Credos findings highlight the contradictory nature of people’s feelings about advertising and how they are adapting.
Members of the Advertising Association, please contact us at aa@adassoc.org.uk to access more insights from this research and find out how the new Trust Action Plan is being developed.
London, February 5 2026: New research highlights presented today in Westminster by Dan Wilks, Director of industry think tank Credos, at advertising industry summit LEAD, showed that whilst overall trust levels are high, beneath the surface people have an increasingly contradictory relationship with advertising. Key findings included the fact that trust in advertising is now impacted by negative elements of the online world often unrelated to ads, such as scams, cyber-attacks and harmful content – meaning many people now move through online spaces in a state of low-level vigilance
Key stats from the Credos 2025 full year Trust Tracker:
- The Credos Trust Tracker showed that public trust in ads continued to grow throughout 2025, reaching the highest level recorded over the past 5 years (40%), up from 31% in 2021.
- Over the same period, trust has also increased across all media channels
- Just over one in ten (11%) people are very trusting of ads and 29% are fairly trusting compared to a quarter (25%) who distrust ads and a third (33%) who are neither trusting nor distrusting.
Key findings from the new Credos Drivers of Trust research include:
- Overall, the importance of positives vs negatives in driving trust in advertising was exactly 50/50 in 2025
- The importance of ‘suspicious advertising’ advertising in driving distrust increased significantly in 2025. This includes issues such as scams, misleading ads, undisclosed ads, greenwashing, and the manipulation of images.
- The enjoyment of ads remained the number one driver of trust in ads and bombardment remained the number one driver of distrust.
Whose responsibility is it anyway?
The Credos qualitative research also dug under the surface of who people thought should be responsible for tackling the negative impact issues such as scams and misleading ads are having on trust in online advertising. Participants attribute joint responsibility for managing these issues to platforms, to individual responsibility, regulatory bodies and government, though the role of the platforms was considered the most important.
Director of Credos Dan Wilks said: “It is fantastic to see public trust in ads reach the highest levels we’ve seen in five years. This should be celebrated – but there is still much for the industry to work on. Our latest research found that people’s day to day relationship with advertising, particularly online, is becoming increasingly complex, contradictory and sometimes concerning. Hopefully, this latest evidence showing what drives as well as what limits trust, will enable brands, media owners and agencies alike to focus on measures to improve trust further.”
