When WPP CEO Cindy Rose shared WPP’s Trust Principles recently, she highlighted an unequivocal truth in the modern age of marketing: sustainable growth is built on trust. As the principles specifically call out, data is core to the discussion on trust.
Data, namely first-party data generated from customers, is one of the most valuable assets any organisation owns. It helps businesses forge deeper customer relationships, make informed business decisions, and drive more effective, sustainable growth.
How that data is collected, protected and used has become one of the clearest measures of whether a business deserves to be trusted in the view of consumers and other businesses.
Why trust starts with data
For a long time, the data-driven advertising industry worked on a centralised model driven forward by data brokers and identity providers. The goal was simple: collect, centralise, and amass vast amounts of data. In theory, this would provide advertisers with a single source of truth in the form of IDs that enabled planning, targeting, and measurement.
A fundamental problem in this model, however, is that trust is absent due to the lack of a fair value exchange. A centralised model extracts value at the expense of consumers and businesses rather than protects and fosters it. Consumers are unaware or have very little knowledge that their data is being shared across the ecosystem and used by companies they haven’t heard of. For businesses, they are forced to share customer data that often ends up benefitting another company commercially.
This model treats customer data as something to be passed around the ecosystem, ironically risking and damaging the very relationships it is claiming to strengthen. As such, that model is now breaking under the combined weight of privacy regulation, rising consumer awareness, and AI.
A fair value exchange
Establishing and rebuilding trust between consumers and businesses starts with a fair value exchange. When a consumer shares their data with a business, they enter into a direct relationship with that company in exchange for offers, loyalty benefits, premium content, or services. As part of that, the business should be explicitly clear and transparent about how that data will be used and protected.
Beyond this initial exchange, this relationship becomes a commitment by the business to protect that data at all costs for as long as the relationship exists. This is the baseline requirement needed to do right by consumers in terms of privacy and defines what it means to be a true guardian of customer data. In other words, it is a fair value exchange built on trust.
Businesses need to trust each other too
Trust doesn’t start and end with the relationship between consumers and businesses. It must extend to the relationships between companies. This is because no single company can or should hold all the data required to create intelligence.
Brands, media owners, retailers, and other data owners all hold unique insights into different parts of the consumer journey. Companies must build partnerships and collaborate to connect these insights, enabling them to effectively understand and reach consumers at the moments that matter.
But this must always be done in a way that empowers companies to honour consumer privacy and stay true to the promises they have made to consumers. Collaboration must never involve sharing, centralising, or moving data outside of their own environments.
This last point is vital in the era of AI, which has created an intelligence imperative. Companies know competitive advantage isn’t found in any one model alone; it’s found in the data that underpins it. Consequently, demand for high-quality, trusted data sources has dramatically increased. Businesses need confidence that customer data is not being used to train third-party models or platforms, that it is not inadvertently benefitting competitors, and that they can maintain control over it at all times.
Failing to protect data can do irreparable damage to customer relationships and business reputation. Trusted partnerships and collaboration where data is never shared significantly reduce these risks and build an ecosystem that prioritises privacy, control, and transparency.
How InfoSum and WPP enables companies to prioritise trust
InfoSum was founded because we believed there was a better way for the industry to treat customer data and for companies to collaborate. This is reflected in our mission to ‘connect the world’s data without ever sharing it'. In April 2025, WPP acquired InfoSum because it shared the same values and belief that there was a better path forward for the industry.
Built on decentralised technology and federated architecture, InfoSum enables companies to seamlessly collaborate across any cloud, region, or tech stack without moving or exposing raw data. Each data owner retains control over its data at all times, with robust permissions defining how it can be used, by whom, for what purpose, and for how long.
This non-movement of data approach enables companies to not only fulfil the conditions of a fair value exchange and protect customer data, but it also empowers companies to enhance business performance.
Today, InfoSum is the privacy-first data collaboration infrastructure powering Open Intelligence, the shared intelligence layer underpinning WPP Open. By securely connecting live signals across clients, WPP and its partners, InfoSum helps organisations build differentiated intelligence without sharing, moving or commingling the underlying data.
Trust drives growth
When organisations can collaborate without compromising privacy or control, they can connect to new and diverse signals for exclusive intelligence that becomes a source of competitive advantage.
Consumers benefit because their data is treated responsibly and they get better advertising experiences. Businesses benefit because they stay in control of commercial assets and are empowered to deliver stronger outcomes.
Most importantly, it protects data at every step. Because protecting data is how you protect trust, and protecting trust is how you grow sustainably.
