Why brand transparency isn’t enough anymore

“Transparency builds credibility. Hyper-transparency builds trust.”

In this episode, David Cousino explains what is meant by hyper-transparency, why honesty increasingly beats perfection, and the crucial role insights teams have to play as we move into this new era. David is Global Head of Business Intelligence and Insight at James Hardie, and has previously held senior roles at AB InBev and Unilever.

As Gen Z continue their inevitable march towards being the dominant economic power,the way brands market themselves is going to have to shift dramatically.

As David Cousino puts it, for them “transparency directly influences where they’re going to spend. If companies don’t get their head around this cohort, they’re going to be in for a really rough couple of decades.”

This topic isn’t one that can be kicked into the long grass any longer, it’s forecast Gen Z will surpass millennials in terms of spending power in less than a decade.

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This is an 18Sixty production for Forge.

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:23) Tech and Gen Z Shift

(06:37) New Front Lines of Trust

(13:38) Crisis Transparency Playbook

(20:26) Insights Teams as Radar

Transcript

David: “People don’t want perfect brands, they want honest ones. We’re moving into this new area of hyper-transparency. Hyper-transparency isn’t about saying more, it’s about meaning more.”

Adam: Hi Laura, how are you?

Laura: I’m very good. How are you doing?

Adam: I’m very well, thank you. We’ve talked a lot about authenticity on this podcast and today’s guest is going to take it one step further. We’re talking about hyper-transparency, aren’t we? And this is someone that you used to work with, isn’t it?

Laura: Yes. This is David Cousino, who I know from Unilever days, but who most recently built the entire capability at James Hardie. So he has a really interesting insights perspective from FMCG to buildings, and has a really great take on some of the macro trends, including transparency.

Adam: Yeah, let’s get into it. So, welcome David. So pleased to have you on the podcast today. How are you?

David: I’m doing well. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Laura: Well, it’s great to have you.

Adam: Yeah, absolutely fabulous. So, credibility and trust are age-old concerns for brands, but transparency or hyper-transparency is different. Why is this now a concern or a price of entry for brands?

David: Transparency used to be sort of a nice to have. Now it’s an admission ticket. It’s a staple for companies. Between Google and TikTok and Reddit and AI, there’s almost nothing a brand can hide anymore. So honesty is no longer a virtue. It’s survival. And it really has become the baseline because of technology — making everything very public from supply chains to sourcing, and all behaviours visible, both past and present.

You know, transparency’s not new, right? It’s been around, but we’re moving into this new area of hyper-transparency. So transparency is about sharing the right information when it’s convenient and appropriate. It’s saying, here’s what you need to know. Hyper-transparency goes a step further. It’s saying here’s what’s really happening — even when it’s uncomfortable, messy, or not perfectly packaged. Transparency does build credibility, but hyper-transparency is about building trust, and digital culture really amplifies that. It amplifies the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it’s doing it in real time, instantly. So now our consumers assume access to information — it’s a given. And they penalise brands that appear to be hiding anything.

Laura: Ease of access makes you then question, why can’t I find out something? My kids have very, very low tolerance for waiting for anything. But it’s true — we refuse to wait for any information. You know, we’re like, I’ll just Google that, and then if it’s not there, that’s the sort of instant red flag, isn’t it? Rather than something that you’d sort of just let pass.

David: You touched on one of the drivers there. There are two drivers I think that are really driving that. One, like I mentioned, technology — tech-enabled visibility in real time. And then just a shifting consumer values. You mentioned what your kids’ expectations are and I think that Gen Z are the ones that are really driving that. You know, they’re the first fully digital native generation, and they’re entering economic power now. And so they’re shifting that dynamic in the marketplace. They see transparency as more than just a reputational bonus — it’s more of a commercial expectation, and it directly influences where they’re going to spend. If companies don’t understand or get their head around this cohort, they’re going to be in for a really rough couple of decades to come. Gen Z — I believe the number is like 400% expected income growth for that generation, and by 2031, they’ll surpass millennials in terms of their spending power.

Adam: Wow.

David: And if you’re in a business selling to consumers, you better understand this cohort because it’s a completely different consumer.

Laura: The other thing that’s really interesting about what’s to come is — I think this is true in the US as well — there is going to be a sudden step change in the wealth of millennials. I think there was a projection that within the next 10 years, a lot of millennials are going to inherit a lot of wealth. I wonder, I don’t know if you agree, but I sometimes feel like millennials are slightly the overlooked generation in terms of their spending power. Because, you know, boomers have always had such historic strength and Gen Z have had such different values, but a lot of millennials have been thinking about these factors and the need for transparency and accountability — maybe not as radically — and all of a sudden they’re going to be the ones that are setting the codes for what is luxurious, what is an essential.

David: You know, we’re seeing it already. The millennial definition of luxury isn’t a price point or a brand badge — it’s quality for them.

Laura: Yes. That point about quality ties in so nicely with sustainability as well. I mean, brands in the UK like Barbour offer a kind of re-waxing service for their coats, and I think it’s very interesting that they’re not just saying, oh, do that and save the planet. They’re saying, you know, send it back to where it was made in South Shields and we’ll do it by hand. And it’s really part of the kind of artisan story, which is super interesting.

David: Yeah. Absolutely.

Adam: On climate — I mean, this is one of those areas, isn’t it, where hyper-transparency is becoming more critical? And I think it’s almost like in response to greenwashing, isn’t it? If the response to sustainability and the need for sustainable brands is to greenwash and to say that you’re sustainable when you’re not — the response to that is then explaining why you are not doing quite as well as you say, or as the industry thinks it is, and what you need to do better at.

David: Absolutely. And I think sustainability was probably the first line, or the first front that companies had to get on board with. But even beyond climate and sustainability, companies are going to find that the new front lines are going to be labour and human rights, AI and data usage, product safety and ingredients, pricing and profit margins, diversity and inclusion. And something that’s really emerging now in the US — political and social donations. All of it public and all of it being dug up. Sustainability — I think companies understand what they need to do, but some of these other areas, businesses and brands need to understand that those areas are also going to be under the microscope.

Adam: David, have you seen the movement in the US at the moment? I’ve seen a few people on Instagram, various influencers talking about unsubscribing and logging out of digital platforms. So, I think the idea is — in response to some of these ICE raids — the idea is that if you unsubscribe from your AI platforms, your Uber, your various big tech platforms, eventually it will hit earnings. And earnings will be then reported and they will be listed as a factor in these earnings reports. And that’s what’s going to get the attention of the administration. Not protests, not people standing in the streets. It’s logging out. That’s kind of becoming the new movement.

David: You’re absolutely right. It’s everywhere here. If you look at how CBS Paramount — people dropping their streaming subscriptions. There are a couple of things there because streaming seems to be the first one that people really felt like was an immediate drop in revenue by ending their subscription. And I think it also leans into a trend that people were kind of saying, my gosh, why do I have 12 different streaming services? Why am I paying so much money for all of them? All they needed was something to push them over the edge to start making choices about what they were going to stream and pay for. An incident like what you had with CBS News — with 60 Minutes dropping an interview because it wasn’t going to be received positively by the current administration — people saying, well who runs 60 Minutes? It’s CBS Paramount. Okay, that one goes off my streaming list.
And when they’re standing around the office water cooler — if that still exists — and talking about shows, the person who says, oh, I don’t watch that because the parent company, you know, this, this, this. I don’t know what kind of impact that will have on other people, but I would imagine it would make people think, oh, maybe I should be boycotting that as well.

Laura: Yeah. I suppose the other interesting thing is — people don’t expect perfect. I suppose one observation I had was people do expect progress. And actually that can be quite tricky because sometimes there are forces at play, be they taxes or initiatives from nationalism, that actually make it quite difficult to make that progress in the way that a brand would like to. How do you think brands can lean into answering those kinds of questions? Like, maybe we have to step back?

David: Yeah. I think a lot of brands are stepping back from having to make a stance. I guess the danger is how long can they stay in the shadows before they’re called out and then not being prepared. So I think it is a risk, and it’s not about — I don’t think it’s about brands having to take a stance and choose a side — but I do think that there’s an opportunity for brands to at least share what they’re thinking. In the US everything has become so polarised and brands that aren’t making a choice are being outed and forced to make a choice in a very public way, to choose a side. And the risk is they’re not prepared for it.

Laura: How do you think people try and decide how to walk the line — like when to speak up? It’s obviously a very personal decision, but how is that about fitting into the right cultural moment?

David: Not every brand needs to be radically open, but every brand needs to be radically honest. I think that’s the difference now — it’s about showing the humanity behind the logo. Not everybody’s going to have all the right answers, but I think if you can show what your thinking is, what your thought process is, how an organisation came to a decision — not everybody might agree with that, but they at least understand how a decision was made.

Adam: A really interesting example, actually — not in the brand world, but Mark Carney’s speech at Davos, right? Where he revealed that for many years we’ve been complicit in the west around a certain world order, and not called out injustice or unfairness or imbalance. But now it is time to call this stuff out. And that is a really good example, I think, of this radical transparency.

David: That was a great speech. I first came across it on TikTok. TikTok has sort of revolutionised the way I waste my time. And I first saw snippets of it, and then I went out and looked for the full speech. And I watched the full speech I think like three or four times. And I’m not Canadian, but I’m North American, so I felt proud to be a North American. That’s a perfect example of being authentic, open and honest. He talked about past policies of Canada when it came to US-Canadian relations. He came across as very authentic, came across as raw and honest. That’s a brilliant example.

Laura: To your point, sometimes events happen and brands are forced to throw themselves into the spotlight whether they like it or not.

David: Yeah. Absolutely. And so most companies have a playbook on what they believe, who they are, how they behave, all of that. But it’s when a crisis emerges that can throw those playbooks out the window. I think companies need to build that transparency muscle in advance. This isn’t something that you can just turn on and off or deploy when needed. It needs to be part of the company culture, part of the DNA of the business, so that when a crisis does come up, it’s second nature on how they respond. Right? Like, acknowledge quickly — because delay looks like denial. Share verified facts, admit uncertainty, outline next steps, update regularly. These aren’t necessarily things that companies do as their first response.

Laura: Yes. It’s more like a newscaster, isn’t it? It’s almost like having to have the same vigilance as a respected news channel in terms of how you behave.

David: Sometimes, what I’ve observed is that when a crisis emerges, the leadership team gets involved very quickly — but sometimes I’m not sure that they’re really prepared. You know, a crisis emerges and it’s sort of like the CEO is like, here, hold my beer, I got this. And they’re not as connected to their consumers. They’re just not as involved in the day to day. And so this is why I think you need a crisis response team that are close to the business and can respond in a way that helps their consumers understand — because that understanding helps build trust. It’s not just about pushing out packaged messages to try to control the damage.

Adam: I guess what we’re saying here with crisis management — we’re talking obviously about brands, businesses that haven’t developed that groundwork with their consumers of radical transparency, having them on board. Because I think if you have that as your ethos and you have been working on that, you’re going to be given a lot more leeway in a crisis moment. Because when you stand up and say, we got this wrong, people understand that you’ve got the best intentions and actually they’re going to look at it more favourably — rather than being sceptical and assuming that whatever you say next is just a cover-up.

David: Exactly. And I think when it comes to managing that kind of risk or crisis — own it early, explain it clearly, and fix it visibly. A good example of an organisation that did it really poorly when a crisis emerged is Boeing, with the 737 MAX crisis. Immediately after that happened, they withheld safety information. They downplayed the software issues. They shifted blame. When they did release information, it was carefully managed statements that just didn’t sound honest or real, and they delayed full disclosure. You know, the facts are going to come out — they always do. And when they did, then they’re trying to backpedal into it, and it just comes across really badly.

Adam: This is fundamentally about commitment, isn’t it? On the one hand, you can say you’re going to do something. The difference between brushing it under the carpet and covering up, and actually doing it, is about the kind of commitment levels that you follow through with. So how do businesses turn on this kind of level of commitment and push in that right direction? Where have you seen that work well?

David: I don’t know of any example where it happened quickly. If I think about one that I lived through — I was at Unilever when Paul Polman became the CEO. Paul got up and spoke. It was the first time I can remember the CEO getting up and speaking to us, and he just seemed like one of our consumers, right? He spoke from the heart. He talked about what he wanted Unilever to stand for and the vision that he had for Unilever. And I remember thinking — whew, that’s a lot, right? That seems like a really far away place for us. And it took a long time — it didn’t happen overnight — but it was everything that we did day to day.

Paul Polman baked into everything that we did — innovation planning, brand management, supply chain, manufacturing — built into it: if this is where we want to get to and you’ve got these decisions to make today, how do you get us closer to that versus further away? And I can remember, I worked in personal care at the time, and I can remember working on innovations and there was a new criterion for an innovation to move forward: did it lower our carbon footprint? Did it contribute to sustainability? And if the answer was no, then it didn’t move forward. And I can remember thinking, wow, really? We’ve been working on this for three years. Are we really going to walk away from this? Are we going to go back to the drawing board? And we did, because all innovations had to be approved by the category head. And that category head had targets that he or she promised Paul they would deliver. It took a long time to get there.

Laura: It’s almost like that mantra of — a principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you something, right? And back to the point we were making earlier — it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and use the language, but if you’re not prepared to sort of give something, take a bit of a risk, it all feels a little bit trite.

David: That’s right. And the short-term pain of losing some market share because we were falling behind — because we’d been taken off the regular innovation cycle — that short-term pain proved in the long term to be the right decision.

Adam: Just thinking for a second, David — with your insight and strategy hat on, I know you’ve had obviously a long career in this field. A lot of our listeners are also from this world. What do you think the role for insight folk and strategy folk is in this hyper-transparency mission or idea?

David: I think that you cannot do this — you cannot be hyper-transparent without an insight team. The insights role is really your eyes and ears outside the organisation. These are professionals who know how to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening, and they supply a steady stream of what’s happening outside of the business. Marketers and brand builders — it’s easy for them sometimes to get caught up in their day-to-day lives. And I think what the insight teams do is they provide them the voice of the consumer at the table. They provide the cultural understanding of what’s happening outside in the world. And they’re feeding a steady stream of that outside view to the business.

Adam: And do you think there is a role then — I’m guessing you’re going to say yes to this — but do you think there’s a role for them to be more provocative, and to provoke their organisations into thinking more about how this transparency is coming across?

David: There is. But what I’ve observed with people who are attracted to insights and marketing research — they tend to be people who feel comfortable behind the scenes and they won’t necessarily disrupt. So you need to create a culture that gives them the platform to communicate the way they communicate and still show the business the way forward.

A lot of marketing researchers and insight people tend to be a little bit more introverted, but they do all this marketing research and they’ve got to find a way to market the research and be a little bit more pushy. So I think it has to happen on both ends. Our business partners need to give us the platform, even when what they’re hearing is not comfortable or easy. And insight people need to be a little more pushy, a little more — like you said — a little more provocative, to get the attention of the people that need to hear what they have.

Adam: Yeah.

David: If I could leave people with one thought…

Laura: Yes, perfect.

David: It would just be that people don’t want perfect brands. They want honest ones. They want to feel like there are people behind the logo who care enough to tell the truth. Right? And at the end of the day, hyper-transparency isn’t about saying more — it’s about meaning more. It’s about helping people feel informed, respected, and included. You know, you’re asking consumers every day to give up money, data, their information — and you should make them feel respected and included. And I think that brands that do that consistently — trust stops being something that they chase, and it starts being something that they earn. And that’s what builds brands that last.

Adam: What a great note to end on. Fantastic. I love that. Thank you, David.

Laura: Thank you so much, David. Great to talk to you.

David: Yeah, it’s been a real pleasure.

Adam: What an interesting conversation. The thing that really resonated for me is just quite how urgent some of this is. We’re obviously seeing the world changing quite rapidly around us — everything from AI to global instability and financial markets. And we’ve already heard from the Edelman Trust Report how trust is falling across all sorts of different institutions.