No Trash Cans in Gotham

What if I told you the biggest corporate risk of 2025 isn’t AI, market volatility, or even competition?

It’s trust erosion. And that most businesses aren’t ready for it?

Do you know who ‘Ctrl Shift Face’ is? Didn’t think so. It’s a Youtuber, don’t look it up, I’m not sending you off on a side quest in the first lines of this. Right before the pandemic ‘they’ released a video that seamlessly transformed Bill Hader into Tom Cruise mid-impression. Deepfake! Like all the best things, it was equal parts creepy and fascinating, just like Tom himself.

And for those of us working in crisis communications, it was exciting. If AI could convincingly warp reality in a late-night clip, what could it do to corporate earnings reports, public perception, or leadership credibility? We set out to explore this. Why? Because we thought we could make some money from productizing it. BUT what it uncovered was much bigger than Deepfakes.

Trust itself - across business, media, and institutions - was already in freefall.

We were already into the 'Post-truth era' - if you didn’t know 'Post-Truth' was Oxford dictionaries word of the year in 2016. But then we were in the misinformation/ data manipulation part of it, not where we are today.

I’m a communications expert in creative agencies. I make a lot of stuff. To do that I had to go to film school. At film school you watch a lot of Behind The Scenes features. During the period when it became easier for filmmakers to create a world rather than build a set, I watched Christopher Nolan review CGI Gotham for one of his Batman films. Everyone was patting themselves on the back as Nolan stood staring at the screen. It was obvious something wasn’t quite right. After a few moments of silence he announced “there are no trash cans” and walked out.

And this is the metaphor I bring to you about Generative AI and trust today.

A keen eyed Film Director knows Gotham City won’t sell as real to an audience if it doesn’t have the markings of basic human life. If there are no trash cans how is this a real environment? Turns out, in a world where we’ve jumped at light speed from creating images of people with 6 fingers and a melty leg in the background to highly convincing text to video conversion, none of the AI avatars have started a revolution.

It seems the general public know when there’s no trash cans, they may not have the vocabulary to tell you why, but subconsciously they just know when it’s not real. The technology we once feared is delivering quite enjoyable memes, not cultural revolution.

This is exactly the problem with corporate messaging today, it’s missing the human signals we subconsciously look for.

The result?

An audience that instinctively senses inauthenticity, even if they can’t articulate why.

Over the past couple of years we’ve become entrenched in the AI Generated Misinformation era. Trust is arguably (and I will argue) the biggest issue of our time.

And the bad news for businesses, politicians (and any other leaders) is this isn’t a PR issue. It’s structural. Companies can’t message their way out of distrust; they need to earn credibility through action, transparency, and human connection.

The Great Trust Bankruptcy: Why Companies Are Losing the Public

We live in a time when information is more accessible than ever before. But more information doesn’t mean better information. Instead, it means we can cherry-pick the facts and opinions that validate whatever beliefs we already hold.

Post-truth doesn’t mean we’re all lying to each other. It means facts no longer have the power to change minds. Emotion, identity, and ideology now dictate reality more than evidence ever could.

For marketers, communicators, and brand leaders, this presents a fundamental challenge.

Trust in institutions is collapsing. People don’t trust corporate narratives, governments, or financial systems anymore. Gen Z in particular has abandoned institutional trust altogether, they are more likely to trust individuals (leaders, creators, influencers) than faceless corporations.

By 2030 it’s projected that Millennials and Gen Z combined will represent around 60% of the U.S. workforce. That’s approximately 110 million workers, or if you’re a corporate communicator - a pretty significant audience to speak to.

What does a Gen Z mean for business?

Born after 1996, Generation Z's formative experiences were bookended by Sept 11 and the 2016 US election. They've witnessed the breakdown of trust in traditional institutions such as government, banks, and the military, prompting them to turn to brands for leadership.

Gen Z’s distinct preferences and values will redefine how we communicate with our audience. Both Millennials and Gen Z are digital natives, yet their approach to communication differs. Millennials grew up in a world where things turned on and off. Millennials utilize social media for reconnecting with friends and sharing life updates.

On the other hand, Gen Z has never had to reconnect with anyone.

Read that again, I bolded it for you.

They leverage the social media you know and the comms channels you don’t, to foster communities, explore identities, and express themselves. Add 2020 into this mix (the ‘Infodemic’ as I’ve heard it called) and we have the perfect storm of distrust in everyone.

Your business finding a way to talk meaningfully to Gen Z isn’t a future problem, it’s the canary in the Coal Mine. It’s screaming at you to address the problem now.

What Can Businesses Do to Survive?

The irony is we feared AI would distort reality but the real issue was that corporate and institutional messaging were already untrustworthy. Bundle the extreme fear of AI duping us into a growing political and corporate landscape of distrust and you have a hyper vigilant audience. Not only frantically looking for trash cans in every image but also listening deeply to the content of the message and finding nowhere to put their garbage in any of the information being given to us.

The rise of Generative AI trained us to look for fakes. 

And I’m sorry to tell you, we found a whole bunch and loads of them are sitting in positions of power. AI didn’t create the trust crisis, it exposed a systemic business risk. It forced people to scrutinize messaging, and what they found was worse than misinformation. It was deception in plain sight.

If people don’t trust your leadership, they leave. If people don’t trust your brand, they disengage. If people don’t trust your AI-driven content, they tune it out.

We’re at a trust deficit and many businesses will not come through it intact.

Good news, if you stick with me I can help you navigate it.

What if I told you corporate trust is actually the next competitive advantage?

If trust is the biggest corporate risk of 2025, then it’s also the biggest opportunity for the companies that can solve it. Those who can earn it through visibility, accountability, and action.

As always, for companies that understand a changing moment in time, there’s an unprecedented chance to redefine leadership, messaging, and audience engagement.

Many businesses and Executive Leadership will not survive this shift. But the ones that do? They'll own the future.

I’m currently finishing a white paper, or maybe it's just the long-form version of this very email series. However you define it, it’s about trust. And what you’ve just read? That’s a version of the opening.

Starting today, this newsletter splits into two tracks:

• One big idea, once a month (First Tuesday): Thought-provoking essays on creativity, leadership, and reinvention. The free edition.

• 24 exclusive Sunday editions (fortnightly or bi-weekly if you prefer, Hi there Americans): Real-world strategies, frameworks, and behind-the-scenes lessons from the messy middle of building a business, raising kids, and making meaningful work. The 'Insider' upgrade. Very reasonably priced, if I do say so.

If you're new, or missed the last message, that’s the lay of the land. But if you’re receiving this email, you already qualified for Insider status, Congrats for being here for a while!

So, back to trust. And given it’s April Fools' Day, what better time to start the conversation?

The paper (manifesto) will drop soon. And yes, you’ll know about it. Whether you want to or not. It’s packed with insights on AI, Executive Leadership communications, storytelling that actually works, and an unlimited supply of my creative industry hot takes.

I can see you on the edge of your seat.

As you were.

MrMcK.

About the Author: Mark McKenna helps companies all over the world drive progress through strategic storytelling and content production. He has spent nearly 20 years at creative agencies serving clients at the intersection of corporate communications, advertising, and public relations. For the last decade, he has held senior leadership roles, providing counsel to the decision makers at the largest organizations in the world. Mark’s career includes time spent in London and New York, working with Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients on their communication challenges across EMEA and the Americas.

But, if you meet him in person, he’ll say “Hi my name is Mark McKenna. I help businesses tell their most important stories in a way that makes people want to listen.”