How to destroy brand trust in 15 seconds with AI
- 5 days ago
- 12 min read
You can fake a customer now. You just can’t fake trust. And you certainly can’t avoid the law if you make AI-generated fake customer user-generated content.
With the release of Seedance 2 to the general public in the last 2 weeks, we now have even better tools to generate true to life video that is so close to being indistinguishable from reality, that we’re a bee's dick away from some serious problems. But before we get there I want you to heed this more pressing warning.
I've seen many videos from influencers on social media who cover updates about new AI tools and capabilities, demonstrating the use of a tool like Seedance 2 by creating AI-generated videos made to look like user-generated content (UGC). And in doing so, there was an inherent warning that set off alarm bells in my mind when seeing this. To turn a phrase, just because you can, doesn’t mean you can, especially as a business and this could seriously destroy your brand in just 15 seconds. Let me explain.
Brand trust and how to destroy it
The whole purpose of developing a brand is to inevitably generate some form of trust for a customer to be confident enough to pick your brand over another. This can be done by something as simple as an attractive looking package on the shelf that feels like a better choice than the poorly designed alternative. Maybe because we instinctively feel that if a brand looks well presented then they’re more likely to deliver an equally good product (or service), just like how we judge a person based on how they dress, or a book by its cover.
Brand trust can also be built over time. From a collective of experiences, word of mouth and a whole manner of touchpoints. If you imagine a glass jar and for every positive experience a consumer has, it is filled with a token, every testimonial and referral another token, an improvement in your product or service drops another token. Over time you build a jar-full collection of brand trust tokens and the more full there is, the greater value your brand has in the eyes of consumers. This is what we call brand equity, the value beyond your product/service features, benefits or cost, and it’s built from a greater level of brand trust.
However, if you don’t deliver a consistent brand experience for a customer or they have a negative experience, a token is taken back out of the jar and you need to earn it all over again to get it back. Now no brand is bulletproof and I say a glass jar because trust is fragile and can be so easily smashed into pieces in the blink of an eye.
For medical services brands, it can be malpractice.
For product brands it could be undeclared allergens.
For airlines it could be insufficient servicing that causes catastrophic mid-air emergencies.
For real estate agencies it could be misusing client funds.
And for tech brands it could be a leak of private customer data.
These are extreme examples of negligence that cause brand trust to be smashed to pieces. Nonetheless, they do happen. That said, negligence is one of many factors that can erode brand trust and whether they are intentional or not, vigilance about what could cause overnight damage to your brand is something that every business should be mindful of. As it’s not only reputation on the line. It can also be your entire revenue stream.
What is this new AI problem?
In Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, the EU and most likely many other countries around the world it is illegal for someone to make false and/or misleading representations under their various consumer protection laws when marketing an offering.
I’m no lawyer by any means, but it’s pretty clear that both morally AND legally, we can’t dupe a consumer, even if they’re not a paying customer and this applies to businesses and personal brands alike that are marketing an offering.
Like I said at the start of this article, AI models like this new Seedance 2 can generate videos with life-like accuracy that many users on social media could honestly mistake for the real thing. And herein lies the problem.
AI-created user-generated content (UGC) is the use case I want to focus on most as it’s the easiest way to destroy brand trust. Meaning you can now generate a video that looks like a real person making a glowing testimonial or review of your service or product. Even holding up your product with life-like accuracy and in the quality of an at-home iPhone selfie video to make it as believable as possible.
Again, just because you can, in this case, doesn’t mean you can. As false testimonials or reviews, AI-made or not, that aren’t properly disclosed to the point of public perception being reasonably aware that they aren’t true, honest, accurate and genuine experiences, in order to not mislead a consumer of that content, are illegal and carry severe penalties in many countries. This alone could break many small businesses and see them gone in 15 seconds.
Gone in 15 seconds
Like a Nicholas Cage heist movie, only far less sexy, trust in your brand can be taken away overnight by a simple 15 second content post on your social media account. So let me frame a devastating sequence of events for you that should act as a serious warning of what not to do under any circumstances when it comes to marketing your brand, in particular AI-generated content made to look like user-generated content (UGC).
Budgets are tight for Ben as it’s still early days of his Aussie real estate agency presence under the arm of a nationally present real estate franchise. He needs to get more runs on the board and because he’s only had a few sales, he doesn’t have many client testimonials from vendors (sellers) to put out on his socials so that more people in the area can trust him more, especially when there are a few stalwarts agents he’s up against that are the go-to for most people in his town as they’ve been there for decades and are constantly positing glowing video testimonials from their clients.
Ben’s pretty savvy with social media, especially having grown up with it as a Gen Z-er, and is fully on board with AI to the point where he’s made AI-Agents to help him with day-to-day tasks to be more efficient with his sales, marketing and admin tasks. Ben has even used a bit of AI to add furniture in some of his real estate listing images in empty properties and he’s also seen these AI models can now make video content, not just photos.
It takes a fair bit of effort to make a good video testimonial and Ben does like a high-production value result, however it’s not his forte and has had to pay a local videographer a few thousand dollars to video the handful he’s already made for his social media pages. So without enough cash-flow he considers making a video with AI that looks like a review of his services to his clients. As he has property photos, he knows what his likely buyers and sellers look like, their pain points, how they sound and what he’d love to hear them say about his agency.
One night before Ben clocks off work he sees another glowing review one of his competitors has just posted. Agitated, he opens his laptop and goes to his AI tool platform website and selects video generator. He puts in the reference photos, describes the scenes, writes the short script and hits GENERATE for Seedance 2 to create three 5-second clips. They come out amazingly well and even Ben reckons they look so damn real that even he’d be fooled if he didn’t know they were AI. He then stitches the clips together as a 15-second Instagram reel and posts them to his Instagram and Facebook pages, then heads home.
The next morning he wakes up to find 100+ notifications on his phone from Instagram and Facebook. Safe to say he’s never had that before, so he swipes open his phone, opens Instagram and his heart drops.
“AI SLOP”
“AI-gent”
“This is totally fake, I wonder if his other testimonials are actually real”
More comments than likes on a post are never a good sign, and Ben’s post has them at 10:1 of negative comments calling him out as people have recognised it as an AI-generated video. But it doesn’t stop there. His video has also been called out by a prominent influencer account that calls out dodgy real estate tactics in Australia and it has been shared WIDELY to the point of two hundred thousand views in only a few hours.
By the middle of the day the post has dug an even deeper hole. Being commented on more, being shared more and Ben has even started receiving the full wrath of the internet in direct emails hitting his inbox with unsavoury messages and threats.
It then gets picked up by social pages run by the media and starts receiving calls from the real estate franchises head office, tearing him a new one over his use of AI to create a fake client testimonial.
By the next morning, it’s a top story on the national news, highlighting the illegalities created by using AI and Ben’s post as the catalyst for pundits, industry leaders and government officials to criticise the real estate franchise he works for and call for broad change.
Clients signed on for sales campaigns have now cancelled their contracts, landlords have withdrawn his property management services and Ben feels like jumping into the hole that is swallowing him up.
A few weeks later his agency doors have been forced to close not only because of fines imposed by Australia’s consumer protection body, the ACCC, but also for breach of contract by the real estate franchise. His team of 3 staff lose their job and Ben is out looking for another job, but has a tough time after becoming a name and face for a campaign to highlight the consequences of AI usage still popping up in news cycles. While the real estate industry, including the nationally present franchise Ben was a part of, has faced even more scrutiny and lost trust from Australians all over the country.
Now this is obviously a proper worst case scenario, but on a slow news cycle, any negative news will be picked up that then creates a bandwagon effect, especially if it affects a nationally present brand like a real estate franchise brand that has built significant equity over time. So this only serves as a cautionary fictional tale that could become more real to life than a 15 second AI-generated video made to look real to life.
The power of trust and how to get it
Instead of just painting a doom and gloom picture, I thought it best to resolve this with a positive outlook of how brand trust is important to your business AND your customers, as well as how to improve your chances of growing that trust over time.
Why not start with some stats on brand trust:
Purchasing Behaviour: 71% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they trust.
Data Privacy: 75% of consumers will not purchase from companies they do not trust with their data, and 19% abandon carts due to security concerns.
Loyalty & Retention: 94% of consumers stay loyal to brands that are open and honest, while 88% say authenticity is crucial.
Price Sensitivity: 57% of consumers are prepared to pay more for a trusted brand.
Crisis Impact: 92% of brands fail to recover lost trust after one year, and 25% fail to regain it even after five years.
Authenticity & Values: 88% of consumers state that brand authenticity is important.
Customer Experience: 73% of consumers are loyal to a brand due to excellent customer service.
Consistency: 10-20% of marketing budgets are spent on building brand consistency to boost trust.
Now I always take these bits of research stats with a grain of salt as they’re far too broad to illustrate a specific picture of how brand trustworthiness measures when applied to your brand, let alone the method of research because what a customer says they’ll do in something like a survey, versus what they actually do, can be miles apart.
That said, there are compelling enough reasons out there to treat this seriously, especially from a compliance standpoint. But even if you just looked at the integrity of your business from a moral standpoint to deliver an honest and effective product or service experience to consumers and customers, maybe that’s all you really need to keep in mind to steer the ship effectively.
How about what you can do to increase brand trust and create greater brand equity?
Everyone wants a 10 point plan of how to do something effectively, so to do better branding, marketing and every day brand building within your team and face to face with customers, I’m going to go one better to go ‘above-and-beyond’ (which could be a point in itself) to give you a 15-point plan that could for the basis of an always-on mantra for your brand.
1. Do what you said you’d do
Meet deadlines. Deliver what was promised. No surprises. Trust is also built in the follow-through, not just in the build up to the action that gets someone over the line. Especially as this is what can determine a good referral and strong word of mouth.
2. Say what you actually mean
Clear language. No jargon. No inflated claims. If it sounds too polished, people question it. Because if it sounds too good to be true, it often is. Don’t try to sound too clever, or do so in a manner that doesn’t feel authentic to you and feels forced. This leads to confusion and an inauthentic brand.
3. Show the real thing
Real photos. Real work. Real customers. Less polish, more proof. And I know this can be stretched sometimes where you might use stock photos or video, even AI-generated images and video, but avoid using them in instances where the actual representation can mislead a customer and accuracy is a compliance issue. Eg. size of a product, or testimonials. Even still, I feel like there will be a surge of appreciation for human-made things when AI-generated things become far more ubiquitous.
4. Be consistent everywhere
Same tone, same message, same experience across touchpoints and same availability. Consistency like I’ve said in previous articles can improve recognition but that can also translate into trust too when customers are looking for the same (or better) again, without disappointment. It’s that situation where you ask a waiter for Coke but the cafe only sells Pepsi.
5. Respond like a human
Reply to messages. Acknowledge issues. Don’t ghost people. Silence kills trust faster than mistakes. Putting in that effort goes a long way for customers to feel acknowledged and appreciated, or at the very least, feel like they’re actually talking to a person and not just some faceless brand.
6. Own mistakes publicly
Don’t hide it. Fix it. Say what you’ll do better. Do it genuinely. Accountability builds more trust than perfection, especially in times where you f-up, even if it wasn’t wholly your fault, you take responsibility.
7. Don’t oversell
Set expectations you can actually meet. Underpromising and overdeliver still wins and it’s even something I try my best to do in my own services. As it creates that kind of that surprise and delight factor in what you deliver.
8. Use real social proof
Actual reviews, real case studies, verifiable outcomes. Not staged. Not scripted. Not faked with AI especially which I hope is pretty clear by now.
9. Make pricing and process clear
No hidden fees. No vague steps. Clarity reduces hesitation in a buying situation but also if a customer is met with a notice of increased fees, there are effective ways of presenting pricing without any smoke and mirrors or empty excuses.
10. Show the people behind the brand
Faces. Names. Personality. People trust people, not logos…that is until you build up enough equity in your brand for people to associate the trust they have with you in the logo that they see. But make people-to-people engagement between your team and your customer a big part of your customer experience. Even ambassadors help bridge that gap in addition to combining their brand equity with yours.
11. Keep showing up
Regular presence over occasional bursts is key. Familiarity builds comfort and confidence when done right. And this really doesn’t need to take much, especially for smaller businesses. Stay present in your social media each week, drop an email newsletter every couple of weeks. Keep your ads going for longer rather than turning them off when you have enough work.
12. Back up your claims
If you say “we’re the best,” show why. Proof beats opinion every time and this is where substantiated claims need verifiable proof in many instances, and it could just be a quoted customer testimonial.
13. Treat small customers like big ones
How you handle the little jobs signals how you’ll handle the big ones. People notice. And you never know, a low paying customer might turn into a long-term, high-paying customer.
14. Don’t chase every trend
Stick to your lane. Consistency of what you offer and even the way you communicate or what you value builds long-term trust. Especially when you position your brand in a way people come to know you for when needed.
15. Be easy to deal with
Simple processes. Clear next steps. As little friction as possible. Ease equals confidence and no one likes dealing with a dick or jump through hoops. Giving a customer every reason to be happy with the experience and come back again. On the flip side it can be hard to deal with challenging customers, so how you deal with those challenges to still make it an easy experience will give your brand big brownie points.
Now some of these are going to sound pretty obvious and intuitive but they should be. Because if you put your own customer hat on, it’s what you’d expect from any brand you’d buy from, so why would it be any different for your customers? The real challenge is ensuring that we maintain this obvious course and not get lost in the day-to-day weeds of business, to ensure we’re not only putting on a good show, but delivering on the promises we essentially keep.
So brand trust can be a fickle thing. It will grow if you do the right thing, but we also can’t please everyone. So it will ebb and flow over time, and hopefully the more you show up and the more people experience your brand, the greater trust you will instill in consumers and customers that grows your brand. It’s not necessarily a new way of developing a brand, but with the changing manner tools we have at our fingertips to market our brand, it’s something to keep in mind when doing better branding and marketing for better business success.
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