Trustworthy
How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap
Get the industry playbook for building trust through content and design and learn from the teams and business leaders who are getting it right.
Foreword Indies winner in Business and Economics
Amazon #2 in new releases in Media and Communications
Vulnerable language can rebuild intimacy and trust…
Trustworthy shows how truthful, vulnerable language can rebuild intimacy and trust between customers and the organizations that serve them.
Through actual case studies and simple but effective techniques, Bloomstein shows how brands and organizations can not only rebuild trust but push their audiences forward into accepting new products and experiences.
Jeffrey Zeldman
Publisher, A List Apart, and cofounder, An Event Apart
A visionary perspective on building trust
Whether you’re building a new brand or overhauling your marketing, this practical and motivating guide will help you along the way. Margot Bloomstein offers a visionary perspective on building trust with your audience at a time when that trust is in short supply.
Kate Kiefer Lee
Chief Communications Officer, Intuit Mailchimp
About the Book
Get your hands on a new framework to foster trust
In the plain language of lean prose and behind-the-scenes stories, Margot Bloomstein lays out a three-part framework to change how you use content and design to foster trust in your work, your company, and society as a whole.
Drawing on hours of interviews with marketing and content leaders in government, media, public health, academia, retail, consumer packaged goods, home electronics, and other sectors, she lays out example after example to provide actionable direction for both CMOs and copywriters alike—regardless of the audience, budget, or industry in question.
Go beyond the buzzwords with solid tactics and inspiring takeaways
- Explore how a message architecture is the keystone to consistency in customer engagement—and collaboration across teams and silos
- Learn how to translate transparency, authenticity, and empathy to specific content types and design choices
- Discover how to embrace and operationalize vulnerability as a strength—straight from leaders at TED, the FBI, Zoom, and an adult toy retailer (yes, you read that right!)
Brands featured in the book
Marketing directors at all levels will find her insights intriguing
At the heart of Bloomstein’s outlook is the importance of simplicity in the flow of information. “Abstraction is different from generalizing,” she shrewdly points out, and “If information is power, it’s because confidence in our own knowledge fuels trust.”
The author uses a very clear, lean prose line; marketing directors at all levels will find her insights intriguing … a punchy and stimulating look at building brands.
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Expertly written and impressively informative
Expertly written, deftly organized, impressively informative, and a thoroughly comprehensive ‘DIY’ instruction guide, Trustworthy is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to professional, corporate, community, college and university library business management collections and curriculum lists.
Midwest Book Review
How can an organization communicate effectively in this context?
Consumers, citizens, and corporate buyers are feeling a sweeping, protective skepticism that undermines the delivery of information, products, and services in every sector of the economy.
How can an organization communicate effectively in this context? Through pithy case studies and interviews with communicators in those organizations, Bloomstein presents a blueprint for clear, effective communication that evokes trust, educates the audience, and supports the audience in effective decision-making.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
About the Author
Meet Margot
Margot Bloomstein is one of the most prominent voices in the content strategy industry.
She is the author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap and Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project, as well as the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston.
She speaks and consults for an array of brands, including Mailchimp, Timberland, the American Montessori Society, American Express, Lindt and Sprüngli, Harvard University, Lovehoney, Fidelity, and Sallie Mae.
The creator of BrandSort, she developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy. She teaches in the graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Austria and has guest lectured at MIT, NYU, University of Illinois, and Stanford.
She speaks around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust.
Bloomstein deftly reveals how branding must begin to behave bravely…
At long last, someone has exposed the truth about brands! Margot Bloomstein deftly reveals how branding must go beyond the infinite power grab for profits and begin to behave bravely in order to improve the world.
In smart, elegant prose, Bloomstein explores how the responsibility of the corporation has evolved, and what it takes to create genuine trust between citizens and the companies they invite into their lives.
Debbie Millman
Host of Design Matters, Editorial Director of Print magazine, and Chair of the Masters in Branding at the School of Visual Arts
Get Trustworthy and learn how to rebuild trust in your brand—and society itself.
Other Books by Margot Bloomstein
Content Strategy at Work
Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project
Purchasing internationally?
Check availability with your favorite local retailer or online bookstores like Amazon and Book Depository.
It is available in the UK through Waterstones.
For further assistance, feel free to email margot@appropriateinc.com and we’ll hook you up.