Will 2020 be the year of more trust?

Integrated Marketing Association Annual SumRosenthal Pavillion-Kimmel Center

Matthew Harrington, Edelman Global President, and COO

I recently attended a one day conference on trust and storytelling.

Matthew Harrington, Global President ,and COO of Edelman was a guest speaker.  He shared the results from this year's  Edelman Trust Barometer, a yearly audit of global opinions that began almost 20 years ago (in 1999)  as a response to the " Battle For Seattle"  World Trade Organization protests.   In 2020, the theme is the Year of Trust: Competence and Ethics.

Here are some of the highlights:

Income inequality affects trust more than economic growth or the lack thereof. In other words, the more prosperous society, the greater the distrust.  To put it more simply, there is a growing distrust in democracies more so than in centralized governments.

Most people surveyed have a general sense of fear in being left behind, especially in the modern age of advanced automation and technology.  They actually fear their own governments don't know enough or don't understand the implications of advancing technologies.  There is a recognizable shift from trusting technology the most to trusting technology the least alongside the financial services, energy, fashion, entertainment, and the automotive industries.  Most trusted companies are those in the retail industry, education, and training.  Scientists overall, are the most trusted by those surveyed.


Trust is localized and at the"grassroots".  Of those surveyed, people trust their Congressman or woman but not Congress as an institution, and they don't trust "the media" as a whole either.  Instead, they trust a select group of media sources as well as those considered "traditional media" that includes search engines and "owned media".

Going back to Seattle
The Edelman Trust Barometer focused heavily on NGOs and their significance in establishing trust between the mass public, business, and government.  The distinction between the informed public and the mass public is also relevant to their study.

The survey encompassed responses from people living in 28 countries around the world including India, France, Russia, Australia, Canada, Singapore..  34,000 participants felt that the most important trust factors pertained to being paid a fair wage, receiving a quality education, being embraced as a stakeholder and partnered across all institutions.

You can learn more about the yearly survey from their website https://www.edelman.com/trustbarometer