The Belief Gap™
Why brand belief is the most valuable asset a marketer can build right now.
What is the Belief Gap?
The Belief Gap is the measurable distance between brand awareness and brand belief — between a customer who knows a brand exists and one who genuinely believes in it enough to choose it, defend it, and return to it.
Harris Poll N=506 US Gen Pop Marketing Professionals Aged 18+, Fielded March 9-23, 2026
1 85% derived from the Harris Poll finding that 15% of marketers report using a formal KPI program
People are choosing to show up. That is not an accident.
The world changed. Brand trust did not keep up. An entire economy has been built to keep people exactly where they are — food delivered, work remote, entertainment infinite and on demand. And yet live event attendance is surging¹. The screen-native generation wants off their screens.
At the same time, trust in digital signals is collapsing as generative AI floods every channel with content no one can verify.
Marketers believe in events.
Most cannot prove their impact.
Most marketers plan to increase event spending in the next 12 months- more than any other channel in the study.
AI is rapidly reshaping how brands are discovered
LLMs favor credible, third-party, human-authored content – the kind live events generate at scale. Speaker coverage, session recaps, earned press and live testimonials are signals that earn LLM citation. For brands trying to stay visible in an AI discovery environment, events are more than a relationship channel, they are also a discovery strategy.
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Frequently asked questions.
1What is the Belief Gap™?
The distance between knowing a brand exists and genuinely believing it is worth your loyalty. Awareness is the start. Belief is the destination.
2Why does belief matter more than awareness?
Awareness doesn’t protect your brand. A customer with high awareness and low belief is one competitive offer away from leaving. The brands that win long-term aren’t the most recognized — they’re the most believed in.
3Is this TFC’s own research, or is it independent?
The research was conducted by the Harris Poll, not TFC. We commissioned it, but the methodology, panel, fielding, and analysis belong to an independent firm with 80+ years of credibility.
4What did the research find?
72% of U.S. marketing professionals in the study see a gap between brand awareness and belief among their own customers. Events are the #1 channel named as the most effective for building brand trust. 73% plan to increase event spend in the next 12 months — more than any other channel in the study. And 85% do not report using a formal KPI program to measure the impact events have on LLM visibility.
5How is this different from existing event industry research?
The Belief Gap™ study was commissioned by TFC and is the first independently validated study to show whether marketers recognize a gap between awareness and belief in their own customers; which channels they trust most to close it; and whether they have the measurement infrastructure to prove impact on visibility.
6What does the research say about AI and brand discovery?
Events generate the credible, human-authored content LLMs favor at scale. 97% of marketers believe events and event-generated content are important for brand visibility and inclusion in AI-generated answers.
7Is the Belief Gap™ research an ongoing initiative?
Yes. A second research study surveying B2B buyers directly will be published later this year.