The Trust Crash: Why Consumers Don't Believe Brands Anymore

0:00Once upon a time, what the brand said is what the consumer believed. Today, that's not the case. They now no longer just take what is said to them as given. They're willing to challenge, they're willing to question, they're willing to rebuke. So we're seeing a new and different type of consumer that we didn't see on mass scale. The playing field has leveled out. As a brand, you're no longer in control of the narrative. Now there are many multiple stakeholders and players that are controlling and shaping that narrative of your brand. Many of our traditional brands are able to develop the human level of trust because you don't have that human connection where they represent the brand.

0:36But if you want trust that's really resilient and twice as effective, we need the emotional aspects of trust.

0:50Natalie Berg: I'm Natalie Berg, retail analyst and host of Retail Disrupted. My guest today has a PhD in trust from Alliance Manchester Business School. She's made over 1 ,500 contributions to the media, and she is a sought-after global speaker on the topic of consumer behavior. Dr. Amna Khan is joining me on the podcast today to unpick one of the biggest questions in retail right now. In a world of AI agents, greenwashing, and influencer culture, do consumers still trust brands? Let's dive in. Emna, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to have you here. I know we do a lot of similar things around media and events, and I have followed your work for a really long time, so I'm super excited to have you on the show today.

1:41Natalie Berg: Can you kick us off by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background? So I'm Dr. Amla Khan, a consumer behavior expert, I've been researching consumers for over a decade. I have a PhD in trust development, which was sponsored by AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals. As you already mentioned, Natalie, I've got a lot of media contributions over about a thousand global speakers. So I love sharing my insights about consumers, consumption and trust. And so in a nutshell, that's me. Great. So let's talk retail. We're going to focus our conversation on consumer trust. And I'd love to just kick off with a stat from PwC.

2:23Natalie Berg: It's a couple years old now, and it's US specific, so I should call that out. But I think it's really relevant. And I think it's a nice way to kick off our conversation. So 90 % of business leaders believe their customers highly trust their companies. However, only 30 % of consumers actually do. Amna, that's a huge gap. What, in your view, is causing this lack of trust? So trust is caused and the lack of trust is determined by many different factors. One of the key things will be integrity and how the consumer perceives the business relationships and the intentions of the business itself. And obviously the seller thinks of their relationship is in a much more favorable way than the actual buyer does.

3:07But essentially what we're witnessing for consumer trust at the moment and the declining trust is that they don't trust the traditional institutions like they once did. We've reduced our trust in broadcast media. If we look at broadcast media, it was traditionally seen as the outlet that would give you unbiased information, factual, that reflected basically what was going on accurately. Today, that's not the case. Many consumers are questioning what they actually see on broadcast media. And I mean, if we come to brand trust, consumers don't trust brands in the way that they used to either. And there's been a lot of shift in that space because sometimes brands can get it wrong and they can get it wrong in the sense of saying that they're sustainable when they're actually not sustainable.

3:53And once upon a time, what the brand said is what the consumer believed. Today, that's not the case. Consumers are different. they're empowered they're aware and they're informed and that's a fundamental shift that's happened in the consumer and they've become increasingly critical of the traditional institutions whether that's a brand whether that's a politician whether that's broadcast media and through this this criticality that we've developed in consumers they now no longer just take what is said to them as given they're willing to challenge they're willing to question they're willing to rebuke.

4:28So we're seeing a new and different type of consumer that we didn't see on mass scale. You used to have this pockets of protesters, pockets of people who didn't really like what brands were doing, but their voice wasn't really heard on the scale that it is heard now.

4:44Natalie Berg: Yeah, I mean, I think it's quite worrying for any retailer or brand listening in that, you know, there has been this massive shift that you've just laid out. And I think that when you think about a brand, I mean, fundamentally, a brand is a promise of quality, right? It's a promise to the customer and assurance of what they're going to get if they purchase that product. So I think it is worrying. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead too much because I know we'll talk about technology and social media and the role that that's playing around accelerating this erosion of trust. But maybe if we just back up a little bit, is there a particular point in when we think about the relationship between the consumer and the brand where does trust matter most is it at the start of the shopping journey maybe when they're just discovering the brand or maybe it's more important after they've purchased the product so that kind of post-purchase experience is what's your take on this amina trust is in every single interaction every single exchange process that the consumer has with the brand it's every single touch point and the consumer's making one of two decisions They're either deciding whether you're trustworthy and to take the action of trust, or they still need that verification process to take place.

5:58So you're either checking the trustworthiness, doing a checklist, looking at the reviews online, saying what other people say about them, checking the composition of the product, whatever that might be, you're still in the checking process.

6:11Natalie Berg: We know that trust isn't static. It has to be earned. And to what extent do cultural or generational differences make when it comes to trust? Like does a Gen Z shopper trust brands or a Gen Alpha shopper? I'm just thinking of my own kids and how, you know, we're growing up. They're growing up rather in this AI world with fake content. My gut feel is that this generation is probably a little bit less trusting of brands because of this. Would you agree with that? Trust is contextual. generations your gen alpha gen z millennials all come from different cultural contexts in the sense of that we've our lived experiences are different you know for example when we were growing up you know the things of say the 90s when i grew up natalie i don't know if you grew up in 90s um we're very different to what our younger generations and our children are experiencing today what the consumer has today the gen alpha is that they are more informed and tapped with information and we necessarily didn't have that information and that might lead to a less propensity for them to trust in certain contexts and situations because you can see on social media they will trust certain things because they connect with an influencer what we've seen here is the shift in the way that the consumer wants to connect or belong with different communities and different audiences research conducted on tiktok in 2025 found that consumers the gen z consumers were more likely to connect with TikTok live stream shopping experiences because they felt that they had been seen.

7:41And I think that's a really significant factor, the fact that many of these consumers feel as though they don't, they're not seen or they're not able to connect in different ways, maybe because of the concept of digital being so active and playing a massive role in their lives. and what we what that research actually established was that when an individual on these live stream shopping experiences feels as though the host sees them or other consumers see them in these community environments they become more impulsive and they they increase their purchase intention and more likely to buy they equally trust that setting more and are going to spend a lot longer time there and we can see how these digital spaces and live stream shopping and tiktok experiences are fundamentally changing the way that consumers connect with brands now and what sort of environments they want to trust in they want to trust in environments where they feel as though they're part of a community part of being able to be belong to something that's a bit bigger and a bit wider but also it shows you an indication of the way that they see relationships too you know we wouldn't have necessarily had this community aspect of shopping that we now have and it has really grown with social media and once upon a time it was a community on say for example instagram but now you're seeing it actually in the purchasing decision process when it's actually happening within those environments of shopping which is fundamentally changing so i would say that the gen alpha consumer or the gen z consumer they place their trust in contexts which suits their narrative.

9:23And they might not be willing to trust, say, for example, brands in the same way that they used to, and are willing to place their trust in individuals or communities or creators in a different way. And that is another shift that we're seeing in the way that consumption happens.

9:39Natalie Berg: Yeah, it's interesting to get your views on this, because like so many things, it's nuanced, isn't it? I know there was an article in the Harvard Business Review, which I pulled, because I thought there were a couple of interesting stats that we might want to discuss. So I'm just looking at it now. Influencer marketing is a$24 billion industry. It's booming, but trust, as we've said, is eroding. So this particular study showed that while 88 % of consumers say that authenticity matters, nearly half believe that most influencers are fake. and over a third think that influencers misrepresent themselves and the products they endorse.

10:22Natalie Berg: Now, it can be a little bit murky with things like paid partnerships and what's a genuine endorsement versus what's an ad. And I know there's obviously very clear laws around all of this, but it can be a little bit of a murky world, especially if you're just kind of dipping your toes in it. What's your take on this, Emna? I mean, it sounds like you were saying consumers trust influencers more than they trust brands. Do you know it's interesting you say that Natalie because my view is that consumers trust is changing and it's fragmented it's not exactly the same as it used to be it is evolved because our context has evolved.

11:01If we think about traditionally consumers and consumption so let's go a little bit further back into our history so if we thought about consumers consumers once upon a time we produces we produce the goods that we consumed and you know for example I'd be producing potatoes you would be producing carrots and raw wood swap we produce our own goods then the industrial age came and we developed brands and businesses and we then started to place our trust in organizations prior to that we had personal trust between yourself and me Natalie we were exchanging between ourselves then it became for example you know a brand and me connecting with each other we've developed contracts and

11:42Natalie Berg: organizational trust was manifested. Today, what we're witnessing is the rise of internet and social media is that you've got organization and individual trust that's playing out. If you think about Coca-Cola as a brand, you will have the organizational trust. You'll have the competence, they'll deliver to expectations, they'll be reliable. You'll make assumptions about their quality and they will deliver. You wouldn't really have the human elements of them. I wouldn't meet somebody who was a representative of Coca-Cola, for example, or even if you went into retail, you wouldn't normally get a retail representative that you would see more than once.

12:19Now, what you need to remember is trust develops slowly, incrementally over interactions. Many of our traditional brands are able to develop the human level of trust because you don't have that human connection where they represent the brand. And along come social media, where you've got individuals who are humans that are relating to products and talking about products and their content the consumer is now connecting with these creators and their and these influencers and you're absolutely right some of them they trust and some of them they don't trust because they don't come across as authentic but what we know is that there's been an increase in this connection with consumers because humans buy from humans humans connect with people and once upon a time it is innate in us to want to connect with people first.

13:09So what we're seeing now is the rise of the parasocial interaction theory where consumers feel as though they've got a perceived intimate bond with the creator or the influencer and that happens because they feel as though they've got IIP which is immediate interactive personalized interactions. You couldn't really get that if you went and bought for example digital jeans from a retailer even if even if I work there every Sunday you weren't guaranteed to come and see me because you might be shopping on a different day now you've got that creative or influencer on your screen every single day talking to you they're familiar faces they're the and what we witness is we've moved from faces brands to brands that have faces attached to with them and associated with them and so this human element of trust and the emotional aspect of trust is more prevalent but what we know about this emotional aspect of trust it's deeper and it builds a connection builds more resilience and the brands that are used in humans and the organizational aspects can build trust which is deeper but also they can build connections which feel real and relatable for the individuals too and build these communities of audiences and interestingly a new distribution network too so they are very powerful and would I say that consumers don't connect connect or trust influencers.

14:36They don't trust some of them, but the ones that they believe are authentic, relatable, and reliable, they do trust them. And there is theories to support how the directionality of trust is changed. Will consumers trust in the traditional brands? Well, I don't think so. What I think that's happening is we've seen fragmentation where they place trust in different places than different brands. I'm still quite happy to go and buy Unilever, you know, body care products and use them doesn't necessarily i mean i've got a face attached to unilever but i still trust that brand but equally i trust creative brands too i bought lots of creative brands whether that might be gymshark or owner active i bought brands that are from creators too and what we're going to see is that they're going to grow the creators and influencer brands are definitely going to grow there's going to be a lot more strength in those brands because people connect with them in a different way they can see their values of purpose as well a lot more clearly and it transcends a lot easier for them because they're talking to their customers all the time take the example of p louise she's a manchester based brand now and she's the biggest band on tiktok for beauty and makeup you know we shout out to manchester because i'm from manchester

15:49Natalie Berg: she's had incredible success and i had the head of retail of uh tiktok on the podcast uh i think it It was late last year. And yeah, he actually called out her brand. I mean, she was doing millions in a case of like eight hours. It's just phenomenal what she's built. What she's built is absolutely incredible. How has she done that? Because she's the face of the brand. Her brand is a faceless. She always talks about her, what she's doing, what she's doing for her customers. They have a WhatsApp. They have a community. They're all connected. And the brilliant thing about Paige is that if she makes a mistake, she's the first person on there to be accountable to raise her hands she you know she made a mistake she went into pajamas at Christmas and it went wrong and the consumer wasn't quiet about it they were shouting and screaming about not having the pajamas that they wanted and she she came straight out she spoke to her consumers her community connected with them said that she'd got something wrong she was trying to experiment trying to bring them a product she could have done better and she would do better how long would it take a traditional gram to do that she's there interacting immediate personal response straight away builds that one's relationship and that you know consumers are willing to stay with her for that yeah definitely i was um laughing because it reminds me um of trini london i think she's been another like incredible success and i'm just giggling because I think the last video I saw of her was having her nose hair waxed like live on Instagram.

17:24Natalie Berg: And I was like, you know, she's authentic, right? She's out there living her brand and having some fun with it. So she's human and she's relatable and she's real. And, you know, behind, you know, the lovely, you know, personas that they have, they're just people like you and me. And that's what makes them connectable. And that's what makes them authentic to people, because they can believe that their life is as real as ours. Traditional brands don't necessarily have that. And that's the disparity that we have. That's a fundamental difference. And that's why we're seeing this shift that's happening right now.

18:01Natalie Berg: Yeah. And also, I guess, without veering too far from our topic around trust, but I guess also the personalization aspect when we go back to creators and influencers. I mean, I have weirdly wide feet. Like I used to have to go into specialist shoe stores when I was a kid. And it's always been a struggle for me to find nice shoes that are of a wide fit. And now, I mean, now the algorithm has picked up on this niche of mine. I'm getting bombarded and I found amazing brands and other, you know, creators that are recommending products. And it's like, actually, wow, that's super useful. You know, that's not something I really knew I needed, but it does make a big difference.

18:37Natalie Berg: And again, it just shows how retail through technology, through social media, is allowing for a much more personalized experience for shoppers, which I think is pretty cool. And that's amazing, isn't it? That tech allows us to bring that to consumers now. Because once upon a time, you would have felt like it was just you. And it was, you know, something that just you had. Whereas somebody's saying, you know what, you're not the only one. And you build a community around those people, for example, you know, that have a similar need for a product. and in the past, the bigger brands wouldn't have tailored to that because, you know, it's not going to hit the mark in profitability or it's not going to do the numbers that it needs to.

19:17But for a small niche brand which is fragmented and can create a lead who has got that same issue, problem, all of that, it is a real reason to come to the market with this product that actually serves a very important need. and I think I think that's the beauty of like what's happened with social media and the way that the market is fragmented now is that you'll find most of the products that you need and if you're not somebody else is in the same situation trying to fix that problem too yeah yeah definitely

19:48Natalie Berg: I think it's a good time to be a consumer yeah it certainly is perfect okay so I would like to talk about AI before we wrap up um AI obviously you know it's everywhere it's kind of rewiring all of retail, but when it comes to trust, it's obviously a touchy subject. It's a massive topic, but if we just sort of focus on the customer service aspect and AI chatbots, for example, are getting a lot better, gen AI chatbots, I should say, compared to the experience that we had a few years ago. So I think for retailers, it's sort of low hanging fruit to automate call center tasks and that sort of thing.

20:29Natalie Berg: What's your take on this? Can you actually automate trust development? How does that work? I believe we can. So what I would say is in the customer service experience place, one of the examples I'd like to use is Holland and Barrett. So they've actually brought AI to the shop floor because, you know, the way that they work is they are qualified to give advice. And if they need to know all of their products. And for many of the retail shop assistants, they will have to serve consumers that come with various different issues. now AI is used on the shop floor through digital devices where they can narrow down the search of what that consumer needs which means that the AI does the legwork it makes you more efficient it optimizes your results it helps you to be more productive but then if you use it in combination with the human you're actually fitting the idea that one looks after the organizational elements of trust the competence the reliability the effectiveness the predictability and one looks after the human element which saves you the time to actually spread building that meaningful emotional bond and connection and showing your genuine concerns to the consumer which you wouldn't have really had the time to do in the same way you're making the experience more efficient for the consumer it'll take them less you know time to actually navigate through that customer service experience and they'll leave more satisfied because you're tapping into both elements of trust so on the shop floor i definitely believe that it's got a it serves a place and a space if you think about online social media many of these influencers creators are using many chat for example because they're trying to automate their direct messaging because if you're an influencer but a couple of thousand or maybe hundreds of thousands of followers you can't individually connect with them you simply can't do that you don't have the time or resource but through many chats the consumer is going to perceive that you are having some interaction with them which is a media and although it's not personal you will feel as though it's personal and that can help you to build trust with the consumer and many creators and influencers are using this not only because it increases their engagement it massively takes their engagement up and that helps with the visibility of the reels and the audience attraction etc but more importantly because of the bond that it can potentially build with the consumer.

22:51Natalie Berg: Do you feel there's a risk here of consumers being aware that this is AI generated content? But, you know, I think just for me, I feel like that needs to be very clearly because, again, this is another murky aspect of the whole of this world that we're moving into. So and I think, I guess, taking a step back, you know, retailers are using AI for background own imagery they're using it you know in their socials so at what point do we need to start saying this is a human generated piece of content this isn't a ai i know you've you did a piece for the bbc on um ai free content and putting labels on on these types of things so i don't know um yeah i just feel like it's again it can be a little bit nuanced i think it depends natalie so for in certain contexts as it works so in the short floor that if that's going to give you a better experience then you know they're going to welcome ai for the creator and the influencer what i was actually going to say is it doesn't really feel that personal after a certain point because every creator is going click on this to get my guide click on this to get my e-book click on this to get the links click on this click on this click on this that's not personal that's just a repetitive automatic automatization process so it gives you some elements but not all of them now if you think about consumers some of the things we are getting tired of seeing ai and we are looking for verification process we want to know what's written by ai and what's written by a human because we trust the human more we do connect with the human more than we trust the ai and the machines and and the outputs that they're producing because it's not it doesn't always tell you the right thing and consumers are completely aware of that you know it will tell you what you want to hear in many in many situations and yes consumers are getting a bit tired of it But I think it's contextual.

24:37It really depends. On the shop floor, it might serve a purpose. In social media, if you really want the links to that outfit, then it will matter. But will that build a personal bond? That is a good question. And I really do question that. But equally, if you're looking for verified information, whether that's a book that's written by a human or a book that's written by AI, you want to know that a human's written it. So I think it's context dependent and not completely averse about AI. I think AI has a space and a place and it can add value. It can increase and optimize efficiency. It absolutely can.

25:13Natalie Berg: But without the human element, human judgment and intuition and nuance and the cultural narrative that goes around it, I think it still has to do a bit more work. It needs to be more refined in my opinion. Yeah. You know, I get excited when I see a typo now. so I'm like I know that that was written by a human the beauty and imperfection and that's what's key here we're going to look for imperfection imperfections because the imperfection tells you it's human it's real and not so authentic and that's what's going to be consumers because we're not perfect but AI in some respects might be perfect or trying to get close to perfect it's not perfection that we're seeking what we're actually seeking is is actually looking for nuance.

26:01And we're actually looking for, you know, how does that speak to a cultural narrative? How does that tell me something that's meaningful, deep and insightful? And you can't always get that just from reading something that AI has produced.

26:13Natalie Berg: Yeah, I was reading the other day that I think it was I think the stat was around half of LinkedIn posts are now generated by AI. And it's a tricky subject, isn't it? Because on the one hand, LinkedIn, for example, is giving you tools to say, do you want to strengthen your post, use our AI feature? But then on the other, it's like, you know, you've got YouTube and other platforms slapping AI labels on AI generated content. So we're in this sort of weird in between period. And, you know, I don't know where we'll land, but I do feel like we're going to claw back a little bit because I'm personally getting tired of all the AI content.

26:46Natalie Berg: It's just so homogenous and samey. And I totally agree because what happens with consumers is they can see that AI can create, discard and recreate content straight away. So it doesn't feel real and this is why stories are going to be really important going forward how you tell your story which is real and authentic to you is what's going to land with the consumer because what ai doesn't have is cultural fluency and it doesn't understand the cultural nuance for example when the flags went off around the uk you know if you had to say i had to explain what was going on it really would have a hard time trying to explain that or for example if you asked it to explain cultural nuance of an ethnic community such as me for example celebrating Eid and what we do our traditions they might be able to you know explain them but they wouldn't be able to explain the cultural meanings of why we do it why do we do certain things why do we cook certain recipes it can't tell you that it can't tell you the things that's going to lead to that deeper insight and that's what it's missing it might be able to in five years in ten years when it becomes more intelligent and is able to tell us more things but at the moment it just misses certain things i was speaking to somebody about and they were a beauty brand um director and they were talking about korean beauty and when they put it into ai actually thought it was Korean as in somewhere in Seoul a brand of beauty because it didn't get the cultural fluency and and the cultural nuance that it's actually not that they're talking about brands that are based on the you know the cultural narrative of being Korean and how they're now available anywhere pretty much but it didn't get it and she was saying she was talking about how that example illustrated that it's not as clever as everybody thinks it is and that's a simple thing like you You know, you'd know that it's quite simple to actually know that that's what we mean when we say Korean beauty.

28:47But they seem to pick it up as a location somewhere in Korea.

28:52Natalie Berg: Yeah, just thinking literally. Yeah, exactly. Literally. I think consumers are going to be tired of AI in certain spaces. Like my daughter, she's nine years old. If we're watching TikTok and she says something from AI, she just gets frustrated and wants to scroll straight through it because she just can't connect to it. like a baby talking fluently on AI and social media is just nonsense isn't it so some things are completely unbelievable yeah some things sit on the cusp yeah yeah absolutely so just just briefly back to the topic of consumer trust as a final question for you Amna and it's a big one to end on but we are moving towards this agentic world whether we like it or not where agents will in the very near future shop on our behalf.

29:38Natalie Berg: So, you know, consumer completely opted out of the transaction. There's a whole question around who's making those shopping decisions. It's a big topic, but what does this mean for consumer trust? So if these agents are buying on behalf of the consumer, what does brand trust even mean? I think it just means that the trust gets further and further off the funnel. Like I said, it's every interaction equity exchange and every process that you connect with the consumer at the end of the day that agent will be trained by the consumer for their preferences so what that basically means is the brands that have already established the trust will be the ones that come higher in the in the list and the ai will be recommending the products which means that many brands need to be positioned themselves and get you know savvy with the ai so that they feature in those brands but equally you will see that consumers preferences will be really shaped by what they already know and what they want and the window to open up to new brands might actually mean that they have to enter the consumer's visibility in different spaces that's what's going to happen because if google is taken over by an ai agent and it's going to do all the shopping for you well you have to feed it the information that's going to generate what your preferences are because even if it suggested say five different toxins of water.

30:58I'm going to go with the water bottle that I want to go with, which I have pre-established trust with, which I've used before, which I feel is competent, unless I decide to change to a different product for some various different reasons. That might be word of mouth, that might be values not positioning with it, and things have changed. But essentially, what we'll know is consumer's preferences will be more determined and more optimized in this process, and discoverability will change quite significantly.

31:24Natalie Berg: Yeah, I guess that's the real concern, isn't it? That we just end up sort of, you know, buying the same things week in and week out. I mean, especially in grocery, we sort of do that anyway. But perhaps I'll have to get you back, Emna, for another podcast episode or we can explore that further. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been really great having you on the podcast. It's been brilliant to be part of this podcast. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you for listening to Retail Disrupted. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please leave a rating or review or share it with others.

31:56Natalie Berg: It really makes a difference.