Building brands through trust

Tom Wallis, Chief Customer Officer 

Building a great brand today is harder than it’s ever been, and more important than ever. 

Over the past few years, my role has evolved from leading marketing into overseeing the full customer experience at Compare the Market, from brand and performance marketing through to social and content. What that’s reinforced for me is a simple truth: you don’t build a brand in one department anymore, you build it at every customer touchpoint. 

For me, building a brand in 2026 is about a number of things: 

Consistency across the entire customer journey: Brand is not just what you say in your advertising, or how entertaining your adverts are, it’s what customers experience when they land on your site, speak to your support teams, or try to resolve an issue. 

At Compare the Market, we’ve seen that the biggest gains come when brand, performance marketing, content, and social are aligned around a single customer outcome. Campaigns like Me Time work not just because of the creative, but because the experience that follows delivers on that promise. 

Balancing data with instinct: Marketing has never been more measurable. But not everything that matters is immediately visible in the data. Some of the most effective decisions, whether in brand platform development or creative direction, still require both judgement and experience. The challenge for modern leaders is knowing when to lean into the data, and when to back your instinct. It’s about finding the balance between magic and logic. 

Investing in long-term brand while navigating short-term pressure: Performance marketing and SEO are increasingly complex, particularly with the arrival of LLMs and the evolution of search. That can make it tempting to focus purely on short-term returns, but the brands that win are the ones that continue to invest in long-term distinctiveness and trust. Strong brand makes every other channel work harder, from paid search to conversion. 

Embracing complexity, staying customer focused: The best teams are the ones that can simplify complexity for the customer. That means clear communication, joined-up journeys, and a relentless focus on making things simpler. 

Building teams that challenge and complement you: Marketing today spans everything from creative and brand to data science and digital performance. No one leader can be an expert in all of it. The best results come from building teams with deep expertise and creating an environment where those perspectives are heard and challenged constructively. I’ve been lucky enough to lead several teams like that, including the one I have here at Compare the Market. 

Ultimately, great brands aren’t built through campaigns alone. They’re built through consistent delivery, clear positioning, and thousands of small interactions that add up to trust over time. In a market where customers have more choice than ever, that trust is what makes the difference.