A consumer sees your TV ad for the first time. The production is polished. The message is self-confidence. The brand feels strong.
A few minutes later, they search for you and land on a Reddit thread questioning the quality of your product. Or they ask for recommendations from an AI assistant and it doesn’t show up.
Which signal is effective?
The Classic Model: The Top-Down Trust
The traditional trust model was broadcast led and product controlled.
Brands communicate at a higher level through linear TV and out-of-home media. The loudest voice usually won. High voice sharing creates familiarity, and familiarity creates trust.
This top-down approach reflects the brand’s strength and cultural presence. It was designed for a world where consumers had limited tools to challenge or verify claims.
That country no longer exists.
A New Model: Bottom-Up Trust
Trust has been built from the ground up. It’s built on communities, comment sections and peer-to-peer discussions. It is powered by creators, customers and AI engines that integrate public opinion.
This model builds trust in peace. It requires patience, honesty and compromise rather than dominance.
This change manifests itself in three ways:
1. Public Loyalty Cannot be Enforced
Platforms like Reddit show this change clearly.
Brands cannot enter aggressive communities and expect a positive reception. An overly polished or sales-driven presence is quickly rejected. The right way is slow and deliberate.
It starts with listening. Participating in discussions. Check paid placement carefully. Contributes sound comments before attempting to lead the thread.
Building credibility in these areas can take years. It’s not a short-term campaign mechanic. But when trust is found in communities, it has a negative impact because it feels authentic and peer-approved. In fact, 68% of UK consumers now turn to online reviews as their main source of purchasing decisions, passing family recommendations and product claims.
2. Influence Is About Collaboration, Not Scale
The same principle applies to influencer marketing.
Recent IPA research highlights that the strongest performance multiplier is not effect size. It is a collaboration between the brand and the creator. If the creator’s audience understanding, tone and credibility match the product, the performance is much better. In some cases, the synergy has brought about a triple effect.
This renews the influence. It’s less about shouting and more about embedding the brand within trusted networks. For small and mid-tier creators, long-term partnerships and genuine representation often enable one-to-one activation.
Trust is conveyed by merit and honesty, not just access.
3. And Build Trust With AI
There are other types of audiences that now need to be considered: large language models and AI response engines.
AI does not take product claims at face value. It refers to many sources. It combines information from editorial coverage, reviews, forums, YouTube content and managed product content before generating recommendations.
In this area, visibility is the result of honesty.
Brands that are clearly defined, consistently represented and widely verified across the open web are likely to perform well in AI-generated responses.
This requires discipline:
- Clear and consistent claims
- Authentic, authentic content across PR and affiliate channels
- Real customer testimonials and strong emotional signals
- One unified narrative across all paid, managed and earned touchpoints
Work is often invisible. But it determines whether the product is praised or ignored.
What does this mean for brands
Each category has its own trust marks. In others, expert review dominates. For others, Reddit sentiment or the creator’s approval carries more weight. In certain categories like Finance, AI abbreviations are used equally.
Brands need to fully identify where authentication occurs in their ecosystem and invest accordingly.
This is not about abandoning the basics of building a product. Above-the-line advertising builds awareness and cultural presence. AV on the “big screen” and out of home continues to show scale and legitimacy.
But without bottom-up verification, that signal is fragile. Top-down awareness now requires bottom-up reinforcement. The strongest brands are those that align both models. Brands that understand this shift won’t need to be the loudest noise in the room. They will be the ones who are consistently assured.
Sources:
A smart CXO –
IPA Cross Industry Influencer Study 2025
