21 May The Hidden Law of Reputation: Trustworthiness Reversion
By David Evans
News & Socials Analyst
May 21, 2025
In the corporate world, few virtues are as celebrated—and as misunderstood—as trust.
“Build trust,” the brand strategists say. “Rebuild trust,” cry crisis managers. Entire industries orbit this intangible asset, chasing its rewards like forty-niners seeking gold. Yet in the rhetoric of the branding world, one word is strangely absent: trustworthiness.
In my work helping companies navigate reputation and strategy, I’ve seen this disconnect between trust and trustworthiness play out again and again. And over time, I’ve come to believe that many of the recurring crisis cycles we see companies weather stem from this very disconnect.
To address this disconnect and hopefully prevent companies falling prey to its effects, I came up with the term trustworthiness reversion — inspired by the economics concept of mean reversion. In financial markets, prices may spike or crash, but they tend to return to their long-term average. In branding and public trust, a similar pattern holds: over time, public trust tends to revert to the company’s actual level of trustworthiness.
Sometimes a company is more trustworthy than it is trusted. That’s a trust gap, often due to poor communication, lack of visibility, or a brand that hasn’t caught up to its performance. Other times, a company is more trusted than it is trustworthy—a trust bubble forms as reputation outpaces reality.
Eventually, trust bubbles burst.
When to Apply Action vs. Messaging
When trust hasn’t caught up to trustworthiness, the fix is usually better storytelling. In these instances, we see companies walking the walk, and our role as consultants is to help them communicate the great work they’re doing in a way that aligns with their values and engages stakeholders along the way. But when trust exceeds trustworthiness, it’s not a PR issue. It’s a behavior issue. And messaging alone won’t solve it.
In these instances, our recommendations are action oriented. We’re not spin doctors; we can’t sell what isn’t there. Sometimes this is met with resistance: taking action might be difficult and costly or the promise of short-term profits creates a kind of strategic myopia. Whatever the challenges, the long-term effect of a loss of trust is much more costly.
Other times, companies are good actors, but messaging simply outpaces action. A company that is taking tangible steps towards sustainability, instead of speaking transparently about the modest, but real steps it’s taking, makes sustainability claims that are way beyond what is real. That bubble is called greenwashing.
This is where many companies—and even comms professionals—go wrong. They say companies have a trust problem or a messaging problem, but sometimes they have a trustworthiness and an action problem. Frequently both.
But in this age of viral information, the truth always comes out and trust always reverts to the level of trustworthiness. A company might be able to profit from a trust bubble in the short term, but the bubble always burst eventually, and the effects can put a company out of business. If it recovers, trust is a plant that grows slowly.
Why Values Aren’t Just a Slogan
No matter where a company is in its trust cycle, trust requires a foundation. That foundation is values—not the ones on the wall, but the ones that drive decisions and behaviors. When values are unclear or inconsistently applied, both messaging and action are muddled. In these instances, our job is to help companies create clarity around their purpose and values, so they have a compass—keeping messaging and action in sync.
A Strategic Imperative
Let’s be clear: trust isn’t just a feel-good concept. It’s a competitive advantage. But only when it’s grounded in something real.
Too often, companies wait until a crisis to confront their trust deficit—only to discover the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of reform. Fixing trustworthiness takes time. It’s slow work. But just like medicine, the best strategies are preventive rather than reactive. The prize is a bottom line energized by multi-stakeholder trust. The risk is a tarnished brand that loses pace with the competition as it takes years to heal.
So, let’s bring trustworthiness back into the conversation.
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