Reclaiming Trust When Under Fire

By John Gatti

Straight To The Point

• Today’s brands live under constant, unrelenting scrutiny — every decision is visible and judged in real time. Chasing trust is increasingly futile when it isn’t reinforced by visible steps that connect a brand to the future.

• Managing messages isn’t enough — leaders must close the gap between perception and reality across the whole business, and be open to changing reality.

• Build alignment, create a story worth hearing, and make every part of the organization part of the solution.

What We See

The way brands are judged has fundamentally shifted. Trust isn’t dead. But it’s dying. Yes, it still matters, but in today’s environment it isn’t enough. Trust is a conclusion stakeholders reach based on what you’ve already done. And in an era where Gallup and others show trust in institutions at historic lows, past performance alone won’t carry you forward. Your stakeholders want to know: are your best days ahead of you? Are you connected to the future? They are more likely to engage and support you if you are part of how they define a better tomorrow.

In my recent conversation with Neil Golden—Panera Brands board member and former McDonald’s USA CMO—we dug into what this means for companies under fire. Over his 30+ years guiding global brands through high-stakes moments, Neil has learned that these challenges aren’t rare events. They’re constant stress tests.

Take McDonald’s for example. Years ago, a single ingredient controversy might have been a temporary storm. Today, questions about food sourcing, product decisions, and corporate responsibility are permanent weather systems.

Neil put it plainly:

“You don’t win back trust with a press release. You earn it with actions people can see — and feel.”

That means companies that step up authentically in tough moments can come out stronger. Those that hide, delay, or spin? They don’t just lose trust — they hand the narrative to their critics and provide evidence that, just maybe, their best days aren’t in front of them.

What It Means

Here are the major shifts to reckon with:

Scrutiny never ends

When McDonald’s changed menus, reconfigured the Happy Meal, or rethought employment practices, those moves weren’t isolated—every step was watched, debated, and dissected. You don’t just survive one test—you’re living in a test environment.

Narratives are forever open

You can’t draft a “corrected” version later. Once your narrative is framed—by critics, news, customers—it holds a bias. The best defense is to get in early, with sincerity and clarity, not smarter spin.

Every function is a credibility channel

Marketing, HR, operations, supply chain—they all either bolster or erode your standing. As Neil stressed, reputation is not just a communications problem; it’s a business problem because the most important outcomes are measured in business performance.

Expect tension — and show the trade-offs

You’ll get pushed to pick a side. Be prepared to communicate not only wins but also the challenges, trade-offs, and constraints. Show the “messy middle” rather than pretending there wasn’t one.

What this means is simple: your lessons can’t live only in comms. They must operate in your thinking, your decisions, and your structures. That’s how you close the gap between what you stand for and what you’re known for.

What To Do

I’ve distilled five lessons for leaders determined not just to safeguard reputation, but to earn trust and prove that their organization’s best days are ahead through their choices and conduct.

1. Aligning What You’re Known For with What You Stand For: If your brand’s purpose, intentions, and actions don’t align, people will decide for you—and not in your favor. Neil shared how moments of misalignment at McDonald’s, from marketing campaigns to public commitments, quickly turned into flashpoints. Leaders must make their values unmistakably clear, back them up with consistent behavior, and change when necessary.
2. Telling Your Story Better or Having a Better Story to Tell: When a message isn’t breaking through, the first reaction is often to double down: repeat it, amplify it, shout it from every channel. But that’s just yelling louder. Neil and I discussed how the real challenge isn’t the delivery — it’s the narrative. McDonald’s had real progress to share, from healthier menu choices to better employment practices, but those actions weren’t woven into a story that felt relevant to people’s lives. Messaging alone wasn’t enough. It had to be in service of a narrative that framed the actions and signaled the company’s best days were ahead.
3. Creating Buy-In Across the Whole Organization: Trust isn’t a marketing problem — it’s a full enterprise challenge. Neil emphasized that reputation lives or dies through daily decisions across the entire organization, not just in the marketing or comms department. Every function, every leader, every employee has a role to play in earning and protecting trust.
4. Public Affairs is Marketing, Marketing is Public Affairs: There’s no longer a line between these two worlds. The same audiences you’re trying to reach as customers are also influencing public perception, regulatory decisions, and media narratives. And those stakeholders, in turn, are more interested in how you show up in the world than what you tell them. Consistency is mandatory. Inconsistency is mercilessly, immediately punished.
5. Bait Needs to Taste Good to the Fish, Not the Fisherman: Good instincts are important, but they’re no substitute for research. Neil stressed that understanding what stakeholders really value is the only way to act effectively. You can’t just rely on what you think matters—you must listen and adapt based on what they care about, and what they need to hear and see.

 

Watch the Full Conversation: Reclaiming Trust When Your Products — and Intentions — Are Under Fire
A candid discussion with Neil Golden and Purple Partner John Gatti. [Watch the full video now →]