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Understanding people’s ‘New World’ brand expectations

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By Richard Barrett

If you work in marketing, you might want to look away now. The brutal truth is… the vast majority of people don’t care about your brand. In fact, 81% of the brands sold across Europe could disappear overnight and consumers wouldn’t be concerned… They probably wouldn’t even notice.

Various dynamics are at play here. Firstly, abundance. With up to 30,000 new products being launched every year, we’re all spoilt for choice. With so much variety on offer, very few brands feel truly indispensable. Secondly, unbrands. We’re increasingly exposed to no name brands from the likes of Amazon, Aldi and Lidl. When these perform well, it undercuts the perceived value of traditional brands. Finally, loss of trust. It doesn’t take many rotten apples to spoil the brand barrel and there have been lots of examples recently of world-famous brands apparently acting in bad faith.

These are all significant, but there’s one factor that’s even more important. People’s expectations of brands have risen faster than brands’ ability to meet those expectations. It’s an important issue, one we first touched on in our previous MarTech focused article on why marketing technology needs to be brand-led and how to achieve it.

This expectation gap can’t be ignored. And the first step towards tackling it is understanding what people want from ‘new world’ brands.

  • CLARITY OF PURPOSE. This isn’t necessarily about ‘doing good’ for society. It’s more about any brand being crystal clear on the role it wants to play in people’s lives.
  • TRANSPARENCY. People demand that brands be authentic and consistent in their behaviour. When they ask questions, they want the brand to respond quickly and honestly.
  • ACTIVE CONTRIBUTION. Increasingly, people want brands to help them do or experience more. They expect brands to go beyond providing mere product utility.
  • PERMANENCE. Thanks to social media, people are ‘always on’ and they want the same from brands. They’re looking for brands to be working 365 days a year, constantly feeding their social and cultural passions.
  • DEMONSTRABLY NATIVE. People are highly attuned to the codes and customs of individual media channels. For brands to be welcomed in these spaces, they must act in a way that is perfectly tailored to the environment.
  • EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCES. It’s never been truer that the customer is always right. Consumers drive the agenda and they expect brands to deliver excellence however and whenever they engage.
  • CONTEXTUAL RELEVANCE. ‘Good enough’ isn’t good enough. People want brands to provide solutions that specifically resolve their needs in the moment.
  • APPROPRIATE PERSONALISATION. People don’t see themselves as part of the crowd and they don’t want to be treated as such, especially if they’re current customers. If it’s dangerous for brands to be overly familiar, it’s even more dangerous when they appear blind to existing relationships.

Meeting these expectations consistently is an extraordinarily high bar, one that will require technology to reach it. Not tech just for the sake of it, but solutions specifically designed to meet one or more of the expectations outlined above. One single imperative should drive every decision: will this help me provide better answers to my customers’ needs?

By Richard Barrett

Sourced from The Drum

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How Brands Can Adapt When AI Agents Do the Shopping

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By Ali Furman, Ege Gürdeniz, Rima Safari and Remzi Ural

Generative AI is starting to change shopping. Instead of scrolling on websites or strolling through stores, people are beginning to prompt AI agents to find, compare, and even purchase products. Ask for something like a handmade gift under $100, a pair of vintage jeans from the 1970s, or a digital camera for a teenager, and watch a list of curated options appear in the chat. It’s fast and frictionless. But it’s also early days. And just as companies had to adapt to the new rules of e-commerce, they’re now faced with a new set of challenges around how they manage their reputations, connect with customers, and what it looks like to compete in this new paradigm.

Categories like beauty, lifestyle, and apparel are moving fastest, and early adopters are already experimenting. But if things go wrong, the consequences could be both immediate and lasting. For consumer-facing brands, there are five core risks that could break consumer trust as AI agents begin to shop on customers’ behalf:

  1. Agents misunderstand products and make the wrong choice. When product attributes aren’t structured for machines, AI agents guess. They can misinterpret sizing, miss constraints, hallucinate features, or recommend items that are not aligned with the customer’s intent.
  2. Agents act beyond what customers expected or authorized. Without clear delegation boundaries, agents can overspend, ignore constraints, or make irreversible decisions without confirmation.
  3. Sensitive conversational data becomes a liability. Agentic shopping captures more than transactions. It captures intent, emotion, and context. If that data is stored opaquely, reused unexpectedly, or exposed through a breach, customers can feel surveilled rather than served.
  4. Brands lose control of how they’re represented. In agent ecosystems, outdated prices, inaccurate information, or undisclosed sponsored placements can reach customers before marketing or legal teams ever see them.
  5. When something breaks, there’s no clear way back. In automated journeys, failures feel colder and harder to resolve. If customers can’t understand what went wrong, reach a human, or be made whole quickly, a single bad interaction can permanently sever the relationship.

Left unaddressed, these issues don’t just frustrate customers. They create real operational and financial impact: chargebacks, returns, and customer support costs; privacy violations that trigger regulatory scrutiny or lawsuits; and reputational damage that erodes loyalty and slows adoption.

Much of this comes down to trust. To drive agentic commerce adoption at scale, brands need to figure out how to earn—and keep—customers’ trust. And to do that, they need to understand what can go wrong and the steps they can take now to prevent trust from being broken.

The Trust Gap is Measurable

According to PwC’s 2025 Future of Consumer Shopping Survey, 64% of respondents said they need at least one safeguard, like a money-back guarantee, to feel comfortable letting an AI agent purchase for them. Even Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the most digitally native demographics, express caution alongside curiosity. Fundamental questions remain unanswered: Who has access to payment information? Who can authorize purchases? How is personal data stored and shared? Whose interests does the agent represent: the consumer’s, the tech platform’s, or the advertiser’s?

The challenge for brands in retail, consumer goods, and travel is both clear and urgent: How do you prepare for agentic commerce when the rules are still being written? You can’t fully control whether consumers adopt these tools. But you do have control over how your brand shows up in agent-driven experiences, and whether customers feel protected when they delegate decisions to AI.

Building the Trust Layer

We’ve seen this pattern before. In the early days of e-commerce, consumers were wary of entering credit card information on websites. But SSL encryption, PCI standards, and fraud protection transformed scepticism into confidence and unlocked mass adoption.

Agentic commerce needs its own trust infrastructure—what we call the trust layer. While trust can feel like an abstract concept, it breaks in specific, predictable ways: when agents misunderstand products, act beyond what customers expect, mishandle sensitive data, misrepresent brands, or leave consumers stranded when something goes wrong.

Addressing those risks requires concrete changes to how product data is structured, how delegation and consent are enforced, how data is protected, how brand presence is monitored in agent ecosystems, and how relationships are preserved when automation fails.

We recommend companies take five actions now to build that trust layer.

1. Structure your content for machines, not just humans.

To trust an AI agent, customers need it to return accurate and relevant information every time. This isn’t possible unless the agent can correctly understand the product and its features.

AI agents don’t browse visually or interpret nuance the way humans do. They digest text and numbers. That means product discoverability in agent-driven shopping depends less on branding or traditional search engine optimization (SEO) and more on machine-readable product data, an approach often referred to as generative engine optimization (GEO). Pricing, sizing, availability, materials, use cases, and constraints need to be expressed in formats agents can reliably parse and compare.

Consider two descriptions of the same hoodie:

  • “This sweatshirt is perfect for cozy fall nights.”
  • Material: fleece; temperature range: < 40°F; category: loungewear; fit: relaxed

While the first is written to evoke a specific vision in a customer, the second is optimized for an AI agent. To scale agentic commerce, companies may need to speak to both humans and agents, and be sure that they’re translating terms that customers naturally use—“lightweight,” “sustainable,” or “good for travel”—into an agent-focused product catalogue that maps those terms onto specific attributes.

Brands also may need to make sure that this information is accessible. While humans click from page to page and scan prose descriptions, descriptions for agents should be captured in machine-readable formats in your existing product information management systems and ecommerce platforms. They should also be formatted so agents can access them through APIs or web markup standards. Return policies, shipping info, and FAQs should similarly be modular and labelled. With information formatted and organized in the right way, agents can translate customer requests into precise matches.

2. Define clear boundaries and build in consent.

Consumers won’t delegate purchasing decisions to AI agents unless they understand, clearly and upfront, what those agents are allowed to do. This requires explicit delegation boundaries and consent that is embedded into the experience, not buried in terms and conditions. Safe delegation requires three things: clear limits, traceability, and reversibility. Every agent action should be attributable to a specific authorization, under defined conditions, with a clear way to undo or dispute the outcome.

In their own channels—the company website, app, or branded agent—brands can set spending caps, require approval for purchases over certain amounts, and build in confirmation steps before checkout. For example, a retailer could program its agent to surface return policies before a final purchase, or to pause and ask for confirmation if a recommendation falls outside a user’s budget.

When consumers use general-purpose AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, or others to shop across multiple retailers, the brands’ direct control is limited. But they can still influence the experience by ensuring product data is accurate and structured (see action #1). While it may be technically possible to support safeguards like confirmation prompts or return-policy disclosures within these platforms, doing so requires collaboration between brands and platform providers. In the meantime, brands can still influence outcomes by ensuring their product data is accurate, structured, and complete.

Industry efforts—such as Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, Stripe and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, and Anthropic’s new constitution for Claude—point toward standardized ways to express what agents may do, when they must ask, and how consent is enforced. As agentic commerce moves from experimentation to scale, brands that treat delegation as an essential design problem will be the ones consumers trust.

3. Protect customer data and make that protection visible.

When consumers delegate tasks to AI agents, they share more than payment details. They share conversational context: preferences, constraints, intent, and often emotion. That context is what makes agentic shopping powerful, and what makes it uniquely sensitive. If customers don’t understand how that data is used, remembered, or protected, they won’t delegate in the first place.

As brands launch their own AI agents to help customers shop for products, they should embed privacy-preserving design directly into agentic interactions. For example, brands can use data minimization and anonymization techniques, so their agents retain only what is necessary to complete a task. Sensitive conversational signals can be processed transiently rather than stored indefinitely. Consent should be explicit and configurable, with clear choices about what is remembered, what is shared across sessions or platforms, and what is not.

Visibility matters as much as protection. Consumers should be able to see—and change—their privacy posture in real time. Some interactions may warrant persistence, such as remembering a preferred size or brand. Others may not. An “incognito” or one-time shopping mode, where interactions are not retained or used for future recommendations, gives customers a sense of control that mirrors how people already manage privacy in browsers and payments.

4. Observe how your brand shows up in agent ecosystems.

In agentic commerce, AI platforms may become the first (and sometimes only) interface between your brand and a customer. When that happens, trust depends on what the platform’s agent says on your behalf. If an agent surfaces outdated pricing, invents product features, omits critical context, or cites unreliable sources, customers don’t see a system error. They see a brand failure.

That’s why brands need agentic observability: the ability to monitor, in real time, how AI agents describe their products, which sources they rely on, how recommendations are framed, and what actions are being taken downstream. This requires ongoing visibility into prompts, responses, citations, and decision logic across the agent ecosystems where customers are shopping.

Without observability, brands lose the ability to detect misrepresentation, correct errors, or understand why a product was or wasn’t recommended. As agents increasingly act as intermediaries, monitoring how your brand shows up is no longer optional.

5. Preserve relationships and plan for recovery.

Even when agents handle transactions, brands still own the relationship. And as shopping becomes more automated, brands should embed branded agents in third-party platforms, extend loyalty programs through agents, and design seamless escalation paths to reach a human when needed.

When things break, and they will, the response matters more than the failure. Recovery mechanisms should be built in from the start: real-time alerts, clear escalation paths, and explain ability. Some brands are already simulating agentic shopping journeys with synthetic customers to stress-test before launch. Trust is built through accountability, transparency, and making customers whole when errors occur.

Trust as Strategy, Not Compliance

AI-driven shopping will scale when consumers feel secure. That requires systems that are well-governed, transparent, and aligned with human expectations. The brands that lead won’t treat trust as a compliance exercise. They’ll treat it as a core part of their commerce strategy—building the technical standards, business practices, and consumer protections that make delegation safe. Those who act now will help define the rules of this emerging ecosystem.

Feature image credit: KKGAS/Stocksy

By Ali Furman, , Rima Safari and Remzi Ural

Ali Furman is the consumer markets industry leader at PwC and an M&A partner. She writes and speaks widely on consumer markets trends and the future of business. She has been featured in many outlets including ABC, CBS, CNBC, Forbes, Vogue Business, and Bloomberg.
Ege Gürdeniz is an AI trust leader and technology risk expert at PwC. He advises companies on how to build trust, safety, and governance into AI-driven products, platforms, and business models.
Rima Safari leads data, analytics, and AI for PwC US and serves as the firm’s strategic alliance leader with OpenAI. She writes and speaks widely on AI strategy, agentic systems, and data readiness required for scaling AI, and her perspectives have been featured across leading business and technology forums.
Remzi Ural is the AI leader for consumer markets within PwC. He has been recognized as a thought leader for AI strategy definition and adoption, particularly with retail and consumer packaged goods clients, driving business outcomes and standing up modern AI capabilities.

Sourced from Harvard Business Review

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Why Brands That Still Run Ads Are Losing to Brands That Tell Stories

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By Jonny Caplan | Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

Modern brands can no longer buy attention through advertising — they must earn it by becoming storytellers people choose to spend time with.

Key Takeaways

  • People don’t remember ads. They remember stories that reflect who they are and what they value.
  • Attention isn’t bought anymore; it’s earned through meaning, emotion and sustained narrative.

We are living through the age of brand-built entertainment.

This is not a marketing trend, and it is not a creative fad. It is a structural shift in how attention is earned, how trust is built, and how value is created. Brands are no longer competing only with each other. They are competing with entertainment, culture and story itself.

For decades, brands relied on repetition and interruption. You bought media, you pushed messages and you hoped frequency would do the work. That model is breaking down because attention has fundamentally changed. Audiences are more selective, more distracted and far less tolerant of anything that feels like an advert. The moment something feels transactional, people scroll past it.

As a result, brands are struggling to sell to their customers in the normal way. Not because their products are worse, but because the mechanics of persuasion have shifted. People do not want to be marketed to. They want to feel something. They want to be engaged. They want to be drawn into a narrative in which they recognise themselves.

Content is changing

That is why we are seeing such a sharp rise in vertical dramas, short-form series, mini dramas and episodic storytelling designed specifically for mobile and social platforms. These formats are not a downgrade from television. They are a response to how people actually consume content today. Short episodes, strong hooks, emotional continuity and characters that return again and again.

What brands are beginning to understand is that audiences do not build relationships with products. They build relationships with stories. When a brand becomes part of a story world, rather than an interruption around it, the dynamic changes completely. Trust forms, then memory and then attachment.

This is where brands stop behaving like advertisers and start behaving like media companies.

At that point, the focus shifts away from surface-level messaging and towards meaning. It is no longer about how a product looks, but what it represents. This is not a new idea. It is an old one, articulated long before marketing departments existed.

As Aristotle remarked, “Art aims to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” That is exactly what is happening now. Brands that move into storytelling are no longer selling features. They are expressing values, identity and emotional truth.

I have been working at the intersection of brands and media for over twenty years, and the last five in particular have made this shift impossible to ignore. Media companies are learning how to think like brands, and brands are learning how to build studios, intellectual property and story engines. The line between the two has collapsed because audiences no longer separate them. They only decide what is worth their time.

AI has accelerated this change, but it has not altered the fundamentals. Production is faster, distribution is cheaper and experimentation is easier than ever. But as the volume of content increases, meaning becomes scarcer. Technology does not replace storytelling. It amplifies the importance of those who know how to do it well.

By Jonny Caplan 

Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Why brands can become emotional lifelines in times of crisis

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By and

The rain hasn’t stopped for hours. Wind rattles the shelter’s windows as the storm outside swells, flooding the streets they used to call home. In a crowded gym, a family of four sit huddled together on makeshift beds pushed side by side each other. The parents wrap donated blankets around their shoulders; the teenagers lean against each other. Someone suggests a movie: something light, something old. They settle on a childhood favourite, a worn-out Pixar film, its colours flickering softly on the phone screen. Familiar voices, the opening music, the brand logo before the title… For a few minutes, it feels like the flood damage caused to their home no longer matters because they are together.

This is not just nostalgia. Research shows it is a form of collective coping. When the world feels unstable, why do we cling to familiar household brands and family rituals?

A study in everyday survival

In our recent research published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, we explored how families use everyday brands and consumer rituals to restore a shared sense of identity after major life-changing disruptions.

Drawing on interviews and the diaries of 22 French families during the Covid-19 lockdowns, we found that major life disruptions, sudden collective shocks like pandemics, wars, or natural disasters, destabilise shared identities. When crisis strikes, family units don’t merely adapt their routines; they rebuild who they are together through consumption.

Brands act as scaffolding for reconstructing “who we are together”. Products, platforms, and rituals, from Netflix series to board games to family meals, become tools for resilience and belonging.

And this pattern extends well beyond Covid. In an era of growing environmental volatility, it matters more than ever. According to global risk reports, the number of natural disasters causing major economic losses is at record highs. As more and more communities around the world face upheaval, these small, mundane gestures of consumption are likely to become even more vital.

How we make sense when the world stops making sense

The study identifies three-way people use shared consumption to soothe anxiety and reclaim a sense of belonging.

1) Ritualised structuring: re-creating routine

When time feels suspended, people rebuild daily habits through familiar brands. This can involve watching the same show every night at eight to mark family time or deciding that Tuesday night is reserved for a sisterly chat over WhatsApp while watching a cooking show. Even a simple coffee in a beloved mug every morning can signal the start of “normal” life again.

These rituals restore predictability and reinforce family structure: who does what, when, and with whom?

2) Collective revalorising: rediscovering shared fun

Shared consumption becomes a new form of togetherness. Families dust off old board games like Monopoly and Cluedo. Parents can cook with kids using brands that “belong” to the household (e.g. Nutella pancakes, Lego projects). The activity is not about the brand itself; it is about reasserting family character traits: “We’re playful,” “We’re resilient,” “We do this together.”

3) Intergenerational romanticising: reviving lineage

Families can also turn to the past for comfort, rewatching classics from childhood, cooking passed down recipes, or creating family newsletters to share stories across generations. These rituals ease anxiety by reconnecting with lineage and continuity. A form of quiet resistance to the fear that the future is slipping away.

Together, these practices form a kind of psychological architecture: a way to impose meaning, order, and belonging amidst chaos.

What brands really mean in a crisis

Not all brands can play that role. The ones that endure crises often do so not because they shout louder, but because they embody stability, shared experience, and emotional legacy.

During an economic downturn or after a parent’s layoff, trusted retailers can become family anchors and symbols that life can still be rearranged. A brand like Ikea, for example, could help families adjust to smaller homes by buying back larger furniture and offering adaptable, modular pieces that transform rooms into communal areas. That kind of gesture does more than move products: it helps families reimagine togetherness and regain a sense of control.

In climate disasters, local brands can strengthen communities and become symbols of solidarity. After the 2025 Texas flash floods, Walmart offered free meals to affected families. Initiatives like that could go further, for example by creating spaces where families gather, connect, and rest. The value is not just in the food; it is in rebuilding collective morale.

Even in political upheaval, cultural and media brands provide continuity. National broadcasters, for instance, can help by reviving beloved classic films that families can watch together. A subtle act of collective reassurance, reminding people of their shared cultural heritage.

The insight is simple but powerful: during disruption, consumption is not escapism. It’s sense making.

Belonging as a Business Asset

If brands can become emotional lifelines, it is because consumption in moments of rupture is not mindless escapism. Sharing a meal, lighting the same candle, queuing up the same movie… these acts whisper, “We’re still ourselves.”

The brands that subsist are not the ones that dominate conversations, but those that quietly fit into our family coping mechanisms. Our research shows that brands become vectors of family history, creators of gathering occasions, and delineators of individual, relational, and collective times and activities. They are, in effect, identity technologies which act as everyday anchors for group belonging and continuity.

As societies face mounting major challenges, from climate anxiety to digital disconnection and geopolitical tension, the emotional dimension of the marketplace will matter more than ever. When the world falls apart, the brands we hold onto are not about consumption at all; they are about remembering who we are.

Feature image credit: Unsplash

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Sourced from The Conversation

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“Most pop-ups fail within 30 seconds. Here’s why”

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Pop-ups are increasingly important in a digitally-saturated world. StudioXAG’s Gemma Ruse explains the most common mistakes designers make on these projects, and how to avoid them.

I think pop-ups are brilliant.

At their best, they give brands permission to bring a story to life with real impact. Their impermanence allows ideas to be expressed in bold, dramatic and sometimes theatrical ways that would never make sense in a permanent space.

They are also powerful tools for connection. A chance to surprise and delight people in a physical environment that reaches places digital simply cannot.

As a huge advocate for the potential of pop-ups, I try to give every one I walk into the benefit of the doubt. But the truth is, many do not deliver.

More often than not, I can tell within the first 30 seconds whether something is going to work.

That judgement is not about whether a space looks expensive, or whether there is a queue outside. It comes from years of watching how people move through environments. Where they hesitate. What they ignore. What quietly frustrates them.

In my experience, pop-ups rarely fail because of bad ideas. They fail because of a small number of common and entirely avoidable mistakes.

Here are five I see again and again.

1. Underestimating execution, materials and build quality

The fastest way for a pop-up to fail is through poor execution. These issues trigger an instant, subconscious reaction that something is not quite right.

Bad sight lines, sloppy finishes and poorly fitted graphics are immediate credibility killers.

Materials pretending to be something they are not are another red flag. If the budget does not stretch to marble, do not use vinyl printed to look like marble.

Lighting matters just as much. Even inconsistent colour temperatures can undermine an otherwise strong idea.

Budgets and timelines are real constraints, and value engineering is part of the job. Simplifying with intention is very different from cutting corners. Every element contributes to how a brand is judged in those first 30 seconds.

The execution is the idea. Pop-ups may be temporary, but reputational damage is not. Once something is photographed, filmed and shared, it lives on.

2. Designing for an imagined customer

One of the quickest ways to lose people is to design for someone who is not actually going to be there.

This often happens when brands chase a coveted Gen Z audience, even though their most loyal customers are much older.

The result can feel like a parody of youth culture. Loud, performative and trend driven, yet oddly hollow.

Meanwhile, the people who genuinely care about the brand feel quietly alienated.

A pop-up should entice and engage the real consumer. It is not a mood board brought to life. It is a place where people are invited in, where they feel recognised, curious and welcome.

At its best, it becomes a space for experience and community, not just a backdrop for content.

Getting this right starts with observation. Market data helps, but designers also need to spend time in stores, watching who shows up, how they move, what they touch and what makes them linger. Those insights should shape the idea from the outset.

Designing with the consumer at the centre does not limit creativity. It gives it purpose.

3. Confusing visual busyness with engagement

Another fast way to lose attention is to throw too much at people and hope something sticks.

There is an assumption that screens, games and interactive moments automatically create engagement. In reality, visual busyness often overwhelms, especially when it is not rooted in a clear idea.

Certain gimmicks resurface again and again. Novelty without meaning rarely creates connection.

Just because something can be interacted with does not mean people want to.

True engagement comes from emotion. Surprise. Delight. A sense of being let in on something.

People linger when a moment feels considered or quietly unexpected, when the atmosphere invites them to slow down rather than rush through.

If you are adding bells and whistles, ask one question. Does this deepen the story, or is it simply filling space?

4. Treating the pop-up as a standalone moment

Pop-ups fall short when they feel disconnected from the wider brand world.

The strongest ones read like a chapter in an ongoing story, not a one-off stunt. They echo what is happening online, in windows or across the brand’s broader narrative.

When a space feels unrelated, people sense the disconnect immediately, even if they cannot articulate it.

Successful pop-ups are rooted in brand DNA. They borrow cues from product, tone of voice and visual language, then amplify them. The result is continuity and surprise. Familiar enough to be instantly understood, special enough to feel worth stepping into.

A pop-up does not need to shout to stand out, but it does need to belong.

5. Forgetting the online audience

We no longer design pop-ups just for the people standing inside them. We design them for the thousands, sometimes millions, who will experience them through a screen.

A single selfie corner is not enough.

For most people, pop-ups are encountered through photos, videos and POV content. That shift fundamentally changes how spaces need to be conceived.

Boldness and clarity travel better than visual fussiness. From arrival to exit, the entire journey needs to be worth capturing, allowing people to tell a complete story as they move through the space.

Online translation cannot be an afterthought. It has to be considered from the beginning, woven into the idea, the design, and the way the space is built and finished.

Design for the camera, without losing the magic in real life. Because in a screen-first world, the risk is not being un-Instagrammable. It is being forgettable.

What’s next?

Despite many pop-ups missing their potential, they are here to stay. If anything, they are becoming more important as physical experiences carry greater emotional weight in a digitally saturated world.

The most successful pop-ups will place greater emphasis on world building. They will offer moments of escape, depth and immersion.

Above all, they need a reason to exist.

To succeed, brands must be able to answer a simple question. Why this pop-up, and why now.

The purpose does not need to be lofty, but it does need to be honest. When that is clear, those first 30 seconds start working in your favour, rather than against you.

Feature image credit: Studio XAG’s Acne Studios Festive Campaign 2025, Taikoo Hui, Shanghai

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Gemma Ruse is co-founder and creative director at StudioXAG.

Sourced from Design Week

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FROM CAMPUS TO CEO: HOW TO BUILD A BRAND BEFORE GRADUATION

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By Najah Black

Have you ever wanted to start your own business, but you don’t know where to start? Trust me, I’ve been there; it all starts with building your brand. As a business owner of five years who built my brand while in college, I know just how hard it is to build your own brand. I am a makeup artist, and my brand is “Najah Slayed That.”

I began building my brand in January 2020. Little did I know that in just a few months, the COVID pandemic would begin, and life as I knew it would change immensely. Although the pandemic started and everyone had to live their lives inside their homes, I didn’t let that stop me. I chose to pivot. I continued practicing my makeup looks on myself, creating my logo, and the digital media for Najah Slayed That’s Instagram. As the year progressed, and face-to-face contact became more controlled and regulated, I welcomed family and close friends to practice more makeup looks on. This allowed me to gain more content to use for digital branding and invite potential clientele. By 2021, I had established myself in my business and prepared a plan for promoting Najah Slayed That as I entered the college fall semester. So, it’s important to note that when faced with an obstacle, you know how to pivot because your reward is always on the other side.

The first thing you must do to build your own brand is to discover your niche. Ask yourself what you’d like to present to the world. Whether it’s a service, an item/object, or yourself, it’s important to hone in on your product. After discovering your niche, you must decide how you want to package it. For example, if you are aiming to be a service provider such as a makeup artist, you must decide the type of makeup you would like to specialize in. From there you will decide on your presentation. Presenting your product with your desired branded backdrop, certain colours, and signatures of your choice encourages individualism. Presentation is key because it is what draws in your consumer. Deciding on branding like your logo, brand fonts, brand colours, slogan, etc., is what will differentiate you from your competitors and entice your consumer.

Once you have developed your brand, you will then have to promote yourself. The easiest way to promote yourself is through social media and word of mouth. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and tell people about your brand. Especially on a college campus, reach out to your peers and student leaders and ask them to look at your work or follow your social media platforms. Ask your roommate if she wouldn’t mind being a model for your brand. Remember, your customers are out there and waiting for you. You may start slow, but you will grow with time. Following these steps will ensure the success of your brand.

Feature image credit: Christina @ wocintechchat.com from Unsplash

By Najah Black

Hello! My name is Najah Black, a graduating senior in Mass Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. I am from Houston, Texas. I am a current Marketing and Development intern with the non-profit organization Genesys Works, where I work in event planning, marketing, and content creation. I am also a content creator popular on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, specializing in fashion, lifestyle, and beauty content. I am a current member of the writing committee of HerCampus SUBR. I am so excited to begin my journey with HerCampus and welcome the chance to express my creativity through this organization.

Sourced from HER CAMPUS

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11 Things Brands Still Get Wrong About Authenticity (and How to Get It Right)

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By Rolling Stone Culture Council

Authenticity isn’t a trend or tagline. It’s a long-term commitment to consistency, accountability and real human connection.

In an era where consumers can spot performative messaging from a mile away, “authenticity” has become one of the most overused and misunderstood ideas in branding. Too often, companies mistake relatability for honesty or aesthetics for values, only to lose trust when their actions don’t align with their words.

Here, 11 Rolling Stone Culture Council members explain what today’s brands commonly get wrong about authenticity and what it really takes to build real, lasting connections with audiences. By showing up consistently and letting your values guide you, your brand will be well on its way to being truly genuine.

Forcing Your Brand Into a Crowded Space

Too many brands force themselves into a crowded space instead of creating their own space. Make decisions rooted in values versus trends. Do what’s right for your brand and community — not because everyone else is doing it or because it’s never been done. Meet your audience where they are and your audience will meet you where the truth is. – Zech Francis, BeatBox Beverages

Treating Authenticity as Messaging Instead of a Responsibility

Brands miss authenticity when they treat it as messaging, not responsibility. Real leadership isn’t polished statements; it’s consistent action. Social impact isn’t a campaign; it’s accountability. If your values vanish when it’s inconvenient, that’s not authenticity — it’s performance. Purpose must be practiced, not posted. – Kimberly S. Reed, Reed Development Group

Mistaking Authenticity for Performance

Brands mistake authenticity for performance by sharing “raw,” unpolished moments. This is just self-proclaimed noise. The better way? Verifiable consistency. True authenticity isn’t what you claim; it’s what your entire digital ecosystem proves. It’s a clear, consistent and corroborated narrative that algorithms can understand and audiences can trust. – Jason Barnard, Kalicube

Oversharing Raw Emotion

Most brands mistake authenticity for oversharing. Authenticity isn’t dumping raw emotion online — it’s consistency between what you say, what you do and how you show up. The better path is disciplined honesty. Communicate with clarity, keep your promises and let integrity — not algorithms — shape your voice. – Kristin Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC

Viewing Authenticity as a Tactic

Too many brands treat “authenticity” as a tactic rather than a mindset. Connections built on quality, consistency and a story that feels genuine are real connections. The most enduring brands pair a solid product with a spark of personality, successfully pivoting with the times while maintaining a core ethos. One can’t fake trust; however, one can build it one honest interaction at a time. – Thomas Andersen, BTA Cannabis CPA Tax

Just Talking About What You Do Without the ‘Why’ Behind It

The best way forward for brands that truly want to connect is to get real. That means being honest about the good and the bad, pulling back the curtain and letting people see what really happens behind the scenes. Don’t just talk about what you do — share why you do it. That’s how you build real trust: through consistency, honesty and actions that actually mean something over time. – Jeff Hopmayer, Brindiamo Group LLC

Being Unwilling to Pay the ‘Cost’ of Authenticity

Brands believe that authenticity and values go together (and rightly so). But values, by definition, cost something. And audiences are wary of convenient values that change the moment they become inconvenient. So, what is your brand prepared to give up for the sake of your values? Revenue? Convenience? Popularity? Either consistently pay the cost or don’t claim to hold the value. – Jed Brewer, Good Loud Media

Treating Authenticity as an Aesthetic or Filter

Most brands treat authenticity like an aesthetic — a tone, a filter, a “real” post. But true authenticity isn’t what you show; it’s what you sustain. It’s built through consistency, not confession. The future belongs to brands that design systems of sincerity, where integrity is visible, not staged. – Sudhir Gupta, The Facticerie

Failing to Have a Mission, Ethos and Strategic Plan in Place for Communications

Brands across existing and new brand categories are best served by having a mission, ethos and strategic plan when it comes to communicating with their audiences, customers and investors. Authenticity is a byproduct of your messaging when you are doing it right. It will shine through in well-thought-out and articulated content that is aligned with your roadmap and goals. – Julie Zinamon, Vataseason

Chasing Trends Instead of Originality

Everyone’s doing the same exact thing that’s trending at any given moment. Audiences don’t care to see the same content over and over. With all due respect to the social media teams, originality still triumphs over short-term vitality. – Kathy Schenfelt, SCH Entertainment

Performing Vulnerability While Hiding What’s Behind the Scenes

Most brands treat authenticity like confessions. They perform as vulnerable on socials while hiding their operating systems and what truly holds their missions. Real authenticity is governance: clear standards, fair policies and receipts. Show how you decide and what you fix when you fail, and invite an audit. Consistency beats confessions every time. – Sonia Singh, Center of Inner Transformations

Feature image credit: Tamani C/peopleimages.com — stock.adobe.com

By Rolling Stone Culture Council

Sourced from RollingStone

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The Podcast Boom Is Just Getting Started For Brands

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By Ian Shepherd

For years, podcasting sat on the side-line of media buying, perceived as niche, hard to measure and reserved for the brave. But in 2025, advertisers who overlook podcasting are leaving influence and impact on the table. With high trust, unmatched attention and scalable ad tech catching up, podcasting is finally having a “must-have” media moment.

Podcasting blends attention with trust, a potent mix that not only drives brand recall but leads to real-world action. And now, after years of being treated as a side experiment, podcasting is finally being seen for what it is: a high-performance media channel that turns engagement into outcomes.

“Ten years ago I was CRO of an ad network with better data than podcasting has today,” says Greg Glenday, CEO of Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company. “We still have work to do. But advertisers are starting to realize: this works.”

The Trust Dividend

Acast’s 2025 Podcast Pulse report delivers some interesting data points. 67% of daily listeners say they’ve taken action after hearing a podcast ad. 58% have made a purchase because of a recommendation from a host. Podcast hosts rank at the very top for brand trust, equal to journalists and ahead of YouTubers, influencers and celebrities.

When podcast listeners are considering a purchase:

  • 70% say a recommendation from a podcast host made them consider a brand they hadn’t heard of.
  • 64% say they trust podcast hosts to give genuine endorsements.
  • 49% say podcasts have changed the way they think about a brand.

“Podcasting is intimate,” says Glenday. “It’s a one-to-one experience. It’s someone in your ear while you walk the dog or commute. You don’t need five impressions to make an impact, you need one good one.”

Low Clutter, High Impact

Unlike social or video platforms, podcasting hasn’t been oversaturated with ads and that’s part of its power. According to the Podcast Pulse report:

  • 71% of listeners hear mid-roll ads.
  • 60% say podcast ads feel light compared to other channels.
  • 45% say podcast ads are more memorable than those on YouTube, Facebook, or even cable TV.

This balance, a lean ad load with a deeply engaged audience, is what makes podcasting unique. It offers a rare chance for brands to speak without shouting.

And the results are increasingly measurable. Nearly 85% of global daily podcast audiences have taken some form of brand action after listening, from visiting a website or using a promo code to making a purchase.

The AI Assist

The common pushback for podcasting has always been that it is hard to buy at scale. No longer.

“We’ve built AI-powered tools that remove friction for advertisers,” says Glenday. “From smart show recommendations to creative generation, we’re solving the scale problem.”

Acast’s self-serve platform, powered by data from Podchaser, lets small and mid-size advertisers use natural language inputs (“I own 100 pizza shops in the UK”) to receive customized media plans. They can then auto-generate ad scripts and audio spots using AI tools, no agency or studio required.

This is opening podcasting up to thousands of advertisers who would otherwise never have participated.

Creator Authenticity Still Reigns

Importantly, AI is not being used to replace the hosts or content, a trend Glenday firmly opposes.

“We are not interested in synthetic personalities or AI-generated shows,” he says. “People come to podcasting for the companionship. They want real people.”

This focus on human authenticity is also why podcasting thrives where other channels struggle. In a world of deepfakes and AI influencers, podcast hosts offer consistency, credibility and community.

A Must-Have, Not a Maybe

Podcasting’s next leap will be less about creative innovation and more about media normalization.

“We want podcasting to become a standard part of the media plan,” Glenday said. “It’s brand safe. It drives sales. It shapes perception. And now we can prove it.”

What’s needed now, he says, is for advertisers to stop thinking of podcasting as a “risky” or “experimental” channel and start seeing it for what it is: a performance medium.

From cultural cachet to commerce conversion, podcasting is delivering. And for advertisers looking for high-impact, low-clutter, trust-filled environments in an AI-fatigued media world it might just be the best deal in marketing today.

This article is based on an interview with Greg Glenday from my podcast, The Business of Creators.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Ian Shepherd

Find Ian Shepherd on LinkedIn and X. Visit Ian’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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Trust Is the New KPI: The Strategy Helping Brands Win Over Customers Today

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BY LAUREN KLEINMAN

Brands must stop siloing PR, affiliate, and paid media if they want to build consumer trust that converts.

For years, brands tried to split the difference by hiring a PR agency for visibility, an affiliate manager for commerce coverage and affiliate partnerships, and a media buyer for paid social scale. Seven years ago, I, in fact, was one of them as the former VP of Marketing and Founding Team at Ritual. On paper, it made sense. In practice, I found it created silos, competing agendas, and a lack of shared accountability and synergy across agencies and partners.

PR teams fought for glossy earned placements that drove awareness, but had no understanding of how to interpret the performance data that was now available through affiliate marketing. Affiliate was treated as a “last-click” discount lever instead of a strategic storytelling channel. Paid ads delivered reach, but eroded credibility the more aggressively they followed you around online and touted huge discounts (a never-ending race to the bottom).

Trust is the new currency

The customer journey has never been more fragmented. Discovery happens everywhere: a podcast shoutout, a Reddit thread, a TikTok Shop haul, a Substack product review, or even an AI-powered search result.

In this reality, trust is the only real currency. Consumers don’t care whether a placement was earned, affiliate-driven, or paid; they care if it feels credible, consistent, and relevant to them.

So how can brands actively build that trust?

  • Be transparent about incentives. Consumers aren’t turned off by affiliate links, they’re turned off when they feel misled. Work with creators and publishers who disclose clearly and genuinely believe in your product.
  • Invest in quality storytelling. Clickbait and discount-driven messaging might drive short-term traffic but rarely long-term trust. Prioritize partners and content that add real value or perspective.
  • Align messaging across channels. The fastest way to lose credibility is inconsistency. If your paid ad says one thing and your press coverage another, consumers notice. Every touchpoint should reinforce the same brand truth.
  • Measure what matters. Awareness, reputation, and conversion are all valid goals, but you have to know which you’re pursuing with each channel. That clarity builds internal trust, too.

The takeaway for founders and marketers is simple: if your PR, affiliate, and paid media aren’t working together, you’re sacrificing trust and growth.

The post-PR agency model

At Dreamday, we coined the term Performance PR: an integrated approach where affiliate and earned media work in tandem. Every consumer press hit is designed to drive not just visibility, but measurable revenue. For brand and business press (think: Inc. or Fast Company) we measure success using the Barcelona Principles, a global framework for evaluating PR effectiveness. In plain terms, the Barcelona Principles remind us that not all press should be measured by direct sales. Some coverage exists to build awareness, credibility, or influence perception, which are all valuable outcomes in their own right.

A feature on a founder’s leadership style, for example, may not drive immediate sale conversions, but it can meaningfully shape brand reputation, attract talent, and open doors for strategic partnerships. Performance PR refers to consumer press that can be measured, actually very effectively these days, through affiliate marketing and commerce’s growing role in publisher objectives (and revenue).

Quality Media has pioneered what we call Performance Publishing, a model where editorial storytelling, creator-led content, and paid amplification combine to outperform traditional brand campaigns.

At both agencies, our main KPI isn’t awards or impressions, it’s the case studies we create for our clients. We don’t rest on our laurels; we’re only as good as the last results we delivered. That focus keeps our teams sharp, ensures accountability, and, most importantly, builds client trust over time.

When we applied this model for clients like Quince or The Bouqs, it wasn’t about choosing between “story” or “scale.” It was about ensuring every placement, whether in Vogue, on TikTok, or in a sponsored story, pulled in the same direction: building credibility and driving conversions.

The key insight: trust compounds when PR, affiliate, and paid collide, not when they compete.

A playbook for founders and marketers

So how can brands put this into practice?

  • Audit your partners. Are PR, affiliate, and paid run by separate agencies or teams competing for credit with different KPIs? If so, you’re eroding trust before you’ve begun.
  • Bring your partners together. Get your PR, affiliate, and paid leads in the same room (or Slack channel). Share KPIs and have them co-own performance. When everyone is accountable to the same metrics, alignment, and trust, follow.
  • Consolidate when needed. If your agencies are working in silos or competing with one another, it’s time to rethink your structure. That might mean consolidating scopes, appointing an internal lead who oversees the full funnel, or finding a partner built for integration.
  • Think like a consumer. Ask yourself: if someone Googled my product, or if ChatGPT surfaced me in a recommendation, would they see consistent, credible validation across multiple sources?
  • Build for convergence. Instead of planning PR, affiliate, and paid as separate campaigns, design them as parts of the same trust-building system.

The future belongs to trust

Trust has always mattered in marketing. What’s different now is how fragile (and essential) it has become for growth.

The brands that win in the next five years won’t be the ones spending the most on ads or executing the flashiest PR moments. They’ll be the ones that can point to undeniable results: credible press hits, measurable affiliate-driven revenue, and high-performing creative that amplifies both.

That’s why we hold ourselves to the same standard we ask of our clients: results that stand up as case studies. Trust isn’t a buzzword—it’s the most valuable KPI left. And it’s earned daily.

Feature image credit: Getty Images

BY LAUREN KLEINMAN

Sourced from Inc.

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