At Advertising Week New York, industry leaders gathered to discuss the changing face of trust in marketing. Moderated by Sam Palmer, President of Chase Media Solutions, the discussion brought together Steve Paganelli, Global VP of Media and Partnerships at Tripadvisor; Allison McDuffee, Global Head of Brand Insights and Measurement at Roblox; and Brad Backenstose, President of Clients at WPP Media.
Together, the panellists explored how trust operates across brands, platforms, and agencies, while offering practical insights on balancing immediate commercial returns with long-term brand equity.
Defining trust in modern ecosystems
Trust takes on distinct meanings depending on a brand’s business model and audience. For community-driven platforms, it forms the foundation of consumer engagement.
Steve Paganelli explained that trust is foundational for Tripadvisor. He said: “If our customers don’t trust the information they find on Tripadvisor, they don’t come back. And so we’re not able to meet their needs”.
He highlighted that Tripadvisor evaluates this by measuring whether real-world travel experiences match online research, keeping satisfaction consistently in the high 90% range. He added: “For the businesses we work with, it’s about competing in a loud marketplace. And trust helps elevate their brands when they’re working with a platform like ours”.
For Roblox, trust is closely tied to user representation and platform culture. Allison McDuffee said: “Our trust bar is extremely high because they are seeing themselves represented on the platform”.
She pointed out that when brands join Roblox, their initial goal is often simpler: “They’re probably not necessarily looking for trust right out of the gate, they’re just looking for acceptance. They want to come on and say, ‘I just want to make sure that I’m not cringey and I am accepted'”.
From an agency perspective, trust underpins every client relationship and communications objective. Brad Backenstose said: “Trust is something that plays into every brand’s journey, and its brand KPI, it’s a coms objective. Whether you’re an established brand and trust is still important, or a new brand that’s launching and needs to build trust to build a customer base”.
Squaring the CFO-CMO tension: Measurement and short-term metrics
Measuring trust presents a perennial challenge, particularly when presenting brand building to financial stakeholders who focus on immediate returns.
McDuffee said the necessity of bridging artistic vision with hard data was crucial. She said: “My world is a little bit art and science, and so I am always really trying to strive for the metrics that ultimately the CFO will sign off on and get reinvestment for the CMO”.
She emphasised that CFOs must understand that trust takes time to develop. First-party metrics, such as time spent with a brand or virtual items collected, ultimately feed into long-term business outcomes.
Backenstose said that traditional binary measurement models can limit marketing effectiveness.”I think the industry has become very binary in how we measure things, with performance CPA-driven compared to activity related to brand love. I think it’s important to look holistically at what each media touchpoint is delivering across the consumer journey”.
He explained that WPP Media uses agent-based modeling to demonstrate to CFOs how incremental gains in trust scores correlate directly with improvements in conversion and customer retention.
Paganelli added that in today’s landscape, consumers actively verify automated recommendations using trusted platforms.
“If you think about the role of trust in AI and how consumers are connecting with our brands through AI, trust is playing an increasing role,” he said. “We see in the data that consumers are double checking the responses and guidance that they’re getting from AI, and they’re doing that through brands they trust”.
Cultivating community and advocacy
Transforming regular buyers into long-term brand advocates requires going beyond transactional relationships.
Backenstose highlighted the importance of continuous lifecycle marketing. He said: “Just because a customer buys something today doesn’t mean you should stop the conversation there. As media gets more targeted, we sometimes miss the general consumer who’s purchased and is loyal, but they’re not getting any media any more and then the relationship starts to erode over time”.
Paganelli emphasised the power of user-generated content and authentic peer validation. He said: “The importance of the testimonial, probably goes back to the 1800s. Someone who had a great experience ius crucial to the narratives that we build, the storytelling that we do. It’s not our voice, it’s not the brand’s voice, it’s the consumer’s voice”.
McDuffee explained that the Roblox community thrives on collaboration over competition. She said: “Our community is built on collaboration and not competition, which is very unique from a gaming perspective. The Roblox community is very different in that they want to help each other”. She advised brands entering such spaces to focus on facilitating these shared connections rather than pushing single-user experiences.
Platform alignment and mutual value
To make commerce media and platform partnerships successful, brands must respect the native user experience.
Paganelli cited examples of successful native integration, such as Tripadvisor’s collaboration with Ulta Beauty around travel preparation, and a vacation rental campaign with DoorDash.
He said: “The way that you build and maintain trust, and build and maintain loyalty for the platform in a way that serves the brands you work with, is being respectful of that audience. And ultimately being helpful to what that audience is looking to do”.
The measurement and definition of trust may be changing but as the panel made clear, consumer trust has never been more important in brands’ relationships with consumers.
