Beyond the Election, A New World
Today the NewWorld Election Report relaunches with an expanded focus: climate, class, and culture.
(Re)Introducing the NewWorld Election Report
We ended our coverage of the election, zooming in on the ways that a billion dollar campaign failed to build the trust VP Harris needed to shift the election in her favor. On the other side of the new year, a lot has changed in our political landscape. But one thing has not: the crisis in trust that is upending our politics, our jobs, and even our relationships to each other.
Today, we’re picking up where we left off. Our widely recognized NewWorld Election Report is evolving into the NewWorld Insights Report, a publication dedicated to original research and analysis on diverse audiences. We’ll go beyond elections to tackle the big questions at the intersection of climate, class, and culture. And we’ll do it all with an obsessive focus on the ways we can and cannot build trust - the ultimate currency in an era of unprecedented misinformation. (The agency I founded six years ago A—B is also glowing up today - we’re relaunching as NewWorld, bringing the agency and its signature publication into one family).
So how do we kick off the party? To quote JaRule and Ashanti, “It should be about us. It should be about trust…”
The NewWorld Trust Review: 2025 Insights
Today, we unveiled the NewWorld Trust Review, an in-depth study assessing showing confidence in leaders and institutions in freefall. From government to consumer goods, healthcare to media— we are facing a trust crisis with serious potential repercussions for economic growth and social stability.
Nowhere is the trust gap more striking than in marketing, advertising, and tech: the very companies consumers rely on to connect with brands, organizations, and ideas, are among the most distrusted of all industries.
Highlights: 2025 Trust Review
To better understand how trust is shaping the marketplace of products and ideas, we developed a national research study. The findings are stark:
Confidence in brands, government, and media is consistently below 50% across almost all industries and generational lines. Misinformation leaves audiences feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and unconvinced by business-as-usual marketing.
Technology and Social Media: Trust in these sectors is catastrophically low, driven by fears of privacy invasion, rampant misinformation, and unethical corporate behavior.
Big Tech: Trust at only 18.3% (full national sample)
Social Media Companies: Trust at only 16.6% across full sample nationally
Healthcare: Alarmingly, fewer than half of expectant parents trust hospitals. Trust in public health organizations and pharmaceutical companies is even more dismal.
Banking & Finance: Nearly 65% of new business owners don’t trust the banking industry to protect their concerns, and credit card companies face an even sharper credibility crisis.
Automotive: Almost 75% of new car buyers do not trust both the auto and car insurance industries.
Non-Profits: Non-profits, foundations, and charities are the most trusted sector of the economy, especially among Gen Z. This demographic expresses significantly higher trust at higher than 50%, in these organizations compared to others, making them a standout sector in an overall low-trust environment YES.
Real Estate: A staggering three-quarters of potential homebuyers distrust the real estate industry, agents, and landlords.
Public Institutions: Trust in political entities like Congress and public services such as schools and the Supreme Court is at an all-time low.
Travel and Hospitality: Just 28.8% of vacationers trust airlines, and hotels/restaurants fare little better.
Energy and Renewables: 80% of Americans do not trust oil and gas companies, and advocate leaders of renewable energy efforts are also actively distrusted.
Political Parties: Trust in public political institutions, including parties, remains below 40% across the board. Gen Z, for example, expresses greater trust in credit card companies, social media platforms, and the oil and gas industry than in the Democratic Party.
Want the deeper dive? Comment below, and I’ll drop the detailed fact sheet in your DMs.