0:01 Thank you, Doug. Great insights, and great job covering for Keith Fair. So the importance, the power, and the impact of authenticity in shaping commerce couldn't be clearer. 0:10 The trust mark isn't just a strategy. It's a game changer. And speaking of trust and building on that foundation, our next session will explain why authenticity is the foundation of modern marketing from combating misinformation to setting new standards for transparency and credibility. 0:26 So let's bring up our next expert panel moderated by our very own CMO, Serena Stanford. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Art. 0:39 Well, I have to read my note for one one particular part, which is from the keynote just now, you probably counted about twenty or so mentions of trust and authenticity. 0:51 But this is the important part. Trust cannot be taken for granted, especially when the trust is between your brand and your consumers. 0:59 And hence, this particular panel. I'm really, really thrilled to be introducing my panelists, two leading industry leaders. 1:09 And if I may, hello. How are you? Good morning. Good afternoon. Osh from who is the chief brand officer of, Mesa, and Stephane, who is the director of digital innovation and impact for Consumers International. 1:25 Now before we go into that, what I really would like to do is to show this quote from Ananda, who is one of the industry analysts from IDC. 1:34 And I'm gonna actually read this verbatim. Trust is the hallmark of good business. There hasn't been a handshake, a contract, or an alliance executed without it. 1:46 Alliance for authenticity builds trust with the consumer, the most important relationships in the consumer centric world. Thank you, Ananda, for piping in and for your shared voice as well as your point of view. 2:00 I know both of you are absolutely passionate about this particular topic, and that's why when we assemble us together, I said we have to have this conversation. 2:10 So let me first and foremost. Right? Why don't we have you introduce yourself and your company a little bit? And, Stefan, if you don't mind, why don't we do it ladies ladies first? 2:20 Osh, to you. Oh, I thought we were gonna start with Stefan so I would have a minute to think. Alright. So I, I'm Oshya Savour. 2:30 Easy to remember me as Osh, three letters. I'm the chief brand and marketing officer at Mesa. We are, Bain Capital Health's portfolio company. 2:40 And, how we define what we do is we operate and incubate brands in, mass personal care and beauty environments. So some of our most well known brands are CRISPRNICE, being Frenchie that we just launched with Ashley Testell, Finery, which is a perfumes brand, and heritage by Mindy McKnight and so on. 2:58 So next time you guys go to Target or Walmart, you will see our brands. But not only are we operating these brands, we're constantly looking for white spaces and sleepy CPG giant categories and bringing in new, brands and categories disruptions as well. 3:12 So over the next couple of weeks, we are going to be announcing our very new launch, which is in a category we don't exist in today, so I'm very excited about that. 3:23 Well, we can't wait to hear more about it. Also, if you would, when we have the right time, I love, for you to talk about the Mesa Magic. 3:31 We'll wait on that on that note. Hand in on that. Stephane, great to see you again. We were together in New York just a few months ago. 3:39 Tell us about Consumers International. I think many of us touch you, feel you, and be a part of you because we are members as well, beneficiaries of your members. 3:49 And tell us about that and as well as your remit as the innovation and impact category areas. Yeah. Definitely. 3:57 Thanks so much, for having me, Serena, and I wish I could be with you there in the room. I think you've you've summed up really well, but Consumers International is the global membership group for consumer associations. 4:12 So think about the group in your country which is fighting for your rights, whether that's online rights, whether that's in store rights. 4:23 Whatever consumer rights you have, there's a there's an organization in your country around the world which is advocating for you in government spaces with businesses, and many other places too. 4:35 And they are the ones that are helping, advance all of our rights around the world, improve our safety, improve product regulation, and increasingly improve our digital, lives and experiences too. 4:48 Yeah. So Consumers International is the collection of those amazing organizations. There are two hundred of them, that we bring together in a hundred countries, and we are their voice internationally. 5:01 So when, when there are policy conversations happening at the UN, at the OECD, and many of other international spaces, we are the voice of those organizations and, by extension, the voice of consumers, as well around the world. 5:17 So we are nothing without consumers, obviously, but also try to fight and advocate and champion their rights, every day as well. 5:26 Thank Thank you, Stefan. I I really wanted to underscore that. Right? We are only who we are because of the consumers and the respective voices of the consumers. 5:37 And why I love the fact is that you're really seeing a collection in terms of representing the brand side, the business perspective, as well as representing the advocates from a consumer's angle. 5:47 And then certainly from Bizarre Voice, this is really hot and core to what we do in our business as well too. I do wanted to, cite just some reality, right, if you will. 5:57 The scale of what we're talking about. We're talking about trust. Love for each of you to talk a little bit about your perspective of trust and authenticity. 6:06 And if I may also have you really, really bring it up to the whole global scale. The reality is that there are tens and tens of consumers who are not only consumers only, but they are really influencers and content creators that we individuals would trust would want to be able to trust. 6:25 Can you comment each on that? Should we come to you first, Stephan, since we're talking about consumers? Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think for us, we like to we like to imagine this idea of consumer care and where trust, and authenticity fit in in that equation. 6:45 So for us, consumer care is has two components. It's about protecting consumers, making sure that they're safe, and it's about empowering them, making sure that they actually can participate properly in in the economy, basically. 7:00 So how what are the things that, contribute to this overall consumer care, and how can we strengthen them? 7:09 That's one of the sort of core missions of consumers international. But thinking about how we would apply that, in the context of trust and authenticity authenticity. 7:19 I mean, you can imagine, you know, consumers have the right to informed, information informed decision making. 7:28 They need to be able to trust that the product claims that they're, reading, the service terms, the credentials of a product are actually real so that they can compare those options fairly and make the choice that's right for them. 7:46 It's also about consumers being able to align their purchases with their values. I think this is something that we talked about in, New York at at your last summit. 7:57 And this idea that consumers actually make many, many value driven choices, whether it's sustainability, whether it comes to local purchasing, or, you know, the labor involved, in a product. 8:11 Without that authentic and truthful information, then it's really hard for consumers to actually both make those decisions and push forward the values that that they want to see, developing around the world. 8:23 So that's how I think this, the concept of trust and authenticity, can help protect and keep consumers, participating in the in the economy effectively. 8:36 I think there's also an idea that something needs to be available to consumers for when things go wrong. 8:47 Just listening to the keynote previously, I was astounded to hear about the financial penalties that, companies might be subject to just for consumers reading a fake review. 9:00 And I think that's, that's an incredible, drive by government to actually challenge misinformation and unfair practices. 9:09 Usually, the burden of doing that is on the consumer. You know, they have to advocate for themselves. So I think it's brilliant to see, this sort of societal movement around how do we build more trust in our information ecosystem. 9:25 You need to obviously have the a stick, available to regulators to do that. But I'd I'd be asking the the people in the room and the people involved in this conversation, what's the carrot? 9:40 How do you how do you also make sure that companies are doing this for the right reasons, not because they're afraid of the the penalties too. 9:48 So I think that's really where the going back to the consumer care, concept comes in. Think about, you know, what it takes to actually empower consumers, not just protect them at a minimum, safety level. 10:01 Yeah. Thank you, Stefan. I I can't I can't emphasize enough of what you just said, which is the burden really shouldn't be with the consumers. 10:12 All of us, if you were here physically with me in the room, I would be reaching out and holding our hands together because it is us together really bringing this whole alliance, this whole movement together. 10:24 Also, I wanna pick up from here. In in prior showings and in prior conversations, especially in earlier as it was clipped as a part of the keynote, you really talk about this notion of trust. 10:36 You've also shared with us before the importance of how you as a house brand or as a as a incubator really talk about the obsession of the customer voice. 10:48 Can you expand on that a little bit? And how do you ensure and how do we partner and how do we collectively do what we needed to do so we're only not leading only on the brands or the consumers or the solution providers. 11:00 It really all the regulatory, re concerns. Right? It's really all of us coming together. Yeah. No. You know, I wanted to first sort of, like, zoom out a little bit and and and and talk about just what trust means in today's environment. 11:17 You know? It's never been more challenged before. I think truth has never been challenged before as much in the case of deep fakes and AI generated content, which may not always be true. 11:28 Fake news is rampant, and there are fact checkers that are being removed from all the social media platforms. And even so, the consumers are consuming news not always from very authentic news channels, but actually through social media. 11:40 So I think, overall, I do believe that there's a trust crisis in a way that we are walking into. There's a crisis around truth. 11:48 And whilst the burden of it resides on the brand, but so much of it is now being communicated from consumer to consumers in terms of what they believe about the brand. 11:58 So I think overall, just if we were to take all a step back and say what is what's going on in the world, I I do believe that there's a trust crisis upon us. 12:06 And how we, create more authenticity within that is very, very important. Now what I am particularly super excited about, UGC or consumer to consumer marketing because at the end of the day, word-of-mouth has been the holy grail of marketing because it is the best kind of marketing. 12:26 When you're not watching and your people are talking about your brand, it is the best kind of marketing because that just is the most authentic, most truthful, most honest way to talk about a brand. 12:35 Right? So when we get to that point where our brands can be spoken off by consumers when we are not watching is truly the best kind of honor as a brand one can have. 12:46 Right? So I think for for us, that's why we are obsessed with consumer, generated or UGC, content at Mesa. Specifically within that, how I look at UGC is I look at it all the way from powerhouse influencers down to ratings and reviews that are generated on the websites. 13:05 And I would say the reason why utilize such a wide lens of UGC is because any content that's not created by brand but is talking about the brand in the in the world outside is is user generated content. 13:17 Right? So the quantum of it that's happening right now is so huge. And, Serena, we've spoken about this in the past. More and more, the content that the consumers are consuming about the brands is not the content created by the brands. 13:31 I would argue less than fifty percent of the content being consumed about the brands is not the content brands created themselves. Right? So that was content created by consumers or influencers or ratings and reviews. 13:42 So I think it's very interesting that we put all of that lens into this whole equation, right, and talking about this consumer to consumer marketing and what is the role the brand can play in driving that authenticity at scale when they are themselves not creating that content. 13:56 Yeah. I I was I was I was nodding profusely for the fact is that at the end of the day, I wanted to just give you a lit and maybe the audience a little bit of a clip, is that in a little bit, in my session later, I'm actually gonna showcase the fact that seventy six percent of what consumers first and foremost look for all fall into the organic category. 14:18 And it's only about twenty four percent when they really look at, okay, what now the brands tells me and at different points of time. So I think this is such a paramount time for us to really having this conversation. 14:30 Stefan, I wanted to come back to you. You mentioned a little bit about this coalition or this alliance. Right? We've been in that conversation. And in fact, just for full transparency, we really connected through the project that, in fact, all all three of us happened to be involved, as the purchasing power, project that we had done with the BBC. 14:51 And the reality is that when we learned about what each of our company's mission were, we just instantaneously said, wow. We really have to do what is the right thing than carry the burden on our own as an industry to showcase to the rest of the world. 15:07 Can you tell a little talk a little bit about in terms of, you know, when within Consumers International as well as from your membership communities, how do you expand and and help maybe do that role modeling and maybe the incenting and helping with that. 15:22 And maybe we could tell a little bit on the marketing side as well too. Stefan? Yeah. I mean, we've we're we're really flattered to be invited to join the authenticity alliance, and think it's a great initiative. 15:37 I wish it was beyond the realm of just sort of content and marketing. I wish we could, expand this to all areas of the digital economy, to be honest. 15:47 I think one thing that we've seen is that it's truly difficult and getting harder for consumers to participate in the digital economy, not because the products and services are not there, but because those that experience is creating added vulnerability, basically, for the individuals in that system. 16:10 And on top of that, it's undermining the their their own personal resilience. I mean, we've done some research in, the the digital finance, space. 16:20 So thinking about how consumers use banking services, payment services. It's a very niche area of the digital economy. 16:29 But what we've seen there is that the more sort of vulnerable consumers are, are you the more risks they face, the less trust they have in the system overall. 16:43 And so individual consumers might have, you know, a negative a particular negative experience, like they might be scammed, and make a a payment that they didn't intend to make. 16:55 What that translates as as a systemic level is that you've got almost fifty percent of consumers saying that, they don't trust that their money is safe in, in digital banking. 17:07 So if you've got half of consumers that effectively, would rather keep their money under the mattress than with their bank, you can see that there's a real problem, with trust. 17:18 So I'd love to be able to to solve that and and get people thinking about how, how they interact with all forms of, content and trust across the digital economy because I think it's so we're at such a precarious moment where undermining trust in one area will have these spillover effects, in many other, you know, really critical in just industries too. 17:45 So what I think is is particularly exciting about the authenticity alliance is, first of all, this idea of information sharing and and collaboration. 17:53 So industry actors being able to say, this is what has worked for us. How could we improve it? How could we scale it? 18:02 How could others learn from from us too? I think that's a a brilliant starting point. And the second area that I'm really excited about is the idea of actually developing further standards or, you know, further policies, whether at the company level or the industry level for what good truly looks like. 18:21 Because I think, you know, you mentioned or perhaps it was in the keynote, there's the trust mark. I think that that's the kind of thing that can help consumers. 18:31 If it's if it's happening in collaboration with multiple, actors in the industry, it's only gonna be stronger. So those are two areas that I'm I'm really excited about the alliance, and our parties participation in it. 18:46 What we hope to bring is the real perspective of of consumers, to the the challenges that that group is trying to address. Yeah. Thank you, Stefan. 18:56 I I'm gonna go ahead and say on behalf of, the Zavoyes, this is really the first chapter what we could all do together. I totally agree in the sense that the aspiration is that if we can really raise together a much better marketplace and remove the hesitance of all this vulnerability, that's what we are here to do together. 19:16 On that point, I really love the word, Stephan, you mentioned about vulnerability. I'm gonna be here to share with you because we work with brands and retailers and consumers ourselves and and others as well. 19:29 I think every party has and share that vulnerability. So do you mind if I just go off a little bit on a tangent, maybe I'll to ask you just to comment on the perspective. 19:41 Right? You protect your entire brand, the whole brand equity, the whole brand safety elements of it. 19:49 In a scale is, like, monumental to that of the individual, but because your entire consumer base and your entire portfolio falls on that trust and that vulnerability. 20:02 Do you do you wanna share your thoughts on that? Yeah. You know, I think I think when I think about what Stefan was just talking about where it was around the financials and trust around being able to make a transaction and knowing that your money is safe. 20:19 I feel like those are very high risk, spaces. Right? Like, financials, very, very important. The the spaces then in consumer goods, while, yes, trust is important, but I he just made me think about the risk risk of the decision, right, that you're making if you're buying a shampoo conditioner bottle. 20:39 Right? It's not the same as putting a thousand dollar check out there and not knowing whether that money will be there in your bank account or not. Right? So it's hiding money under the mattress because you don't trust your bank is a whole different level of severity in my mind to to consumer goods. 20:53 So I think in a way, Stefan's larger concern makes me really think about my concerns very little. But Yeah. But overall, I think for us, the real, trust comes through in ratings and reviews. 21:05 I live by the ratings and reviews that consumers leave behind on on our product pages, of course. No negative review was a negative review in my eye because it actually opens our eyes to something that could potentially be wrong with the product or or an experience that we need to just educate the consumers on. 21:22 So we actually place a lot of importance of ratings and reviews. Of course, Serena, we work with you in terms of seeding them, but, also, we're constantly reading the Internet and learning the social sentiment not only through the ratings and reviews, but also just what are people speaking and saying of our brands at large in social media platforms because that in and of itself just adds up to the overall authenticity metric. 21:46 And there, I think, increasingly remains a gap between what the brand is communicating to what the consumers are perceiving the knowledge to be. Luckily for us, and you had called out Mesa Magic before, several of our brands are young. 22:00 Right? Like, our oldest brand is eight years old. And so we do tend to have a very one on one connection with our consumers. 22:08 So we are able to get that level of authenticity, that positive sentiment, that ability to create connection at scale, that that the consumers do trust the brands that we are putting out there and the knowledge that we are sharing with them. 22:20 So I don't know if that specifically answers your question, but I do think that there is something to be said about the level of risk a consumer is taking in terms of the decision they're making based on the information available at large in digital economy to what Stefan mentioned. 22:35 But within that, I think all the written forms of communication, I e ratings and reviews, become a really, really critical way how we communicate trust and authenticity to our consumers. 22:44 Yeah. I think, Ash, you you absolutely applied the whole scale, right, in terms of because it isn't just from one consumer's angle. 22:53 It isn't just from one business angle. It really is from the old global economy scale. And, we we talked about it when we were on the on the purchasing power project that at the end of the day, with where consumers' voices can carry today is really a movement led by billions because there are billions of us. 23:12 And I take a lot of pride in being a consumer, and I think that this is the kind of conversation that I put myself as a consumer, it helps me at ease to know that different members of the whole ecosystem and the value system are coming together. 23:26 I do want to take this to just one quick moment. We're hinting on the impact of technology. Right? This whole digital economy, this whole digital connectedness that we're in. 23:37 I would really be very first foremost in saying that you hinted on that earlier and, and Doug mentioned at the at the keynote, is the fact of the impact of, as an example, AI. 23:49 Just allow me maybe thirty seconds to talk about from the authenticity policy that we do here at Bazaarvoice. The first and foremost thing that we really do is to truly authenticate that there is an actual person behind that post, that content, that video, and what have you. 24:04 Right? This is the most important part because we're talking about people to people. We're talking about consumers to consumers. And the second thing that we actually would do is to say, if that person really is a real person, is the product of reference or is the content of reference really contextual to what he or she might have experienced? 24:18 Really contextual to what he or she might have experienced? Because you mentioned, I think, Stephan, on the experience piece of it, that has to be validated and that has to be absolutely contained and to be all authenticated. 24:32 On top of that, it has to be truly contextual to the design or the origin or the or the original purpose for that particular product. 24:41 So that's how the whole moderation comes into play. And, we talked about that trust mark and that it's going to be announcing. That actually is a practice that we've done as a part of the authenticity policy. 24:52 Many of the brands and retailers actually, provide that. And we did recently a a research by consumers, and they basically said is that if I can see a third party icon, notation, or symbol of sorts, that brings my vulnerability. 25:10 That brings me a little bit more at ease in terms of the trust. So I think we're all really coming around on on the same angle in here. Just looking on time here, can I, just have us bring back back together? 25:22 What is the one advice that you would have for your peers listening and for ourselves and, in terms of how do we move forward? 25:30 What do we do? Stefan, you wanna take the okay. Go ahead. Go. Go. Go. Go. 25:38 Yeah. So from from a from a brand perspective, you know, as I was talking about earlier, the amount of content that's needed now to to keep the conversation going and staying top of mind is so unprecedented. 25:51 Just ten, fifteen years ago Yeah. Putting three or four pieces of content and putting a ton of paid media behind it was absolutely enough. Right? But now consumers could be on myriad of social media platforms. 26:02 They could be watching TV or not. They could be reading a magazine or not. They could be at an event or not. Like, there's just so many places a brand has to be, and it's almost impossible to be at all the places as a brand. 26:16 So what my advice to all the brand marketers is that what we hold very dear to our hearts, which is to own every piece of communication that we put out there, is increasingly very unlikely. 26:29 So, therefore, this whole buzzword around, which I actually formally really believe in, is community and this consumer to consumer marketing. The more you can create a connection at scale, the more you can educate your consumers to speak about your brand in the way that you would want your brand to speak about the brand. 26:47 Right? Like, it's the education. It's the openness for that dialogue is extremely important because it is almost unavoidable that more than fifty percent of the marketing we put out there is not gonna be marketing that the brand created themselves. 27:00 It would be marketing that's created by the consumers for your brand. So so, really, as a brand marketer, it's onus on you. How do you create those education moments? 27:09 How do you create that connection at scale so they can trust you as a brand and they can create content for you in ways that you would want your brand to be represented? 27:17 Thank thank you. Stefan? I think I'll bring it back to, to what I said at the beginning, you know, this idea that consumer care is about both protection and empowerment. 27:33 And I think speaking to your audience, I'd ask I'd ask people to think about this notion of consumer centricity. 27:44 And I think for many companies, that notion is focused on understanding everything about the consumer. But that isn't necessarily, you know, done with the consumer in mind. 27:57 It might be done to solve a specific, you know, business issue. Like, how do you convert them into, you know, higher paid product or into a different category, for example. 28:10 I would flip that a little bit and try to say, think about consumer centricity as the consumer truly being both protected and empowered, and all the different elements of that transparency of information, access to, you know, redress when things go wrong, being able to support them in living their values. 28:36 There's many other areas, but I think that would be my my message to take away. It's when when you're thinking about consumer centricity, really put the human being, in the middle of it, and not not the business problem. 28:51 But, yeah, look forward to to speaking about this more through the Authenticity Alliance as well. Yeah. Thank thank you both very, very much. I'm just watching on time. 29:01 Really can't thank you enough to share. And my only plea to the rest of us in the audience is to really continue to truly make sure that on the point about customer's consumer centric as well as really being true to self to the human element of it. 29:16 Thank you so so very much. Emma and Ed, I'm gonna hand it back to you.
