Ten years ago, the Oxford dictionary selected ‘post-truth’ as it’s Word of the Year, following a surge in the term’s use around the Brexit referendum and the first election of President Trump. The shift away from objective truths towards personal beliefs has only become more apparent in the intervening years. And as generative AI further erodes public trust, it’s more important than ever that we have access to trusted sources of information.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty, what should place brand and marketing teams prioritise to demonstrate their own trustworthiness? Here are nine expert perspectives to help you ensure you’re proving your credentials and establishing a strong reputation for your organisation.

Stop polishing the narrative and start proving it.

Trust isn't a message, a track record. In a post-truth era, place leaders lose the moment they oversell. People rarely fact-check; they follow the loudest, most confident voice. So, the goal isn't to win the argument; it's to give critics nothing to weaponise. Stop polishing the narrative and start proving it. Show the data, name the trade-offs, and let residents speak instead of your press office. Admit what isn't working before a critic does it for you. Consistency beats spin: say the same thing everywhere, then back it up. Reputations built on evidence based on action survives scrutiny.

Charlotte Prouse, Director, Destination Store

Embrace uncertainty.

Trust is not a communications problem; it is the distance between what a place says and what people actually live. Reputation has stopped being something you communicate and has become something people infer, and the ones doing the inferring are those who live there, comparing the official discourse with the bus that never runs on time. You do not build that with a campaign, you build it with action and with the honesty to admit limits. After all, action produces narrative and never the other way round. Leading a place today means, to a large extent, giving up on selling certainties: in an uncertain world, whoever sells certainty is merely bringing forward the moment of being proved wrong.

Caio Esteves, Managing Partner, N/LF

Who do you mean when you talk about ‘trust’?

Building trustworthiness begs the question: trustworthy to whom? Too often, place leaders conflate audiences and messaging, speaking to residents, businesses, investors, and stakeholders with the same voice and claims in the name of brand consistency. But trust is relational: different audiences need different evidence, conversations, and reasons to believe.

Authenticity matters too. Place communications can become overblown, making grand claims about transformation and opportunity that don’t reflect people’s lived experience. That gap erodes credibility. Be proportionate as well as positive: acknowledge challenges, resist the temptation to oversell, and communicate what is actually happening, for whom, and why it matters.

Amy Lewis, Director, CTConsults

Close the gap between reality and perception.

In today’s post-truth era, countries cannot rely on communication alone. Reputation begins with behaviour, but it lives in perceptions. Trustworthy countries benefit from accumulated credibility, while others face the added challenge of stereotypes, misinformation, or outdated narratives. The starting point is not a slogan, but a rigorous diagnosis: understanding how the country is perceived, what drives those perceptions, and what stakeholders expect. From there, leaders can align words with evidence, strengthen credible positions, and respond to misinformation with facts. Countries are not trusted because they claim reliability; they are trusted when reality and perception consistently meet.

Leonard J. Ponzi PhD, Partner, Reputation Lab

Lead with consistency, clarity, and humility.

Trust is built less through what an organisation says about itself than through how consistently it behaves. Place leaders need a clear plan, grounded in evidence and shaped with the people who will ultimately help deliver it. They need to demonstrate that government, industry, community, and other partners are aligned around that direction and then regularly show progress against it. In a post-truth environment, the temptation can be to communicate more loudly. I think the opposite is required: communicate clearly, consistently, and with humility, while letting actions and results do much of the talking. A coherent plan, visible alignment, and demonstrated progress ultimately build far more credibility than simply being the loudest voice in the room.

Joe Naaman, Partner, Wild Sage Advisors

Trust is not a communications problem, it’s a question of who owns the story.

An organisation that speaks only for itself is just an interested party, and is followed by scepticism. The alternative is shared authorship: decisions taken in the open, evidence published whole. Our white paper Politics, Perception & Travel found that 86.5% of travellers say political events influence travel decisions.

Working with Visit Timișoara, citizen research surfaced pride and frustration together. We kept both, because a narrative admitting the difficult parts is harder to discredit. Trustworthiness is not claimed. It is conferred by those who recognise themselves in it.

Steve Law, Strategy and Project Manager, TOPOSOPHY

Identity can be a powerful foundation for trust.

Building a credible place identity starts with listening to residents, stakeholders, and visitors, and understanding where perceptions and lived experiences align or diverge.

When people see their reality reflected in how a place is described, promoted, and developed, trust grows. They recognise that place leaders are not shaping narratives in isolation but responding to genuine insight.

In a post-truth era, that authenticity matters. It demonstrates that we listen, act transparently, and are accountable to the places we represent. This turns identity into more than a branding exercise; it becomes a rallying point for engagement, alignment, and trust.

David Peacock, Senior Advisor, Future Tourism Group, Granicus Destinations

Be transparent about the data behind the stories you tell.

Trust goes both ways. In a post-truth era, trust cannot be built through communication alone. It has to be earned through transparency, consistency, and evidence.

For destinations, this means not simply asking people to trust what they communicate, but giving residents, visitors and other stakeholders enough reliable information to understand what is really happening and form their own view.

Data has a fundamental role to play in building this trust. Not only by measuring tourism performance, but by creating a shared, objective view of what travellers experience, perceive and do.

Ultimately, trustworthy destinations are not those that simply tell better stories, but those that are transparent about the reality behind them and give people the evidence they need to see it for themselves.

Carlos Cendra, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, The Data Appeal Company

Connect with residents where they already are.

The foundation of trust is local: meet residents and community conduits like media where they already are. So-called 'Engagement' via an AGM posted a week out on your website is meaningless. Instead, show up at the farmers market, the hockey rink, neighbourhood Facebook groups, in a monthly TV segment or opinion column, and welcome questions with answers rooted in your official plan (and some media training). Residents should see projects while there's still time to change them. So, vendor contracts should hold consultants and agencies accountable to the people living with the outcome as much as to your board, with resident input as a reported deliverable.

Tom Gierasimczuk, VP, Communications, Resonance