Inside the architecture failures, institutional misalignment, and behavioral breakdowns that make trust impossible to hold—and why only a new kind of strategy system will fix it.
Most organizations don’t have a messaging problem. They don’t even have a trust problem—not really. What they have is a systems problem: a missing foundation that governs how ideas move, how coherence is built, and how shared value is sustained across both internal and external environments.
In an era shaped by socio-economic volatility, digital content fatigue, and institutional drift, organizations scrambled to personalize their brands. But in doing so, many lost the plot. They confused flexible messaging with foundational clarity, and it showing now more than ever. Employee engagement in the U.S. has fallen to its lowest (31%) level in the last decade. Meanwhile, in the last year consumer trust has dipped to a four-year low. Realities that are not limited to the U.S. as the problem persists on a global scale.
According to Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer, we’re living in a global “crisis of grievance.” An era of distrust shaped by two decades of institutional failure, from war to economic collapse to pandemic fallout. Even brands, once more trusted than government or media, are feeling the drop with 71% of global consumers saying they trust companies less than they did a year ago.
Domestically and globally, Millennial and Gen Z are projected to continue dominating global commerce, driving $12 trillion and $4 trillion in spending by 2030, respectively.
Everyone take your marketing hats off for two seconds. Step down off the panel stage. Put the awards to the side, and let’s get honest. When nearly half of people under 35 believe hostile activism is a viable path to change, we’re not having a trust problem. We’re having a humanity problem.
This is what happens after two decades of dopamine overload, pumped through content engines never meant to be scaled to this level of unnatural human consumption. Yet organizations are trying to sell everything but the one thing people actually need to give and receive at the core: trustworthy behavior.
You won’t find it behind vanity metrics. You won’t justify it with funnel math. You won’t reclaim it with another round of overpriced and underfelt brand storytelling; because no matter how well you package it, if your behavior doesn’t hold over time, your message won’t either.
Where Agenda, Ambition, and Behavior Collide
In trying to humanize their brands, organizations forgot the audience was already human.
The result? A flood of well-intended messaging and content that unintentionally disrespected audience intelligence. Everyone knows these are businesses first, whether for-profit or nonprofit. When institutional priorities shift (stock price, compliance, donor relations), the messaging shifts too, and people notice.
This dynamic creates a gap that is only filled by the tension we all feel. One that emerges when organizational agenda (what leadership needs), institutional ambition (what the brand projects), internal behavior (what teams actually do), audience resonance (the need to trust messaging and product) are out of sync.
This gap fuels misalignment at every level:
- Leaders become torchbearers of corporate performance goals.
- Employees are expected to execute, but want something to believe in.
- Audiences are increasingly aware of the value of their time, attention, and money, and are no longer willing to trade those things for superficial storytelling.
To move forward, organizations have to stop treating content and messaging as the solution to every misalignment from the boardroom to the checkout counter. It’s time to quit launching new campaigns every time the weather changes. Organizations need a backbone. Something that doesn’t shift with the winds of institutional anxiety.
Build a Spine, Not a Slogan
Instead of relying on flexible content and experiences to chase cultural relevance, organizations need a spine. Not just a backbone to stand up when pressured, but a foundation to stand on that informs positioning, decision-making, and executional tactics. One that can flex in expression, but hold firm in standard. The kind of standard that doesn’t buckle and collapse under the pressure of sociopolitics or at the speed of the latest trend.
This level of institutional consistency isn’t meant to be for everyone, and it doesn’t need to be. That’s the reality most organizations avoid. Due to the ambition of not wanting to leave any attention or dollars on the table, there’s been this illusion that it’s possible to cast a wide net and make everyone feel included. In chasing this illusion, organizations dilute their own audience compass, and ultimately risk losing everyone.
In a free market, people self-select. That’s true whether they’re choosing to engage in a classroom, a workplace, or a brand. The goal isn’t universal appeal. It’s institutional coherence.
We’re entering the re-orientation era. Organizations that will win in the future are the ones that can stand for something, without disrespecting what stands against it. Somewhere along the way, we lost that balance. And we can thank the collapse of journalism for accelerating it. (Looking at you, Zuckerberg.)
Clickbait culture turned division into a business model. And now, even our most visible institutions seem to have forgotten a simple and core concept: we don’t all need to agree on everything. But we do need shared truth, shared trust, and shared value.
Action is Not the Same as Behavior
Right now, most organizations are mistaking action for behavior. They make bold statements particularly in the heat of a cultural flashpoint, like promising hundreds of millions to support marginalized groups. Some even go as far as creating content and experiences to show they “meant what they said”, but eventually those actions prove to be just that, an action. An action is nothing but a gesture.
Imagine showing up to a first date with flowers because your love interest said romance matters to them. It works. You listened. You acted. You earn their interest, maybe even a relationship. Then you stop, and when asked where the romance went, you say, “I am romantic—didn’t I buy you flowers?”
Now you’re gaslighting. You’re protecting an image instead of sustaining a relationship. That’s what institutions have done for the past 15 years. Audiences are now fatigued, defensive, in some cases done participating altogether, and rightfully so.
You see it across the classroom, the workplace, and in the market because the promise of purpose, wrapped in upward mobility, DEI, and social responsibility, has often proven to be marketing theater instead of scalably durable intent.
What Valuable Behavior Does and Doesn’t Look Like
When an institution is actually anchored in clarity, meaningful behavior becomes a natural byproduct instead of manufactured performance. Real behavior doesn’t just appear when headlines demand it, it lives in the day-to-day. You know it when you see it and when you don’t.
In high-trust institutions, behavior becomes meaningful DNA. It’s something people can count on. It shows up in sustained behaviors like:
- Ongoing, measurable community investment
- Transparent and proactive communication
- Reshaped internal policies
- Distributed decision-making power
In low-trust institutions, behavior becomes erratic, performative, and at times harmful. We see this in actions like:
- One-time DEI campaigns
- Crisis statements
- Performative donations
- Inclusive content designed to signal more than it shifts
What Happens When Institutions Get It Wrong
When institutions keep chasing appearance over alignment, the fallout is predictable—and it’s already here.
The audiences who will continue to represent the majority of the consumer market aren’t just skeptical, they’re offended. Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z say they don’t trust “greenwashing” brands who make vague promises related to environmental and social safety.
This isn’t a branding issue. It’s not a comms problem, or even a leadership one. It’s a strategic operating system problem, and it’s showing up everywhere people once looked for stability: schools, workplaces, brands, even governments. You can’t fix it with clearer language, better content, or another conference.
If you want trust to move, it has to be real. If you want behavior to hold, it has to be rooted. Committing to trust and meaningful behavior creates the type of two-way coherence that, rather than driving the homogeneity cloaked in unique brand colors and slogans, creates room for the equal and intentional distribution of unique value proposition that makes the free-market actually feel free:
- Non-Reactive: Messaging and tactics don’t shift with every headline or trend cycle. They respond with discipline, not emotion.
- Equally Relational: Internal teams and external audiences embrace the same organizational truth—and co-sign it through meaningful engagement.
- Strategically Aligned: Market positioning is directly tied to business performance and operational goals.
- Confidently Truthful: No overstating. No overpromising. No posture. When behavior is consistent, organizations don’t have to overcompensate to convince.
We’re at a Domestic Crossroads with Global Implications
The American messaging and experiential content ecosystem—across public and private institutions—is at a crossroads. Leaders have a choice. Continue optimizing for optics, or rebuild alignment where mutual benefit exists for both stakeholders and shareholders.
Anything less is short-sighted. The evidence is everywhere: shortened executive tenures, disengaged audiences, and widespread institutional distrust. Institutional brands no longer have the luxury of banking on their history, of being grandfathered into consumer trust simply because of legacy or familiarity.
Truly humanizing a brand means being humble enough to recognize that trust isn’t a message, it’s a pattern. One that’s earned through repeated, measurable behavior.
Messaging and experiential content ecosystems optimized communication. Meaning-making systems? They’ll optimize clarity and trust, perhaps the only metrics left that can’t be bought.
The American messaging and experiential content ecosystem—across public and private institutions—is at a crossroads. Leaders have a choice: continue optimizing for optics, or rebuild alignment where mutual benefit exists for both stakeholders and shareholders.
Anything less is short-sighted. The evidence is everywhere: shortened executive tenures, disengaged audiences, and widespread institutional distrust. Institutional brands no longer have the luxury of banking on their history—of being grandfathered into consumer trust simply because of legacy or familiarity.
Truly humanizing a brand means being humble enough to recognize that trust isn’t a message, it’s a pattern. One that’s earned through repeated, measurable behavior.
Messaging and experiential content ecosystems optimized communication. Meaning-making systems? They’ll optimize clarity and trust—perhaps the only metrics left that can’t be bought.
If you’re looking for proof this approach works in practice, explore the case studies spanning five high-stakes domains:
Enterprise Innovation, Organizational Alignment & Cultural Integration, Socioeconomic Mobility, Departmental Stability & Crisis Management, and Category Leadership.
Each reflects how Proper Context helps institutions move beyond optics to build systems that hold.
If this resonates with a challenge you’re navigating, I’d be glad to talk.
Schedule time with our partnerships lead, Heather Baynes—she’ll coordinate directly with me for our conversation.