Harsh truth: everything you know about community is outdated.

Let’s get to the heart of a word marketers love to throw around, but rarely define.

This week, join us LIVE from the stage of the Brand Advocacy Summit: London — kicking off a four-part mini series from the day with a heavy hitter.

Verity sits down with Lucy Murray (Brand Director @ Free Soul), Emily Mitchell (Marketing Director @ Tropic Skincare), and Paul Hickey (Group Director @ SAMY Alliance), to unpack what brand love actually looks like in 2025.

 

Together, they cover:

 

• The 3 Truths Behind Community: From off-the-grid connections to consumer-run spaces, find out what today’s best brands know.

 

• Real Talk on Events, Activations & Intimacy: Smaller, meaningful events trump 400-person spectacles. You know this, so hear the real best practice for acting on it. When the time comes, scale doesn’t have to mean soulless, either.

 

• What Listening Actually Looks Like: Learn how Tropic’s 20k-strong ambassador base & Free Soul’s biggest Advocates guide product and marketing decisions – no red tape needed.

 

• Why Emotional Connection Still Wins: From Free Soul’s community-built retreats to grassroots wellness events (touching grass, wholly included), discover what keeps customers coming back.
  
  
• Social Listening with a Human Lens: Hear how SAMY Alliance challenges traditional sentiment tracking with one goal; to get under the skin of what audiences really think.

 

This episode is for any brand that wants to build community beyond a hashtag & follow back. No fluff. No filter. Just what works.

 

This episode is presented in partnership with SAMY Alliance; a global network of creative and data-driven marketing agencies helping brands grow through cutting-edge insights, human connection, and digital innovation.

You can learn more about these good folk here: https://samy.com/en/ 

 

Chapters

00:00 – What Is Community in 2025, Really?
03:48 – Free Soul’s Ground-Up Community Strategy
06:01 – When Wellness Events Build Real Belonging
08:56 – How Tropic Skincare Co-Creates With Its Ambassadors
10:27 – Listening Without Red Tape (And Acting On It)
12:15 – Why Social Listening Needs a Human Lens
14:01 – Tropic’s Infinite Purpose (And How It Drives Loyalty)
16:04 – Building Emotional Connection at Scale
18:35 – The Tangible Impact of Products Like Free Soul’s
21:33 – Personalisation & Segmentation That Actually Resonates
22:50 – Accountability: The Ultimate Signal of Community
24:27 – When Customers Speak To Each Other
27:00 – Copied Community Strategy? Blinkers On.
28:55 – Authentic Customer Stories: The Real Advocacy Engine

 

Rate & review Building Brand Advocacy:

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Connect with Lucy, Emily & Paul:

On Lucy’s LinkedIn

On Emily’s LinkedIn

On Paul’s LinkedIn

 

Verity (00:01.91)

Okay, so I'm going to ask the big question to start off with. Like I just said, community, one of the most overused words in marketing right now, but probably the one that's least understood for many brands. What does it actually mean? And that's to all of you.

 

I think when I think about community, think about it in like three different parts. So customers, first and foremost, which I think is ironically the one that everyone actually forgets about, but customers and then our kind of influencers and creators. And then I think about kind of events and activations, people who would come in person. So I think it's not one thing. Yeah. And that's both in in real life. And online as well.

 

which I think a lot of people forget about. So they're kind of the pillars that I would think about community in.

 

Yeah, I think it's such a bullshit answer, but it is anything and everything because community has lost its meaning because of how much of a buzzword it's become. Yeah, I completely agree. think for me, the thing I mean, community at its core, it's people who are bound by a common interest or belief. Right. And I think that's what everyone forgets is it's become such a hey, it's a group of people we can sell to versus being like, how are we actually connecting people? And I think that's the thing everyone forgets is how do we actually connect with these people?

 

The offline piece is so critical for bringing those people on that journey. We work with the North Face really closely and so much of their offline activation is what drives online engagement. Bringing those people together, the most popular posts are the things where they brought that community together. Even this morning I was at another event and we were speaking about community and again, I think everybody loved about it. But it's bringing people together. It is that bringing people together that's such an important part that brands can actually play an active role in but really do forget.

 

Verity (01:40.745)

We're not unique.

 

Emily (01:49.006)

Yeah. think for me, ultimately, community is feeling like you're a part of something, right? And if we, you think of your community, of your friends, your family, you feel like you're part of something. So how can your brand actually be the thing that brings people together in a more authentic and engaging way? I think, I agree, it's easy to think of a community of like our WhatsApp community or our Instagram broadcast channel or our CRM subscribers, but actually the community piece is the part of feeling like you belong somewhere. That's really important.

 

Yeah, no, I really agree with that. And I think it's like, if I was to walk up to someone and say, are you part of the freestyle community? I think they would be able to identify whether they were or not. And so I think that's really key that people can actually turn around and go, yeah, I am. And Paul, you've just kind of touched on it there around like the most powerful communities are now living off the grid. Not in the feeds, but in third spaces that aren't necessarily work or home either. What does that look like for you in practice for sort of the bigger scaled brands?

 

I'm really interested to see how it develops. Obviously, we all talk about a post-COVID world and it's been a long time, but I that's why the offline piece is really important. And at least looking towards the US in particular, there's been such a growth of place, I don't know if people have heard of like apps called Geneva, which was bought by Bumble last year and integrated into that to help communities meet offline. There's one called Tiny Club that's really up and coming meet up here in the UK.

 

There are all these online spaces that people are going to to try and find people with common interests. And I think having brands identify spaces beyond the traditional social and look at opportunities to actually do, as you're saying, bring those people together. There are actually online platforms that do enable that. And how could we kind of bridge that gap between that traditional social space where it's not really connecting people in comments. There's so much hate. There's so many people talking so terrible things. So people avoid it. And we see that more.

 

direct messaging and sending in private, but there are spaces that brands could look to to actually foster community and bring people together. That's really exciting.

 

Verity (03:48.078)

And Lucy, like in terms of your community and starting from the ground up, I mean, a lot of people talk about refib, but I always talk about you guys now because you seem to have just popped up. And obviously there's been a lot of hard work that's gone into that. What were the sort of like three things that you did to build FreeSource community from the start?

 

So when I started at Free Soul, I was social media manager. And we were a really small team. And I kind of came in and obviously was owning the socials. And the first thing that I kind of did was just engage. I think I had been following Free Soul whilst I was applying for the role. And I just noticed that there was kind of this really one-way conversation. And there were so many people there that wanted to engage and be spoken to.

 

and to interact with the brand. wanted advice. They wanted tips. They wanted recipes. And so that was like the first port of call, which I think sounds really boring, but it's really important. Because no matter how many events you throw or how many people come to your events, that's only a really, really, really small proportion of your community that you're actually reaching. So I think that was the first layer is just understanding who these people were, how old were they, what were their interests, what were their

 

what was the one thing that kind of united all of these women together? And ultimately it was that they were women who wanted to look after themselves. And so I think as soon as that was kind of identified, we could then build out from there. And I think, you know, I love when people say, you've just popped up out of nowhere. Cause it has been such a, like a long journey. I've been at Freesall for four years this year. So it has been a journey of like our first event we did in Regent's Park. was a run club. And I think we had like,

 

Seven people come and I think five of them were my friends. So it hasn't been this kind of big glossy glamorous, know influencers and celebrities and and this kind of whole and big ordeal from from the very beginning but the first thing ultimately that I would say is understand who your community is and what unites them because for example a run club or a pilates class or we've got

 

Lucy (06:01.14)

Hot and Cold Club, which we're doing this weekend for the launch. It's all yeah, like I was on on holiday and I thought, God, this Wi-Fi is terrible. I can't get on. I want to see what's happening. And the girls were like, no, it's already sold out. And it was like literally less than 10 minutes. It sold out. So we know that those kind of things we did our wellness studio last year that was like.

 

in 10 minutes.

 

you

 

Lucy (06:24.876)

run clubs, was palates, was panel talks, it was manifestation with Roxy Nafusi, it was all of these kind of different things that ultimately united all of the women within our community. So I think that would be the first kind of couple of steps. There's no point in investing money, time, resource into throwing events and doing all these big things unless you know who you're doing it for and why you're doing it. So that would be.

 

They were the first few things that ultimately we did.

 

you scale, how do you keep that kind of like personal vibe around it, especially when there's sort of like obviously commercial elements?

 

Thank you.

 

It's really hard, like, to be totally honest, because, you know, I am going back home for bank holiday weekend this weekend, and I'm not going to be at the event. Like, it's not possible for everyone to always be there in person. And we actually had Paddle and Pilates, which we did as a series last year. And there were there were kind of a couple of events that we did there that none of the team were around. Like, it's really unfair to expect.

 

Lucy (07:31.5)

your whole team to be able to work every Sunday for two months across the summer when the weather is beautiful. Like it's just not realistic. So I think having like our affiliate network being able to lean into those brand ambassadors who can show up on behalf of the brand and kind of run the show and own things in a way that is still aligned to who we are as a brand is kind of one of those those elements. But I think. Not letting it get too big.

 

I would say is, and not getting kind of carried away and ahead of yourself is probably one of the best ways to keep it kind of personal and ownable because, you know, we've done events for 400 people and actually they're not my favourite event. Like my favourite events are we did our community retreat in January, we had 15 customers and we took them away for the night.

 

That's one of the most impactful events that we've probably done where we actually spend one-on-one time with 15 people who are buying our product and buying into our brand and getting to understand them and why they keep coming back. What is it that makes them subscribe? So I think keeping it small and not kind of getting too lost in the numbers because as soon as you get lost in the numbers, it's no longer a community, it's just a numbers game. So I think, yeah, that would be.

 

Emily (08:56.742)

Nice, come on, that was excellent! Great advice.

 

Emily, when it comes to listening to the Tropic community, how often are you changing the course based on what you're hearing?

 

very often. for those of you who don't know, Tropic is a business which is really built around a direct selling model. So you might have heard of legacy brands like Avon, or your mom or your auntie might have used to sell Avon. We do that, but in a very different, fun, fresh, modern way. The founder of Tropic is an amazing lady called Susie Ma. She started the business when she was 15 years old to help her mom pay the bills, selling body scrubs at Greenwich Market, and then started roping in her friends to help sell other markets.

 

and she would pay them a commission from whatever they sold. From there, that has kind of grown into this huge, huge, huge brand. And Suzy is still at very much the forefront of all the new products that we launch. There is no product, no marketing campaign, no initiative that we do that doesn't have a direct line with our tropic ambassadors. And these are everyday men and women all around the country who are obsessed with our brand. So when we talk about our community, first and foremost,

 

foremost is our ambassadors. It's this army of brand loyalists who, if you do something really, really right, will celebrate and ride into battle with you. But also if you do something wrong, they'll really hold you accountable. And so I think, yeah, it's a big part of our decision making process. How do we bring them in and hear what they need, what they're missing, what they like, what they don't?

 

Emily (10:27.852)

And then, yeah, we have to be agile. There's no red tape at Tropic. You can have an idea. And then next week, as my team will tell you, they're there with big glasses of wine. And next week, it's a reality. And we make it happen. But that's what's helped the brand grow to what it is now. Yeah.

 

We will get you a glass of wine. Paul, am I right in thinking that you kind of like challenged the concept of social listening as just like a tracking moment?

 

Yeah, mean, Sammy was founded on a basis of literally trying to understand consumers beyond positive and negative sentiment, because, it's nice to know that people like you, but actually it's more interesting to know what they say when you're not there. Yeah. I think you often see with panels or traditional research, everyone is so skewed by kind of wanting to prove a point that like, oh, no, I love your brand, maybe you'll give me something. I think social listening does offer a really nice glimpse into what people say when you're not there.

 

And I think actually leading into the entire point of brand love, it's a really helpful point to, you for Microsoft, we devised an entire piece of work that was all around understanding what drives brand love for a brand like Microsoft. I think the answer to brand love is that every brand has a different version of what that means. And we were able to use social listening to identify for Microsoft in the tech space, what does brand love mean? It means making my life easier. It means giving me access to the people I love most.

 

And you're then able to use social listening to be like, OK, well, then is the way that people talk about you and what they say, does that match up with those pillars we've identified to actually then say, you are building a good job because people reflect back what they need to like versus what they're saying with this. so it's an interesting point that we use this to kind of really guide how we understand audiences. And even beyond that, not just looking at kind of topic based listening, but author based listening. And I think twisting just social listening on its head.

 

Paul (12:15.148)

I again, when you think of a category like beauty, everyone kind of thinks it's this ubiquitous, well, if it's beauty, people only care about beauty, but there's no one person who only cares about beauty. So you need to look at like, well, what do people who care about beauty, what else do they say? What else do they care about? And so we've done so much work that's kind of what are the associations with beauty and other topics? How do you find correlation by people versus just by topic? And I think trying to have that really human first approach.

 

to the way that you do everything just really re-centers you to think of the people you're connecting with, which I community often misses. I know, a lot more.

 

times we're going to say community. Emily, so Tropic has always sort of like led with values, right? But tactically those values obviously have to facilitate belonging. What makes someone want to identify with the brand and not just buy from it?

 

So at Tropic we talk about an infinite purpose because I think often we can talk about what's your purpose, what's your mission statement. It can often be something that's a goal that's quite tangible, but it's not maybe forever or bigger. So we have an infinite purpose, which is Susie, the founder, said to me in my interview, her actual words were, she went by me saying this, she was like, when I'm dead, I don't want it to say on my headstone, know, Susie Ma made great skincare.

 

She wants it to say, Susie Ma helped create a healthier, greener, and more empowered world. And so that, as a skincare brand, OK, it's a bit of a stretch, but what does that mean? It means that we donate 10 % of all of our profits to charities and good causes. It means that we've built schools, and we go and take our ambassadors to visit those schools. I was in Madagascar last year visiting the new school that we've just built. It means that I can come in as the new marketing director and say, I really think we should be working with the Prince's Trust.

 

Emily (14:01.454)

doing loads of work in the UK, and they're helping young people, and it really aligns with, go for it, Emily. I trust you. And so living the values and being part of that internally at HQ then filters down into our ambassadors and the way they talk about the brand. And it then filters down into when they're talking to their customers, how they perceive the brand. Now, we've done loads of studies into purpose, and we just had a great talk on the table with the team about purpose, like,

 

Is purpose enough? Is it the thing that's going to make someone convert and buy something? Our research says, no, it's not. It's a nice to have. Ultimately, if the product doesn't work, and it's not the right price point, and it's not solving the problem I have, I'm not going to buy it based on the fact you give to charity. But what we know time and time again is people buy the products based on the price, the positioning, the reviews, the five-star rating, the awards. They realize it's great, and they love it.

 

And then the purpose and the things that we're doing with charity, actually the things that keep them loyal and make them feel like they're part of something bigger than just buying a moisturiser. And so for us, the purpose piece, yeah, it's a core of what we do, but we don't ram it down people's throats, especially when they're new to brand, because actually it's not part of their key decision making process at that point.

 

Yeah, I mean, we kind of touched on something similar this morning in terms of like having that connection and that human connection when we talked about like brand experiences. And this is a question for all of you. what does like emotional connection at scale look like for you guys, especially in spaces where it can't be sort of like physically present?

 

us, it's everything. The whole brand has been built on emotional connections and in-person conversations. It's word of mouth that has made the brand as popular as it is and successful as it is. And let's be real, we're all in a world where we are craving human touch. We are more digitally connected, but maybe physically unconnected as ever. When was the last time you just really went and touched someone and connected like we just met?

 

Emily (16:04.334)

You know, we're living in a touchless digital world. We're sat here on our phones taking notes, not writing on a pad. And there is so much power in meeting face to face and having a real human conversation. I've just met these guys. But we're all going to be friends now. We're to act real friendly, right? But that human connection is so important. And doing that at scale for our brand, know, someone talked about pop-ups. was talking to Seam Presents earlier.

 

You come into a brand, you don't have 200 grand to blow on a pop-up one weekend in London for a few people to come and talk about it. Not every brand is in that position, but every brand is in a position to use their VIP customers and say, you want to get your VIP customers together that you've got identified geographically where they are. We're to put on an event where you can get your friends together, get them around, have a drink, have a party, charcuterie nights like all the Gen Zs are doing.

 

and get your gunk jug out and have a lovely flat lay. But we're going to then zoom in as the brand and we're going to host this Zoom event for all of you to follow along at home and talk about wellness and wellbeing or skincare or a masterclass. So you're not physically there. It's cost you nothing but a Zoom license, but you maybe are connecting with 10,000 plus people and introducing your VIP customers are bringing their friends into the mix as well. And that's free.

 

mean, that feels like that needs a...

 

Thank

 

Emily (17:25.998)

Well done.

 

I like I think it is that human connection and the importance of moving beyond influencer into advocacy because it means, I mean, we all follow so many people on social media, but the things that grab your attention more out when a friend posts something, when somebody that you know talks about something and it's very likely that when you see that person that will stick in your head and regardless of if it's a product, an event, something that they did or went to, you will ask about it. So being able to build that emotional connection does come to understanding.

 

not just influencers, but everyone within it to be able to kind of then say, well, what do they care about? How do we connect with that? Because when they talk about it, it's going to mean something to the people that they connect with. And that locality, it's something that brands struggle with because you can't be everywhere as a brand. have to choose, is it going to be a London event or a Manchester event? But the UK is so big. I'm from Halifax in the north of England, a tiny town. And I would always say to brands, if you can't connect with my 16-year-old brother in Halifax, you're not like, you're going to put this up, right?

 

you're not going to succeed. And so you need to look at how you move outside of those centers. And it can only be done by building a community of people who will speak on your behalf to create that emotional connection.

 

Lucy, did you want to add on that? Sorry.

 

Emily (18:35.214)

I was just going to say

 

I think it also depends on the product and what it is you're selling. We're really lucky at FreeSale that not many people can go to work every day and actually say that they're changing people's lives. A lot of the products that we sell are having a really profound impact on women's lives. Like our reviews for our PCOS supplement, we've got eight FreeSale babies. And that's no joke. It's having such a huge impact. So I think that emotional connection

 

is made easier. I'm not saying everything that we do is so easy, but it is made easier by the fact that actually the product has that kind of tangible impact. Whereas if you're selling like a sofa, it's a little bit hard to have like an emotional impact on your community. But I absolutely agree with everything that you've said in terms of as well the fact that

 

when you're reaching consumers through influencers, it doesn't feel sometimes as maybe as genuine. But actually, I think now the barrier to becoming an influencer is so low. Everyone can be a creator. Everyone can create content. Everyone can put a testimonial up on Instagram or TikTok or wherever and really connect with that person. And when they're talking about a product that has such a profound impact,

 

the two kind of going hand in hand can be really, really powerful.

 

Emily (19:59.694)

Yeah, on that, it all comes down to making your customers and your community feel something, right? And then we talk about feeling like you're part of something, you're feeling special. Ultimately, we overlook it. A great chat I had earlier, we were talking about you say sofa, you got a sofa sample, a fabric sample for your new sofa. And in that parcel...

 

You've got two free tea bags from a brand that maybe the sofa company has collabed with. Now, that brand marketing brand person is probably thinking, stick some tea bags in the order, will you, Darren? That'll make them happy. But actually, you said, for you, you're like, I can sit down and have a nice cup of Earl Grey whilst I'm looking at my sofa samples. That experience for you now choosing a sofa has been made richer. So there's little things that, as marketers, we sometimes forget in our own process can actually be some of the most powerful.

 

Doesn't all have to cost a lot. You can tell I work for a very scrappy budget brand. You've got to be entrepreneurial. You've got to think, if this was my business, this was my own personal money, how would I be spending it? And you can create connection with something as simple as a cup of tea.

 

personalisation point of view, mean, do you segment your community?

 

When we're looking at CRM databases, think because we're a multi-skew brand now and the range is ever-evolving, the person that buys protein is different to the person that buys PCOS supplements to the person that buys green. So we want to make sure that our messaging ultimately is tailored to that particular individual because all of the insights that we have, we know that

 

Lucy (21:33.858)

that person fundamentally is interested in different things. They buy different products, they go to different places. So we need to make sure that we're speaking directly to those kind of particular segments. And I also think age is a really huge one for us as well. We have to be sensitive around the fact that some women are experiencing menopause, some women might be going through a fertility journey, some women might be...

 

know, Gen Z and they might have just started their period. So we're talking to this kind of huge range of women. So I think we segment based off of the fact that we want to create that connection and we can't do that en masse. It has to be done by speaking directly to that consumer. And so you have to get to know who each consumer is and kind of give them personas.

 

Another question for all of you. What are the signals that make you go, this is a successful community?

 

when they hold you accountable for doing something wrong. I think that's real power in that when you do something and then your community is that, is this the right thing? Because that is a number one signal that your community really cares about the community they're part of is making, holding you true to your values. So we had an example a few weeks ago where we did, we're very eco led brand.

 

Posted the the dolls the AI dolls on our Instagram and then someone else posted it and said to all of our investors Why not create your own and then it was literally that weekend BBC dropped that article like chat GPT is killing the planet water usage energy and we went God, we hadn't even thought about that and you have to hold our hands up and go gosh Yeah, thank you for holding us accountable to this. This is really really important discussion We need to look at we need to be using it more mindfully And then we had so many of our ambassadors talking to us about that holding us accountable

 

Emily (23:23.308)

And also on the flip side, the positive is the amazing things of like, can walk down the street now and be on Brighton Pier and a Tropic ambassador will recognise me and be like, are you Emily from Tropic? And actually, you are part of something and there's 20,000 ambassadors. I'm watched wherever I go now. But that's also a good signal is that people connect with the brand. And if you have people in your brand that you can use as a face and they can recognise you at an event and they can speak to your founder or whoever.

 

That's really powerful when you hear that people can see you in public, although it's a bit terrifying.

 

When I went for my new tattoo, she had a Tropic magazine out and I was like, let's have a chance.

 

Wow! Yeah, perfect.

 

I mean, for me, there's so many practical things that you could look at, view through rates on TikTok, show that you're making content that's relevant to the people you want to connect with. But I think for me, the things that I love, it's hard to get to. But when you meet offline communities who really bond and gel together, that positivity that comes through, and actually you can kind of bring that online. And when you see the people who are part of this actually speaking to each other, that you've proved the point that you've not just...

 

Paul (24:27.63)

done the job of building, but you've connected people. And I think that is such a, I mean, the nicest part of community is being able to bring people together. And so being able to see people building those connections is like a really good point that you've done the job you wanted to do.

 

was literally going to say exactly that. We have a lot of people come to our events on their own. And whenever they come, they'll leave with other people. We've had some girls that came to our wellness studio, and they were going for brunch after. And they call themselves the Free Soul Friends because they met at another Free Soul event. So I think that's when you've brought the right, you've appealed to the right people.

 

they've come into the room and you've facilitated that connection. And the same with the TikTok lives that we do. We have moderators who go through the comments from FreeSoul and reply to things. But actually the best thing is when someone will ask, do the greens actually taste good? And then you've got Susie from Norwich or something replying like, my God, I've had them every day for the last six months. They're amazing. You should totally buy them. It's like we don't have to even step in. The conversation, it's a two-way conversation, but not.

 

between us and them, it's between ourselves, I think.

 

that in.

 

Emily (25:39.95)

And there's some brands that do a great job. You think of like Beauty Pie or Caroline Hirons and Skin Rocks in that beauty space where they created an online community. We're like, who goes on Facebook anymore? But you do if you're part of those groups and those communities because you want to see what's up, right? And there's brands like that that still do an amazing job at bringing their community together to facilitate conversations. It's not just brand to customer, it's customer to customer. Yeah.

 

The Scamp & Dude Facebook group is just popping off all the time. OK, I'm going to go to the questions. The first one is, how do you deal with people copying your community building? It sucks when you spend so much time cultivating a connection.

 

I mean, I take it as a compliment. feel like you've done such a good job that people want to copy it, right? You can't stop someone copying it. There's no way to stop someone doing it.

 

you just have to do better. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of focus on where you're going and try and kind of drown it out a little bit. It is frustrating, but yeah, just on to the next.

 

Horse blinkers. Focus on your mission, what you're doing, what you're here to do, and shut out the noise. It's hard when you've been in a big company. worked with Unilever, and everyone's obsessed with competitors, and what's that brand doing? And I come to a founder-led company, and it's like, Emily, we lead, we don't follow. And that is that entrepreneurial mindset that if every brand builder in this room went away with, we'd be unstoppable.

 

Verity (27:09.678)

you using AI to enhance community engagement or personalised interactions?

 

We don't especially, we currently really like the human element of it and being able to find the right things to interact with online. For me, we're not a place with AI where I would 100 % trust its ability to go out on its own and interact with the things. It doesn't have that sense of being able to say, is that comment being said in jest or is it being said in truth? And you could get yourself into some difficulty. So I think right now the human touch is really critical.

 

Yeah, I think community is people. So you need to have people operating it and within it. I think there's probably some great tools out there that can be leveraged for like the right things. But ultimately, whenever it's kind of customer facing or community facing, think people won't get better than people.

 

agree. There's tech that you can utilise that we're at testing a new tool at the moment just for our emails. So actually personalising the email coming to you Verity. And it's like to Verity, but your name is spelled in the texture of our product. And that's all using like an AI layer within that, which is just a way of personalising comms for you, but without it having to take away the human element. Because I agree, that's so fundamental. That's a lovely touch, I love that.

 

We have no time, but I feel like Kate's asked three questions. So if I don't ask one of them, she may not be happy. How important are authentic customer stories in creating brand love by allowing customers to recognize themselves and their struggles in the brand? Anyone got 30 seconds?

 

Lucy (28:55.534)

would say so important. I think it's probably one of the most important things. You're representing real people by doing that. And I think there's nothing better than a real kind of testimonial. Like word of mouth, say, is the most powerful form of marketing. And ultimately, testimonials are bringing that to the forefront, whether it's digitally or wherever. So I think we definitely.

 

use customer testimonials.

 

on a performance side, on social media. For so many of our accounts, the content that performs best is UGC that we've sourced, which is people authentically talking about your Brando product.

 

I think there's also different mediums of customer testimonials, like whether it's a quote or like you say, UGC, there's different ways for it to show up. But ultimately, what you're doing is having to building that emotional connections, a story that someone can then resonate with. And also, think having like a variety is really important because, you know, one story is only going to resonate with certain people, but making sure that you have different stories from different ages, backgrounds, different struggles.

 

That's how you then grow that community because you're then resonating with all these different people.

 

Emily (30:10.35)

And never underestimate how incredible you'll make someone feel if you share their story. That is so important. I think we've talked so many great points today. But one of the things I felt I wanted to really make the point of when I come up here is please just remember that your customers are human beings. And you can look at the data and cut it any which way and look at their personas and their behaviors and their interests or meta. But they're human beings with feelings and heart. And talk to them. Speak to them.

 

Touch them. Get in the room with them, right? And listen to them. Get into your customer service team and listen to the phone calls of your customers. Call them back. See what's going on. And actually, yeah, if you've got an amazing success story, yes, it's amazing marketing opportunity to share it and use it as social proof, but also think about the impact on that individual who's going to feel so proud, like, my god, they've shared my story or my testimonial. They're going to be one of your biggest advocates going forward.

 

Verity (32:00:00)

Guys, this has been awesome. It's gone super fast, but thank you so much.

 

Get your rosé!