Why authenticity, trust, and culture drive global relevance
There is no shortage of content. Most of it lands without impact. But what does cut through is relevance. The kind built through understanding, credibility, and attention to local context.
Across industries, business leaders are beginning to treat human connection as a practical requirement. They are recognizing that trust, cultural fluency, and transparency are working components of strategy, rather than aspirational qualities.
There’s plenty of data to back this up too. According to recent research, 81% of consumers will not buy from a brand unless they trust it, and 86% say authenticity is a factor in their decision-making.
This article outlines the practical structures behind connection: how it is built, how it functions in various domains, and why it increasingly defines business resilience.
Cultural fluency in marketing means local knowledge, consistently applied
Rema Vasan, Head of Business Marketing at TikTok North America, describes a shift in marketing strategy. The role of the brand is no longer to set the conversation. Instead, the brand responds to what is already happening in the community.
She also reclassifies B2B as B2H (business to human) on the basis that commercial roles are still occupied by people with individual expectations. According to brands that understand and reflect those expectations tend to earn more attention.
One of her points is that cultural relevance cannot be switched on and off. It must be present during major campaigns and in quieter moments. Brands that only engage during a media cycle tend not to retain much audience awareness.
She says, “Culture doesn’t take a day off.” Relevance accumulates over time when companies invest in the communities they want to serve.
Literal translation of content is not enough. Rema refers to a study by WARC showing that 64% of TikTok users find content culturally relevant. This is the result of strategic decisions around language use, content tone, and creator selection. Mixed-language ads are one method. Localized references are another.
According to TikTok’s research, Bilingual users prefer content that reflects everyday life, with a majority preferring to see creators from their own background. These responses indicate a preference for precision over general appeal.
To produce content at this level of relevance across many markets, Rema’s team uses a platform called Symphony, which handles region-specific translation and editing. Other organizations use multilingual language technology platforms (including Phrase) to manage global messaging. The goal is to maintain clarity while respecting regional norms. Cultural fluency is not a bonus. It is part of how brands expand without creating friction.
Customer intimacy as strategy through operationalizing listening
Rob Giglio, Chief Customer Officer at Canva, describes a common failure pattern in go-to-market operations. Teams become consumed by product milestones and lose visibility of the people they are trying to serve. In his view, a useful correction is to begin with the customer and work backward.
At Canva, this has meant rebuilding internal systems around user requests. Rob describes how the company shaped its annual user event by prioritizing the most commonly requested updates and bug fixes. Teams delivered these changes during the event itself. This led to faster adoption and stronger retention, which he attributes to the direct link between customer input and product development.
Global expansion, according to Rob, cannot rely on a universal message. In countries such as Japan and Brazil, Canva has chosen to work with local resellers who already understand the environment. Product and brand adjustments are handled by people familiar with those expectations. He stresses that this is a requirement, not an option.
McKinsey research shows that companies considered leaders in digital trust outperform others in revenue growth. They also earn higher customer loyalty and, in some cases, achieve premium pricing. Rob believes these results are a product of consistency over time. “We care more about year two and year three customer commitment than year one revenue.”
Alignment is also temporal. Rob recommends matching delivery timelines with customer behavior, including purchasing cycles and seasonal workflows. This demonstrates situational awareness. Edelman’s Trust Barometer indicates that 79% of Gen Z buyers prioritize brand trust. Once that trust is lost, engagement tends to drop and does not recover easily.
Human context in tech by designing for clarity and oversight
Dr. Meeta Yadav Vouk, Vice President of AI and Analytics at Teradata, explains that the usefulness of AI depends on its alignment with human reasoning. “We don’t believe in AI for AI’s sake,” she says. Her team focuses on applications where the stakes are high and the margin for error is low.
Automation, when applied to critical decisions, creates a distance between input and outcome. Without careful design, this leads to opaque systems and diminished accountability. Meeta advocates for structures that preserve traceability. In her model, AI-generated outcomes include a confidence score and a rationale. For example: a loan denial with an explanation of relevant variables and a statement confirming that protected characteristics were not considered.
This approach helps analysts understand why decisions were made and where adjustments may be needed. Meeta describes this as a safeguard. Jason Hemingway adds that most people build trust through familiarity and logic. When AI tools provide structured reasoning in human-readable form, adoption improves.
Several organizations are moving toward clearer governance. Google has published AI ethics guidelines, and the EU’s AI Act is pushing for similar standards across member countries. Meeta views these frameworks as positive. Trust, she says, is earned through transparency, not promised through branding.
She also stresses the importance of cultural calibration. AI models need specific adjustments for local audiences. This includes adapting prompts, moderating content, and reviewing outputs with native speakers.
Trust and resilience are shaped by uncertainty
According to Brian Klaas, an expert in systems resilience, organizations that manage chaos well tend to accept that control is limited. In his book Fluke, he argues that trust within teams allows organizations to adjust without losing coherence.
He contrasts optimization with durability. Over-optimized systems often fail under stress because they lack redundancy. His example is the Ever Given, a cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal and disrupted global trade. “One boat wreaked havoc.” Brian uses this to show how streamlined systems can become liabilities. His recommendation is to preserve flexibility, even if it comes at the cost of some efficiency.
Resilience also depends on habit. Teams that are encouraged to experiment and revise methods tend to respond faster during unexpected events. Klaas references a London Tube strike that forced commuters to test alternate routes. Around 5% found better options and kept them. This would not have occurred without the disruption. The same logic applies to business. Regular low-stakes adaptation improves response when circumstances change.
Internal trust plays a major role. A 2023 Microsoft organizational network analysis found that the company’s resilience during the sudden shift to remote work wasn’t driven by infrastructure or formal planning, but by trust-based connections across teams.
Despite massive disruption, 62% of employee relationships remained stable and 14% new cross-group ties formed, showing that people acted autonomously and adaptively when they trusted one another and leadership. In contrast, low-trust environments tend to see hesitation and breakdowns in communication, reinforcing that preparedness depends as much on social capital as on systems or equipment.
Brian noted that this is not a new phenomenon, pointing to a 2018 study of California wineries found that the strongest predictor of disaster preparedness was not equipment or planning but organizational trust. When people trust leadership and one another, they act with more autonomy. In environments with low trust, they hesitate.
Brian recommends leadership practices that emphasize clarity and shared purpose. Micromanagement is less effective than enabling distributed decision-making. According to McKinsey, customers are unlikely to trust a company that is not trusted by its own employees. This has implications for brand resilience. Companies that lose internal trust often struggle with external reputation soon after.
Connection as a business metric
In most industries, the shift is already underway. Stakeholders are paying more attention to indicators of long-term relevance. These include customer retention, platform usage by cohort, trust scores, and localized engagement metrics.
- In marketing, success now involves cultural sensitivity and measurable alignment with audience expectations. Campaigns are evaluated on whether people believe the brand understands them.
- In product strategy, progress is defined by customer retention and feedback integration. New feature adoption and user satisfaction often reflect the quality of listening structures.
- In technology, design reviews increasingly include assessments of transparency, privacy, and user control. These are tracked alongside performance metrics.
- In leadership, trust within teams is monitored through engagement surveys and response time during change cycles. Organizations with healthy communication patterns tend to show stronger resilience during external shocks.
Connection is not a marketing buzzword. It is a measurable part of how companies earn attention, hold onto it, and operate during uncertainty. Businesses that treat it accordingly tend to make better decisions and retain more customers. The most relevant companies in the next decade will likely be the ones that can sustain this kind of connection over time.
JLL’s Lorena Morales on unlearning, alignment, and the human side of global growth.
Lorena Morales, Director of Global Digital Marketing Revenue Operations at JLL, shares how unlearning old playbooks, aligning teams around trust, and using AI as an enabler—not a replacement—helped her scale global marketing operations with purpose and precision.
