Technology Is Shaping New Buying Trends

Companies pore over consumer behaviors to better foresee their needs and interests as they evolve-often in step with the internet and now touched by the newer specter of AI.

-  KATIE DEIGHTON

Fake product reviews, AIgenerated errors and search results cluttered with ads are driving people to forums like social platform Reddit and subscription network Substack for information seen as more trustworthy.

Shoppers are also becoming hesitant, less eager to click "buy" on a site or use chatbots or provide email addresses lest a site turn out to be fake.

"Trust has come up repeatedly for the last 10 or 15 years, but what we're hearing this year is, 'I'm not sure about clicking," said Mark Curtis, head of innovation at Accenture Song, the creative services division of consulting giant Accenture.

Just over half of consumers say they have been scammed for personal information or money in the past year, while 39% said they have seen fraudulent product reviews online, according to Accenture.

"If at every given stage of the marketing funnel clickthrough rates decline, there is an actual cost," Curtis said.

"We're going to have to combine a focus on trust alongside that focus on facility, or ease." Some advertisers are buying space on Reddit to burrow closer to increasingly skeptical audiences: The platform's third-quarter ad revenue vaulted 56% higher from the year-ago period. And more agencies are snapping up influencer-management companies to get a better grip on the paid-for-but-personal recommendation machine.

The pervasive online distrust, however, will likely make tried-and-true household names more valuable.

"It's going to lead to a revival and a resurgence in the importance of brands as symbols of authenticity," Curtis said.

Food has become as much a status signifier as clothes, as seen in a flood of social-media posts featuring branded produce, the $12 strawberry platter, the rise of the Resy-bots Erewhon's hip $20 and smoothies.