Marketers know trust matters, but how do you prove what it’s worth? It drives loyalty, engagement, and advocacy, yet connecting that value to actual business results is easier said than done.
And with AI changing how consumers discover information and make decisions, trust will become even more valuable as consumers turn to brands they already trust to verify what they’re being told by LLMs.
At Advertising Week New York, executives from Tripadvisor, Roblox, and WPP Media explored how brands can define trust, measure its impact, and make the business case for investing in it. The discussion, moderated by Sam Palmer, President of Chase Media Solutions, was covered by Andy Oakes for New Digital Age.
What Does Trust Actually Look Like?
For Steve Paganelli, Global VP of Media and Partnerships at Tripadvisor, the stakes are straightforward: “If our customers don’t trust the information they find on Tripadvisor, they don’t come back.”
Tripadvisor measures whether travelers’ real-world experiences actually match what they researched on the platform. According to Paganelli, satisfaction consistently lands in the high 90% range.
It’s a practical approach. Rather than relying solely on how consumers say they feel about the brand, Tripadvisor looks at whether the information it provides holds up in the real world.
At Roblox, the challenge is different. Allison McDuffee, Global Head of Brand Insights and Measurement, explained that brands entering the platform often have a more immediate concern: acceptance. Will the community welcome them, or will they come across as “cringey”?
A travel platform needs to deliver reliable information. A brand entering a gaming community needs to understand its culture. Both are trying to build trust, but what that looks like depends on the audience.
For marketers, that’s a useful place to start. What are customers trusting your brand to do, and how can you tell whether you’re delivering?
Connecting Trust to Business Results
Defining trust is one thing. Convincing the CFO to keep investing in it is another.
McDuffee described the challenge of connecting brand-building efforts to metrics that justify continued investment. On Roblox, first-party signals like time spent with a brand and virtual items collected can help demonstrate engagement that contributes to longer-term outcomes.
Brad Backenstose, President of Clients at WPP Media, argued that marketing measurement has become too binary, separating CPA-driven performance from brand affinity. Consumers don’t experience brands in two separate buckets. Every interaction can influence how they feel about a brand and whether they ultimately buy from it.
WPP Media uses agent-based modeling to demonstrate how improvements in trust scores correlate with conversion and customer retention. That helps connect brand-building investments to outcomes financial leaders care about.
Not every brand interaction needs to produce an immediate sale, but marketers should be able to show how those interactions contribute to business results over time. That’s a much stronger argument for continued investment than asking finance to take the value of trust on faith.
AI Could Make Brand Trust Even More Valuable
One of the most interesting observations from the panel came from Paganelli, who said Tripadvisor is seeing consumers double-check AI-generated recommendations against brands they already trust.
AI can generate an answer in seconds, but that doesn’t mean consumers are ready to act on it. They’re still looking for reassurance from sources they know.
For established brands, that’s an opportunity. Years of delivering reliable information, useful experiences, and consistent service may become even more valuable as AI changes how consumers research and make purchasing decisions.
It also adds another dimension to how marketers think about trust. A trusted brand is one consumers feel good about, return to for information, rely on when making decisions, and choose over alternatives.
There’s no universal metric for trust. Tripadvisor, Roblox, and WPP Media each approach it differently because their audiences and business objectives are different. But the overall challenge is the same: Marketers need to understand what earns their customers’ trust, how to recognize it, and how that trust contributes to growth.
As AI makes information easier to find, being a source consumers actually believe could become one of a brand’s most valuable assets.
Read the full panel recap in New Digital Age.
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