Six or seven years ago, Boston-based content strategy consultant Margot Bloomstein noticed a discernable cynicism creeping into our national political discourse in how everyday people talked about politics and in how the media covered politics. “It used to be that if you caught a politician in a lie—massaging the truth, trying to rewrite their record—journalists would be all over that. It might end a campaign,” she says. “But it didn’t seem like that was happening anymore. People were engaging with these revelations in a different way. It seemed like the pervasive attitude was, ‘Well, all politicians lie….Everybody’s out to get you….You can’t trust anybody….’ ” 

Bloomstein also sensed that people were increasingly inclined to, as she puts it, “insulate themselves from new information,” particularly that which challenged their existing worldview and sense of identity. Bloomstein primarily works with clients in higher education, health care, and software development—not politics—but she wanted to explore how this new cynicism might affect her customers. This research would turn into Trustworthy, which Kirkus Reviews lauds as “punchy and stimulating.”

The project took a swerve when Covid-19 hit, but rather than derailing Bloomstein’s work, the pandemic offered powerful new case studies. Lack of faith in institutions would, of course, play a huge role in how governments, health organizations, and individuals responded to the novel coronavirus. Mitigation efforts like masking and vaccination would become social issues, not just medical issues. And as companies scrambled to adapt to lockdown, a few stumbled. In her book, she offers Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department and Zoom as examples of organizations that did an exemplary job of communicating through the worst of the crisis. 

Candor and transparency played a huge part in the successes of both. Dr. Sara Cody, the director of public health in Santa Clara, gained her community’s trust by being honest about the unknowns while taking decisive action based on the best data available to her. Bloomstein expands on this dynamic in conversation. “Vulnerability helps to establish a dialogue that you can’t have when you’re just throwing facts at people. And it turns out that snarky memes about vaccination don’t change people’s minds. I remember, several months ago, hearing a doctor who worked in public health on NPR. This was shortly after vaccines became available, and she noted that initially, she had concerns about the vaccines, thinking that maybe they’d been rushed to market. But then she started digging into it, and she learned that the technology behind the vaccines had been around for 30 years. The testing wasn’t rushed. It was just that these drugs went to market without the usual marketing around them. Then she felt confident in the vaccines, and it’s her willingness to share her own concerns that allows others to gain confidence through hearing about her experience.”

While it might be almost impossible now to even remember a time when Zoom wasn’t an everyday part of our lives, the company wasn’t entirely prepared for the explosive growth that followed lockdown. By the spring of 2020, meetings were being disrupted by “Zoombombing”—trolls using screen-sharing to broadcast pornographic or hateful content. In an open letter he shared on his company’s blog, CEO Eric Yuan explained that Zoom could not have anticipated that their platform would, virtually overnight, be replacing classrooms and offices all over the world, and he mentioned that their product had been designed for enterprise customers used to managing their own digital security. But Yuan didn’t stop there. He went on to say that he expected users to hold him accountable, and he laid out his plan for making Zoom a safe place for students and individuals working from home. Bloomstein explains the advantage of taking an approach such as Yuan’s:

Closed organizations, with secretive processes and silence in the face of social issues, may face a risk far greater than they understand. By hiding away, they shield themselves from criticism—but they also don’t open themselves to the benefits of community. Denying your weaknesses surfaces a different kind of vulnerability: You risk being ignored and abandoned by audiences who have more pressing concerns. Instead, humble yourself, engage your audience, and show them who you are—so that you can move forward together.

The sections of Trustworthy shaped by the pandemic set the book apart from others in this category, as does Bloomstein’s advice on navigating contentious social issues as a brand. She offers Penzeys Spices as the paradigmatic example of a company succeeding by putting its political heart on its sleeve. When asked for other brands getting it right, Bloomstein mentions Minocqua Brewing Company, a craft brewery that is also a super PAC. Their motto is “dark money meant for good,” and they have turned their commitment to progressive politics into products like Biden Beer—“Inoffensive & Not Bitter”—and Choice, a pink grapefruit hard seltzer generating donations to Planned Parenthood. Bloomstein notes that, in leading with their politics, this small Wisconsin business has “seen a groundswell of support from people who might not otherwise be their target audience.” 

She cites Patagonia as “the grandaddy in this space” and mentions that when she was working on corporate responsibility in-house at Timberland, she and her colleagues saw the venerable outfitter as a role model. “They know where their target audience lives and works and plays,” she says. “Supporting fashion and sustainable land use is good for the environmental issues the company advocates, and, long-term, it’s good for the bottom line.” Overall, Bloomstein says that Patagonia feels authentic because it is—even though she has grown to loathe using the word authentic. (“You can quote me on that barf sound I just made.”) 

Bloomstein is not unaware of the potential hazards of taking a stance as a company. “Brands that are worried about wading into a social issue that they want to support—because it matters to them and to their core customers—might be concerned that people are going to call them out if they get it wrong. What I say to clients and organizations that have this concern is that we are all going to make those mistakes, but we can use these mistakes as an opportunity to make our values visible. If we prototype in public, if we learn in public, we can show how you recover from a mistake. We can be a model for other people who want to start paying greater attention to these issues. If you have a tremendous platform, you can use it for good.”

Jessica Jernigan is a writer and editor who lives and works in central Michigan.