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

[00:00:00] Once 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.

[00:00:28] 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. But if you want trust that's really resilient and twice as effective, we need the emotional aspects of trust.

[00:00:50] 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 1500 contributions to the media and she is a sought after global speaker

[00:01:06] 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.

[00:01:27] Amna, 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. Can you kick us off by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background?

[00:01:46] So I'm Dr. Amna Khan. I'm 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.

[00:02:11] 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. 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.

[00:02:31] 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?

[00:02:48] 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 in a much more favorable way than the actual buyer does.

[00:03:07] But essentially what we're witnessing for consumer 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.

[00:03:32] 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. And once upon a time, what the brand said is what the consumer believed. Today, that's not the case. Consumers are different.

[00:04:01] They're empowered, they're aware, 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 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.

[00:04:28] So 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. 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.

[00:04:53] 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.

[00:05:15] 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.

[00:05:45] It's every single touch point. And the consumer is 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. So 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. We know that trust isn't static.

[00:06:14] It has to be earned. To what extent do cultural or generational differences make when it comes to trust? Does a Gen Z shopper trust brands or a Gen Alpha shopper? I'm just thinking of my own kids and how 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.

[00:06:39] Generations, Gen Alpha, Gen Z, millennials all come from different cultural contexts in the sense that our lived experiences are different. For example, when we were growing up, the things of, say, the 90s when I grew up, Natalie, I don't know if you grew up in 90s, were 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.

[00:07:08] 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 influence. 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,

[00:07:32] were more likely to connect with TikTok livestream shopping experiences because they felt as though they had been seen. And 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.

[00:07:56] And what that research actually established was that when an individual on these livestream shopping experiences feels as though the host sees them or other consumers see them in these community environments, they become more impulsive and 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.

[00:08:26] And we can see how these digital spaces and livestream 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 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.

[00:08:54] You know, we wouldn't have necessarily had this community aspect of shopping that we now have and 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.

[00:09:22] And 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. Yeah, it's interesting to get your views on this because like so many things, it's nuanced, isn't it?

[00:09:44] I know there was an article in the Harvard Business Review, which I polled 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. It's booming. But trust, as we've said, is eroding.

[00:10:04] 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. Now, it can be a little bit murky with things like paid partnerships and, you know, what's a genuine endorsement versus, you know, what's an ad.

[00:10:31] And I know there's obviously very, 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 are 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 has evolved because our context has evolved.

[00:11:01] If 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 were producers. We produced the goods that we consumed. And, you know, for example, I'd be producing potatoes. You would be producing carrots and raw goods swap. We produced our own goods. Then the industrial age came and we developed brands and businesses. And we then started to place our trust in organizations.

[00:11:29] 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 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.

[00:11:58] You'll have the competence, the delimitory 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. Now, what you need to remember is trust develops slowly, incrementally over interactions.

[00:12:25] 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 these influencers. And you're absolutely right.

[00:12:49] 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.

[00:13:09] So 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 I work there every Sunday, you weren't guaranteed to come and see me because you might be shopping on a different day.

[00:13:38] Now you've got that creator or influencer on your screen every single day talking to you. They're familiar faces. And what we witness is we've moved from faces brands to brands that have faces attached to 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.

[00:14:06] 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.

[00:14:31] Would I say that consumers don't connect or trust influencers? They 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 has changed. Will consumers trust in their 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.

[00:14:57] And I'm still quite happy to go and buy Unilever, you know, body care products and use them. Doesn't necessarily mean I've got a face attached to Unilever, but I still trust that brand. But equally, I trust creative brands too. I've bought lots of creative brands, whether that might be Gymshark or Owner Active. I've bought brands that are from creators too. And what we're going to see is they're going to grow. The creators and influencer brands are definitely going to grow.

[00:15:25] 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 brand on TikTok for beauty and makeup. You know, shout out to Manchester because I'm from Manchester. Manchester. She's had incredible success.

[00:15:52] I had the head of retail of TikTok on the podcast, I think it was late last year. And yeah, he actually called out her brand. I mean, she was doing, you know, 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 their brand. Her brand isn't 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.

[00:16:21] 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. 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 came straight out. She spoke to her consumers, her community, connected with them, said that she'd got something wrong.

[00:16:48] 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 brand to do that? She's there, interacting, immediate personal response straight away. Builds better ones, relationship. And that, you know, consumers are willing to stay with her for that. Yeah, definitely. I was laughing because it reminds me of Trini London. I think she's been another incredible success.

[00:17:15] 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. 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.

[00:17:44] 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 there's a fundamental difference. And that's why we're seeing this shift that's happening right now. 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.

[00:18:14] 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 is picked up on this niche of mine. And 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. And again, it just shows how retail through technology, through social media, is allowing

[00:18:44] for a much more personalized experience for shoppers, which I think is pretty cool. And I think 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 shoe and it was, you know, something that just shoe 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

[00:19:12] not going to hit the mark in profitability or it's not going to do the numbers that it needs to. But 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 that's the beauty of like what's happened with social media and the way that

[00:19:38] 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. 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. 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.

[00:20:08] 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. What's your take on this? Can you actually automate trust development? How does that work? I believe we can.

[00:20:36] 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 on with various different issues. Now, AI is used on the shop floor through digital devices where they can narrow down the search

[00:21:06] 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.

[00:21:27] And one looks after the human element, which saves you the time to actually spread building that meaningful, emotional, bonded 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.

[00:21:54] So on the shop floor, I definitely believe that it serves a place and a space. If you think about online social media, many of these influencers, creators are using ManyChat, 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.

[00:22:19] But through ManyChat, the consumer is going to perceive that you are having some interaction with them, which is immediate. 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.

[00:22:45] But more importantly, because of the bond that it can potentially build with the consumer. 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 imagery.

[00:23:15] 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 AI. I know you did a piece for the BBC on AI free content and putting labels on these types of things. So I don't know. So, yeah, I just feel like it's, again, it can be a little bit nuanced. I think it depends, Natalie. So in certain contexts, as it works, so in the short floor, if that's going to give you a better experience, then, you know, they're going to welcome AI.

[00:23:44] 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-bolt, 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 automation 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.

[00:24:11] 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 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. It really depends on the shop floor. It might serve a purpose.

[00:24:41] 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, you know, 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.

[00:25:09] It can increase and optimize efficiency. It absolutely can. 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 in imperfection.

[00:25:37] And that's what's key here. We're going to look for imperfections because the imperfection tells you it's human, it's real and not so authentic. And that's what's going to be used to 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. And we're actually looking for, you know, how does that speak to a cultural narrative?

[00:26:05] 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. 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.

[00:26:30] 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. 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.

[00:26:58] 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.

[00:27:25] 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.

[00:27:49] It might be able to, in five years, in 10 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 director. And they were talking about Korean beauty. And when they put it into AR, it actually thought it was Korean, as in somewhere in Seoul, a brand of beauty.

[00:28:15] Because it didn't get the cultural fluency and the cultural nuance that it's actually not that. They're talking about brands that are based on, 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 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 know, you'd know that.

[00:28:41] It's quite simple to actually know that that's what we mean when we say Korean beauty. But they seem to pick it up as a location somewhere in Korea. Yeah. Just thinking literally. Too 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.

[00:29:09] Like a baby talking fluently on AI in social media is just nonsense, isn't it? So some things are completely unbelievable. Yeah. But then some things sit on the cusp. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So 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.

[00:29:38] So, you know, consumer completely opted out of the transaction. There's a whole question around who is 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.

[00:30:02] 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 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.

[00:30:28] 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, you have to feed it the information that's going to generate what your preferences are.

[00:30:55] Because even if it's suggested, say, five different options of water, I'm going to go with 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.

[00:31:24] 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, Natal. Thank you for listening to Retail Disrupted. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast,

[00:31:54] please leave a rating or review or share it with others. It really makes a difference.