---
title: Edelman Trust Barometer — what it is | RGM® Glossary
url: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/edelman-trust-barometer/
updated: 2026-06-10
source_html: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/edelman-trust-barometer/
---

# Edelman Trust Barometer

/ˈɛdəlmən tɹəst bəɹˈɑmɪtəɹ/proper noun

Once a year, the world gets a trust report card — and business keeps beating government.

Publisher
:   Edelman (the PR firm)

Running since
:   2001, annual

Scope
:   ~28 countries, 30,000+ respondents

Recurring finding
:   Business the most-trusted institution

## Forms & parts of speech

trust deficit · phrase (its vocabulary)

A measured gap in institutional trust.

"The **trust deficit** in media is why the brand publishes its own data."

## What it is

The Edelman Trust Barometer is the annual survey the PR firm Edelman has fielded since 2001 — 30,000+ respondents across roughly 28 countries, measuring trust in four institutions: business, government, media, and NGOs. Its drumbeat findings shape corporate communications: business as the most-trusted institution, 'my employer' as the most-trusted relationship, and the era's defining anxieties (misinformation, polarization, AI) tracked year over year.

## Why marketers rely on it

It is the only long-running, global, public dataset on institutional trust — which made it the citation infrastructure for stakeholder capitalism, employer-brand investment, and CEO-activism debates. For marketers it supplies the macro layer: when the barometer shows audiences trusting employers over media, internal comms and owned channels inherit strategic weight that no campaign brief would otherwise grant them.

## How to use it well

Use it for the macro framing (which institutions and spokespeople carry credibility this year), the country cuts for international work (trust profiles differ wildly), and the 'trusted voices' findings for channel and spokesperson choices. Remember the publisher: a PR firm benefits when trust looks like the product — read the methodology, use the trends more than the absolutes.

**Worked example.** A B2B company's thought-leadership program stalls — bylined op-eds in trade media get no traction. The barometer-informed pivot: that year's data shows 'people like me' and technical experts out-trusting both journalists and CEOs. The program rebuilds around practitioner engineers publishing on owned channels and peer communities instead of executive bylines in low-trust media. Engagement triples — the message didn't change; the messenger did, on data.

**Failure modes to watch.** Quoting absolutes from a PR firm's survey without the methodology; ignoring country differences in global campaigns; and citing the barometer annually while your own customers' trust goes unmeasured.

## Synonyms & antonyms

### Synonyms

Edelman Trust Barometer

## Origin & history

Richard Edelman's firm launched it in 2001 for the Davos audience — a PR company productizing the question its clients kept asking after the anti-globalization protests: who do people believe? The annual Davos-week release became a fixture of the corporate calendar.

Etymology: [source](https://www.edelman.com/trust/trust-barometer).

## Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

[View interest-over-time on Google Trends →](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=edelman%20trust%20barometer&date=today%205-y)

## Common questions

What is the Edelman Trust Barometer?
:   The PR firm Edelman's annual global survey (since 2001) of trust in business, government, media, and NGOs.

What are its recurring findings?
:   Business as the most-trusted institution, employers as the most-trusted relationship, and declining media/government trust.

How should marketers use it?
:   For macro framing and messenger selection — whose voice carries trust this year — with methodology and publisher interest in mind.

## Related tools & calculators

- tool[CAC calculator](/tools/cac-calculator/)
- tool[LTV-to-CAC ratio](/tools/ltv-to-cac-ratio-calculator/)

## Resources & people to follow

- referenceEdelmanTrustBarometer — the annual report
- referenceEdelman.com — methodology archive
- referenceKantar BrandZ — the brand-level complement

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

## Related training

- module[Content marketing](/training/content-marketing/)

## Disciplines

Areas of marketing where edelman trust barometer is a core concern:

[Content strategy](/training/content-marketing/)[Brand strategy](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/)

## Read next

## Related terms

[Thought leadership](/glossary/thought-leadership/)[Brand awareness](/glossary/brand-awareness/)[Kantar](/glossary/kantar/)[Content marketing](/glossary/content-marketing/)[The CMO Podcast](/glossary/the-cmo-podcast/)

## Sources

1. trends[Google Trends — "edelman trust barometer"](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=edelman%20trust%20barometer&date=today%205-y)