Marketing has always had a trust problem – somewhere between used car salespeople and politicians, we marketers have been side-eye’d by the public for years. But in 2025, skepticism has reached new heights.
The age of marketing distrust
According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, only 47% of people globally trust businesses to do the right thing. That’s barely higher than flipping a coin. Trust in businesses has declined by 8 percentage points since 2019, with particularly sharp drops in sectors like tech, healthcare, and financial services.
When it comes to advertising, well… let’s just say marketers are sitting comfortably in the “highly suspicious” category – alongside deepfake influencers, AI-generated customer reviews, and whatever new subscription service is quietly draining your bank account.
It’s no wonder audiences have their guard up. They’ve seen one too many “real” customer testimonials that suspiciously sound like they were written by ChatGPT. They’ve been burned by brands promising “authenticity”, only to reveal their latest campaign was cooked up in a boardroom.
Industries that once prided themselves on innovation and expertise – tech, healthcare, financial services – are now experiencing what can only be described as a PR winter. Whether it’s the latest privacy scandal, surprise layoffs in a “record-breaking quarter,” or yet another subscription fee quietly tacked onto something that used to be free, consumers are learning one lesson over and over: Don’t trust the logo.
Employee trust: the silver lining
In contrast, Edelman’s 2024 Trust at Work report found that 66% of consumers trust “regular employees” over CEOs or corporate spokespeople. When employees speak, they are seen as credible, unfiltered, and authentic – especially in complex or technical industries.
Employees are real, relatable, and (mostly) untrained in corporate spin, which is precisely why audiences believe them. They’re the ones living the brand, working through its quirks, and occasionally grumbling about the same internal processes that frustrate your customers.
In fact, employee-authored LinkedIn posts, candid TikToks, and even off-the-cuff tweets often outperform carefully crafted brand content. Why? Because they sound like real humans – not brand guidelines in human form.
Why employees rebuild trust naturally
Employees – especially those on the front lines – feel closer to customers’ actual experiences. They know which product features actually work (and which ones are “coming soon”), they understand why that one policy drives everyone nuts, and they’re fluent in the language of customers, not marketing-speak.
That honesty, nuance, and transparency is exactly what today’s skeptical audiences are craving. When a product manager shares how they reworked a feature based on user feedback, or a customer success rep posts about solving a quirky issue for a client – that’s credible storytelling. It’s marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.
Your employees are your new marketing engine
Every employee with a LinkedIn account, an industry take, or a behind-the-scenes story is a potential credibility-builder. When they share their experiences – the wins, the real talk, the messy problem-solving moments – they make your brand more relatable, more human, and most importantly, more trustworthy.
This isn’t about turning employees into polished spokespeople. It’s about helping them find their own voice and giving them the confidence to use it. Marketing’s role shifts from message control to influence enablement – building the tools, the guardrails, and the culture where employees feel safe sharing what matters most to them and their networks.
The real power of distributed trust
The future of brand credibility doesn’t belong to corporate channels. It belongs to the people behind the brand: product experts, sales pros, engineers, recruiters, customer success heroes. When they share what they know, they add the human context and credibility that marketing alone can’t create.
What marketing needs to do next
If marketing wants to stay credible in a low-trust world, we have to let go of the need to control every word. Our job is to create the conditions where employees feel:
- Confident they’re safe to speak
- Equipped with clear, reasonable guidelines
- Inspired to share what they’re proud of, curious about, or learning
- Recognized when they do it well
That’s how trust is built today – not from brand talking points, but from real people having real conversations about the work they do and the problems they solve.
The bottom line: A new trust-building channel
The opportunity here is enormous. By elevating employee voices – not just in sanitized case studies, but in their authentic, imperfect, human form – brands unlock a whole new channel for trust-building.
- It’s more credible than a press release
- It’s more scalable than relying solely on influencers
- And it’s exactly the kind of unfiltered transparency customers demand in 2025
In a world where every brand claims to be authentic, the most authentic thing you can do is step back and let your people do the talking.
How can Haiilo help?
Haiilo Advocacy makes it easy for employees to share authentic insights and experiences – the kind that today’s audiences actually believe.
What Haiilo does for you
- Gives employees content they want to share – not corporate scripts
- Makes sharing fast, fun, and natural (no marketing degree required)
- Keeps everyone on-brand with simple, clear guardrails
- Tracks the real impact – not just clicks, but trust and influence
The result?
✅ More credible voices in the market
✅ More trust with your audience
✅ More engaged employees
Marketing is more believable when it comes from your people.
Haiilo helps you turn employee voices into your most valuable marketing channel.
Your people are the solution to marketing’s credibility crisis. Our report shows you how to activate them.
