words you read, the pictures you view or the videos you watch. 

The short and mid-term future will see enormous strain put on a global population who – according to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer – increasingly view government and media as “a source of false or misleading information”, with almost two thirds of us globally believing that government leaders (63%) and journalists (64%) purposefully mislead us. 

However, in contrast, Edelman reports trust in business is at an all-time high and continuing to climb…

AI enhanced or generated content leaves us feeling like we can’t trust anything we see or anyone we follow.

With great power comes great responsibility...

For brands and business leaders, choosing when, how and with whom to participate in the future will be of paramount importance. Yes, brands and business are trusted institutions, but that trust – as we all know – is hard won and easily lost. 

For years now, aligning to social issues has been a key play for brands looking to differentiate or reflect their target markets’ values back at them. When it works well, it can feel a-political and hit the mark with little-to-no push back from either side of the aisle – take Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty (this month celebrating 20 – twenty! – years), for example.

Consumers will increasingly be on their guard for anything that smells remotely like brand-washing.  

But of course, there has been plenty of high-profile cases where brands have got this wrong. Bud Light being a good case in point. I make no judgement on supporting the transgender cause, but any strategic action that results in losing a quarter of your customer base in a category as mature and stable as beer shows how a brand can quickly erode trust with loyal customers – especially in an age of polarisation.  

The implication for the future is clear. Brand managers will need to take even greater care when looking to participate in wider cultural and social issues, mapping the potential risks and (unintended) consequences that aligning with certain values, people or movements will create. For whilst trust in business is high, consumers will increasingly be on their guard for anything that smells remotely like brand-washing.  

Any strategic action that results in losing a quarter of your customer base in a category as mature and stable as beer shows how a brand can quickly erode trust with loyal customers. 

A retreat from social media

Back to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, and social media also takes a bit of a kicking with a trust rating of only 44%. 

This would perhaps in part explain why traffic to the top 100 social networks globally is down 3.7% year-on-year, with X (-15%) and Facebook (-10.4%) both down significantly. This trend looks likely to continue into the future and puts a question mark over how brands continue to make use of social media in a world of eroding trust. 

The reason I’m seeing most often cited by users for this retreat from social media is an increasing sense that the content on the platforms is ‘inauthentic’. Now, whilst I’m not a fan of the concept of ‘authenticity’ (especially in marketing!) – the point remains valid. 

We can expect future timelines to be awash with AI enhanced or generated content leaving us feeling like we can’t trust anything we see or anyone we follow.

When your feed is flooded with algorithmically-doped, high-gloss influencers, at the expense of your friends and family, all trying to sell you some magical beauty cream/air-fryer/jeggings, you can start to feel like the platforms more closely resemble QVC than social media.

And of course, we’re only at the very start of generative AI making its presence felt on social. Beyond the political misinformation I alluded to earlier, we can expect future timelines to be awash with AI enhanced or generated content leaving us feeling like we can’t trust anything we see or anyone we follow. 

Research (from Entribe) backs this up, suggesting that as much as 86% of people are likely to trust a brand that publishes UGC, compared to just 12%, who are inclined to purchase a product promoted by an influencer. 

In response to this, real, actual, proper humans are increasingly turning to ‘dark’ social as a way to remedy this growing distrust with social media. 

The dark social rises

In response to this, real, actual, proper humans are increasingly turning to ‘dark’ social as a way to remedy this growing distrust with social media and (re)create a circle of trust around their digital lives. Private chats and group threads are on the rise as people retreat to safe, real and trusted spaces to communicate, share and interact. 

For brands, this again creates a challenge. Dark social is by its very nature trying to filter out the noise and keep things real. So, you might think that brands would struggle to gain a foothold. And yet, brands wanting to earn and maintain trust should be actively considering their dark social strategy.  

The path forward demands a delicate balance between participation and respect for evolving consumer preferences.

The launch of WhatsApp channels last year gives brands an opt-in route directly into people’s chatlogs. And we’re only at the beginning. I suspect parent company Meta has plenty more planned for its sleeping giant. 

In fact, to date, I am astounded more brands haven’t already taken advantage of dark social. This could start with things as simple as making it as easy as possible for consumers to share their content in private channels and perhaps even experiment with click-to-message ads.