Attitude needs credibility. Not just communication.

Not every brand has to speak on every social issue. A credible position rather requires that the topic fits the organisation, its decisions and its actual sphere of influence. Anyone who only communicates values when they promise media reach risks appearing interchangeable.

Conversely, restraint and careful listening can be an expression of responsible action. What matters is coherence, not volume. For me, the work therefore begins before the public statement: what connection does the topic have to the organisation's own actions? Where does the organisation bear responsibility? And what contribution can it actually make? These questions do not arbitrarily limit communication. They give it a comprehensible starting point.

The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 shows strong reservation towards people with different values, information sources and cultural backgrounds; in the German data, this figure stands at 81 per cent. This describes the population surveyed and must not be misread as an individual cause-and-effect statement about brands.

For brand communication, this nonetheless presents a difficult task: making the same statement connect with very different worlds of experience in fragmented publics, without letting one's own identity become arbitrary. I think it is important not to confuse connectability with agreement. A clear position can provoke disagreement and still be understandable. The task is not to resolve every difference, but to convey one's own perspective in a reasoned, respectful way, aware of different contexts.

The Adobe Creative Trends Report 2026 points to emotional closeness, multisensory creativity and cultural authenticity as creative developments. These directions are inspiration, not a recipe for success. Imagery can be of-the-moment and still lack meaning.

Cultural communication only becomes relevant when it takes context and people seriously, instead of merely copying surfaces. That requires research, cultural sensitivity and a recognisable brand perspective. For me, that means not just searching for a fitting aesthetic, but for the meaning a story gains within its environment. What experiences does it draw on? Which voices appear? And why should this particular brand be part of this conversation?

A company can communicate sustainability, yet a single campaign does not prove a sustainable business model. It can promise closeness, but create distance through confusing services. Social psychology, with concepts such as cognitive dissonance, explains why contradictory signals can create tension; however, this does not automatically mean a measurable loss of trust with every inconsistency.

In everyday brand practice, the consequence is nonetheless clear: statements should be backed by verifiable decisions and experiences. I would therefore test every far-reaching promise from the perspective of the people who encounter it outside the campaign: in the product, in the service, in how complaints are handled, or in the transparency of information. This is not about claiming complete freedom from contradiction. It is about taking visible gaps seriously, openly naming limits, and not letting communication stand in for actual change.

Brands operate in social spaces and, through their communication, also shape expectations. They influence images, stories and notions of belonging. Precisely for that reason, cultural relevance cannot emerge from the creative department alone.

It requires dialogue between brand strategy, product, leadership, partners and people outside the organisation. Good communication translates real decisions. It does not replace them. For me, this is an essential task of strategic brand leadership: connecting the public statement with the organisation's actual sphere of influence, while also including external perspectives. Anyone who wants to speak publicly should be willing not just to send their own message, but also to take the responses seriously.

For me, attitude in external brand leadership is not a question of maximum positioning. It is a question of precision: where can we credibly contribute something? What can people expect from us? And how does our promise show up beyond a campaign? Unlike internal culture, this is about a brand's public contribution and the experiences by which people outside the organisation judge that contribution.

This perspective connects social responsibility with a clear understanding of one's own brand. Not every relevant topic is automatically one's own topic. And not every visible position is already a credible contribution. Credible brands do not need to have a say on everything. But where they do speak, words and actions should visibly belong together.