The trust crisis in B2B - insights from Edelman's Trust Barometer report 2025

For the past 25 years, Edelman has been publishing its influential Trust Barometer, a global study that measures trust across institutions including government, business, NGOs, and media. Originally conceived around the time of the "Battle in Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999, the barometer has evolved to become a critical measuring stick for understanding how societal trust is shifting in response to global events ranging from the Iraq War to Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

The Trust Barometer isn't just an academic exercise—it provides a framework for understanding how businesses can position themselves in an increasingly complex trust landscape. For B2B marketers, the findings offer crucial insights into how thought leadership can be leveraged to build and maintain trust with stakeholders.

In this interview for the Trust & Influence in B2B Podcast, Joel Harrison speaks with Andrew Mildren, Managing Director of Edelman Business Marketing for EMEA, about the latest Trust Barometer findings and their implications for B2B thought leadership strategy. There's a link to the full audio version of the podcast at the bottom of this article.

Edelman's Evolving Role in B2B Marketing

Joel Harrison: How has Edelman positioned itself in the B2B marketing landscape?

Andrew Mildren: Edelman is the largest integrated communications agency in the world, and we've been delivering B2B programs for clients like Shell, Microsoft, Samsung, and Mitsubishi for over a decade. In 2023, we unified our global B2B expertise under Edelman Business Marketing, which I lead across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Our heritage as a PR agency gives us a distinct advantage in B2B, where buying cycles can span two to five years. We're accustomed to sustaining ongoing conversations, maintaining dialogue, and connecting to the external agenda in ways that help B2B marketers nurture discussions over these extended timeframes.

What we're seeing is that marketing is becoming increasingly sophisticated in how it plans and evaluates campaigns through the entire funnel—from awareness and engagement at the top, to building trust and deepening understanding in the middle, to converting and reaching decision-makers at the bottom. When approached correctly, thought leadership adds value throughout this entire process.

The 2024 Trust Barometer: A challenging landscape

Joel Harrison: What are the key findings from this year's Trust Barometer?

Andrew Mildren: This year's findings paint quite a stark picture. We're witnessing widespread grievance and frustration across different societal groups, coupled with a feeling that traditional institutions—governments, NGOs, businesses, and media—aren't adequately addressing these concerns.

We've seen political polarization increasing, conflicts around the world, economic uncertainty, and individual anxieties about technological disruption, particularly around AI. All these factors converge to create a challenging trust environment.

However, there's a significant opportunity here for businesses. Our research shows that business is actually one of the most trusted voices in society today. This is largely because people spend significant time at work with colleagues, making it a major part of their lives. Much of the information people receive comes through the lens of their employer, and employment represents an element of stability.

Companies that recognize this trust advantage can play a key role in helping people feel more economically secure, providing skills training for the future, and helping them understand the changes affecting their lives. For businesses that take initiative here, there's a tremendous opportunity to build trust across multiple audiences.

The evolution of thought leadership

Joel Harrison: How has thought leadership evolved as a discipline, and what constitutes effective thought leadership today?

Andrew Mildren: "Thought leadership" is probably one of the most widely used and misunderstood phrases in business. We've all experienced someone in the company—often not from marketing—saying, "We could get some great thought leadership on that," or the CEO requesting a thought leadership article on a particular topic.

Through our Thought Leadership Impact Study, conducted annually with LinkedIn and involving about 3,500 business decision-makers across seven markets, we've identified six key attributes that combine to create the most effective and impactful thought leadership:

1. Finding the white space: This means uncovering new angles and unexpected perspectives rather than simply aggregating existing industry discussions or validating current opinions.
2. Relevance: Many thought leadership efforts fall into the "everything for everyone" trap, attempting to cover multiple industries, markets, and topics. The best work focuses deeply on a real customer need.
3. Vision: This relates to having a unique perspective and, importantly, a purpose and action-orientation that encourages behavior change.
4. Trust: Effective thought leadership incorporates respected voices and diverse perspectives rather than presenting a one-dimensional view skewed by the company producing it. It's also better when attributed to individuals—not just executives, but scientists, researchers, and field workers who add depth and credibility.
5. Brevity: While delivering robust insights, the content needs to be digestible and tell human stories that resonate.
6. Attribution: Understanding that thought leadership plays a valuable role throughout the business decision-making process means leveraging this content across sales enablement, partner marketing, and account-based marketing initiatives.

When organizations think holistically about these elements, they get significantly more value from their investment and produce content people genuinely want to engage with.

Challenges in the AI era

Joel Harrison: How is AI affecting the thought leadership landscape?

Andrew Mildren: Several years ago, executives were already describing a "tsunami of content" hitting business leaders—and that was before AI reached its current prevalence. While AI is an incredibly powerful, valuable tool for marketers and content creators, it also creates the risk of making it much easier to produce lower-quality content at scale.

What will really stand out in this environment is content that meets the key attributes we've discussed while demonstrating creativity and genuinely earning the right to busy business people's attention. The way you bring thought leadership to life creatively, how you gather information, and how you execute campaigns will become increasingly important in ensuring your content cuts through and delivers genuine value.

Measuring thought leadership's impact

Joel Harrison: How should organizations approach measuring the effectiveness of their thought leadership?

Andrew Mildren: One of the most alarming findings from our research is that one in five companies admit they don't have any process for measuring thought leadership effectiveness, and only 30% can link sales leads back to specific content pieces. This helps explain why it's often difficult to make the case for thought leadership investment.

If you're not thinking about your end goals and the commercial metrics you're trying to drive when developing thought leadership, it will be challenging to prove value. Without clear measurement, thought leadership feels more abstract, and you'll likely focus primarily on awareness and traffic metrics, which are important but only part of the equation.

Our research shows double-digit differences between organizations producing higher-quality versus lower-quality thought leadership—not just in brand impact (reputation, trust) but in commercial outcomes. Companies with effective thought leadership are measurably better at breaking into new markets, defining new categories, cross-selling and upselling products and services, and reaching new potential buyers.

Is thought leadership right for every B2B organization?

Joel Harrison: Should all B2B organizations invest in thought leadership?

Andrew Mildren: Absolutely. Think about your everyday working life—you want to work with smart people who have good ideas and are interesting to collaborate with. Thought leadership is the best means of demonstrating these qualities at scale for your business.

It's a powerful vehicle for showcasing your talent and their expertise, demonstrating the quality of their thinking. This is precisely what potential clients evaluate when considering partners: "Do I want to work with these people? Do they seem smart? Do we have the right chemistry?"

This becomes even more important in commoditized markets where you can't differentiate on product alone. One of our clients operates in a highly undifferentiated market but commands a premium by focusing on value-adds, insights, and technologies that complement their core product. When you can't stand out through your product, thought leadership becomes an essential tool for differentiation.

Key conclusions for B2B marketers

The conversation with Andrew Mildren offers several critical insights for B2B marketers:

1. Trust is the currency of business success: In today's challenging environment, trust enables more bid invitations, helps close deals, facilitates cross-selling and upselling, and allows companies to command premium pricing. With businesses currently enjoying higher trust than other institutions, there's a unique opportunity to leverage thought leadership to strengthen this advantage.
2. Effective thought leadership follows a clear formula: The six attributes identified by Edelman—white space, relevance, vision, trust, brevity, and attribution—provide a practical framework for developing content that rises above the noise. This becomes increasingly important as AI makes content production easier but truly valuable insights harder to find.
3. Measurement is both essential and achievable: While many organizations struggle to measure thought leadership effectiveness, those who implement proper tracking see quantifiable benefits across both brand and commercial metrics. Starting with clear objectives and designing measurement approaches from the beginning is critical.
4. Thought leadership works across the entire buyer journey: Rather than viewing thought leadership as purely a top-of-funnel awareness tool, forward-thinking organizations integrate it throughout the customer experience, from initial awareness through consideration and decision-making to ongoing relationship management.
5. In an era of commoditization, thought leadership is a key differentiator: As products and services become increasingly similar, the ability to demonstrate expertise, vision, and understanding of customer challenges becomes a critical competitive advantage. This makes thought leadership particularly valuable in undifferentiated markets.

As businesses navigate increasingly complex buying environments characterized by extended decision cycles and multiple stakeholders, thought leadership offers a powerful way to build the trust necessary for long-term commercial success. By implementing the practices outlined by Edelman, B2B marketers can transform thought leadership from a nebulous aspiration into a strategic asset with measurable business impact.

You can listen to the full episode here, or watch the extract below.