Not everyone's darling – and why that must be a conscious choice

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report shows how brands grow in a divided world. Edelman draws one conclusion. I draw another.

Once a year, I look forward to a report like a child waiting for Christmas: the Edelman Trust Barometer. This time it is not the main January Barometer, but the Special Report "Brand Growth in an Insular World", the 8th Trust and Brands survey by the Edelman Trust Institute. 17,688 interviews, 15 countries, fieldwork from late April to mid-May 2026. For once, not an AI topic. Pure marketing.

Two figures grabbed me immediately. Only 3 per cent name what AI tools say about a brand as the strongest trust lever – the lowest score. Meanwhile, 41 per cent name unpaid sources – reviews, friends, communities – as the biggest lever. Paid voices reach 13 per cent. Earned media beats paid media more than threefold.

An insular world

The core theme is insularity. Two out of three people do not trust anyone different from themselves. Edelman divides respondents into two groups:

• The Insular (66 per cent): hesitate or refuse to trust someone with different values, different facts and sources, a different approach to societal issues, or a different background.

• The Open (34 per cent): are willing to trust people different from themselves.

This does not stop with people. It affects brands. 30 per cent of the Insular avoid brands that "the others" use – compared to 14 per cent of the Open. Brands have become identity signals: 59 per cent say the brands they buy reveal a lot about their values (up 9 percentage points since 2021). 54 per cent feel connected to people who use the same brands (up 8 points).

Trust has become a hard buying criterion, level with quality and price. For 88 per cent, trust is important or even decisive, compared to 89 per cent for quality and 88 per cent for price. If you do not have trust, you do not sell.

How Edelman reads this

Edelman's recipe: trust and relevance belong together. Relevance means the brand fits me. Trust means I can rely on it. A brand with both can grow – even into new, foreign target groups.

The study shows this with a thought experiment. A brand you use suddenly starts selling to people who tick completely differently from you. Do you stay? If you do not trust the brand and do not find it relevant, only 36 per cent say yes. With trust alone, it is 48 per cent; with relevance alone, 53 per cent. With both, 71 per cent. The difference: 35 percentage points.

CEO Richard Edelman calls this the "central paradox of 2026": people want brands to be more personal, whilst brands must simultaneously be more broadly accepted. His answer: do not micro-target via advertising, but build so much trust and relevance that people recognise themselves in the brand – yet still share it with others. Earned leads, paid amplifies. In short: depth allows breadth.

How I read things differently

The conclusion is correct – but it ignores what shapes the daily business of most brands: social media. Reach there is built on niche. The algorithm rewards specificity, not majority appeal. Trying to appeal to everyone means reaching no one.

And niche is always a question of values. A brand cannot appeal to Green, FDP, and AfD voters at the same time without losing all substance. Whichever community you choose, you adopt its values – and repel others. You cannot neatly separate "culture here, politics there". Jaguar's 2024 repositioning was meant as aesthetics but was read as stance: the brand gained attention and alienated its traditional customer base. A cultural choice is a values choice.

The honest question is therefore not "how do I please everyone?", but "which side do I choose – and can I handle the backlash?".

In 2018, Nike took a clear stance against racism with its Colin Kaepernick campaign, losing part of its conservative customer base. Yet sales rose. Why? Because the chosen stance fit their actual growth target group – young, urban, diverse, global – and because Nike had enough trust to weather the boycott. Jaguar is a riskier bet: the brand drove away its existing customer base before securing the new one.

This yields my rule: do not try to be everyone's darling. Deliberately choose the side that fits your growth target group. Accept that you will lose others. And ensure your trust is deep enough to survive the backlash. Where you do not want to commit – in mass markets, with interchangeable products – the report offers an alternative lever: focus on the quality of your product, not the identity of your customer.

The biggest blind spot: identity, not pop culture

This is where it gets concrete. Relevance is multi-dimensional. Utility has the strongest impact (85 per cent), followed by mirroring identity (81), community (77), emotion (76) – and only last, a feel for pop culture (67). Pop culture is the weakest lever. Yet many brands reflexively reach for it: jumping on trends quickly.

The biggest gap lies elsewhere. In identity mirroring, there is a 26-percentage-point gap between "what would convince me" and "what brands deliver". For community, the gap is 21 points; for pop culture, only 14. Brands talk about trends, but consumers want belonging. This is where the biggest untapped potential lies – and also the hardest choice, because mirroring identity means committing.

What can be hidden is forgiven more easily

One distinction is almost entirely missing from the report, even though its data practically shouts it out: visibility. Social pressure only works when others see what I use. 32 per cent admit to secretly using brands to avoid stigma. 31 per cent have abandoned a brand due to peer pressure – rising to around 40 per cent for under-45s.

This leads to a simple rule: what can be hidden is forgiven more easily. Nobody sees which milk, toothpaste, laundry detergent, or underwear I buy. Here, utility, price, and availability matter. Identity is almost irrelevant. Conversely, I wear a car, trainers, a smartphone, or a watch in front of everyone. Here, everything must align: trust, relevance, identity.

The report measures this indirectly. When asked whether one would use a brand that others see them using publicly, willingness increases from 31 to 68 per cent with trust and relevance – a jump of 37 percentage points. The more visible the category, the higher the stakes. On and the Swiss watch industry live off this: highly visible identity products where Swissness and status merge.

AI: discovery today, source of trust tomorrow

Back to that 3 per cent. Concluding that AI is irrelevant for marketing would be wrong – and the report almost contradicts itself here. Its own playbook advises: make your assets findable in AI-powered search.

Remember: ten years ago, the internet was seen as a breeding ground for half-truths. Today, search engines have spent years as one of the most trusted information sources in the Edelman Trust Barometer – ahead of traditional media. AI will likely follow the same curve. The 3 per cent is a snapshot, not a ceiling. If you are missing from the answers of ChatGPT, Gemini and co. today, you lose trust tomorrow.

Celebrities bring reach, not trust

A confirmation for everyone questioning expensive testimonials: celebrities have never been strong trust sources. For the Insular, their trust score sits in the red zone at 42 out of 100. Family and friends reach 82, "someone like me" 76, experts 74. Even for the Open, immediate circles lead. Celebrities generate attention, not sustainable trust. The conversation about a brand starts in close circles, not on the red carpet.

And Switzerland?

Switzerland is not in the sample. Nevertheless, after ten years of the Edelman Trust Barometer, I feel confident in making two statements. Firstly, much of what appears in these reports applies to Switzerland sooner or later – and the Swiss market now adopts these trends faster than years ago. Secondly, the study is essential reading for any brand targeting an international audience anyway, even without Swiss data.

Moreover, local features sharpen this picture. Globally, 68 per cent value domestic brand origin (up 5 percentage points since 2023). In Switzerland, this has long been a reality as the Swissness premium. The linguistic regions are natural, insular segments – the Röstigraben is the ultimate line of insularity. And the quiet tribal war between Migros and Coop loyalists shows how early brands become identity markers here.

The bottom line

Edelman reads the data as: build trust and relevance deeply, and you can grow broadly. I read it as: in a social-first world, the path runs through the niche – and niche means making a choice. Do not try to be everyone's darling. Choose the side that fits your growth target, withstand the backlash, and compete on product quality where you do not want to take a stand. The cost of that choice depends primarily on one thing: how visibly your brand is displayed.

Source: 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Growth in an Insular World, Edelman Trust Institute. Analysis by CEO Richard Edelman: "Trust and Relevance Together Unlock Brand Growth in an Insular World", 20 June 2026.