Intuit: Improving Customer Trust Through Authentic Marketing

Do you understand your audience – or do you just think you do? 

According to Jeremy Jones, Global Head of Creative at Intuit Mailchimp, one of the biggest pitfalls a brand can fall into is “creating content for the brand, instead of the consumer.”

Marketing content and communications, he says, should always begin with a “genuine understanding,” of who a brand’s audience is. 

“At Mailchimp, we operate a collaborative model across creative, marketing and analytics,” Jeremy explains. “This means customer insights shape campaigns from the beginning.”

This is particularly important when targeting today’s digitally native audiences, says Jeremy.

“Modern customers are highly discerning,” he says.

“That requires marketers to create authentic content that showcases a brand's values, culture and personality – delivered through transparent communication, honesty in messaging and a commitment to delivering on brand promises. 

“Marketers must remember to speak to their audience as real people. Meet them where they are. Show them you understand them.” 

Authenticity at scale

“It was already hard to stand out and be authentic,” Jeremy says.

“And now, with AI-generated content flooding every channel, it’s even harder and more important than ever.”

According to Jeremy, AI should be used “where it makes sense” – for scale, insights, saving time and giving marketers a head start – but overrelying on the tech can significantly damage brand trust.

“As soon as you start to treat it like a shortcut, you risk losing human touch, which sends the wrong signals to your audience,” he warns.

“It shows that you don't value them enough to have care and craft. Marketers must be conscious of that.”

When it comes to customer satisfaction, Intuit’s ‘Brand Trust in the Age of Information Overload’ research finds that just 30% of consumers are comfortable with AI-made content with ‘extensive’ human input and oversight, while 48% say they want entirely human-made brand communication. 

“It is crucial to be authentic in voice, tone and empathy,” Jeremy explains.

“After all, there are real people on the other side of marketing campaigns who think and feel things. We see a future where marketers will benefit most from harnessing the empathy, creativity and instinct of human perspective – deployed with the speed, precision and scale that AI makes possible.”

Transparency is one of the key ways a brand can improve customer trust – with research from Intuit finding that, while 32% of consumers say they trust brands less today than in the past, more than half of that group say clear brand transparency could help rebuild their trust. 

But how can brands build a more transparent marketing strategy? According to Jeremy, it might come down to the numbers. 

“There is a need for transparency when it comes to data usage – which is another foundational element to effective campaign messaging,” he says.

“Marketers must be data-informed, not data-overloaded, but less than a third of marketers currently use preference or frequency data, or browsing behaviour – despite these being among the strongest drivers of relevance.

“Without accurate data, personalisation cannot be achieved, and campaign messaging remains untailored.”

The devil’s in the details

In order for a brand to feel authentic to a consumer, it needs a personality.

Getting this wrong, however, can tank the level of trust a brand has with its audience – whether that’s because the approach isn’t aligned with the company’s actions, or because it just feels forced.

According to Jeremy, giving a brand a ‘real personality’ comes down to three key things – having a clear perspective, focusing on the details and staying consistent. 

“Brands need to consistently express a clear point of view,” he says.

“That starts with having a philosophy that guides every piece of communication, rather than changing direction with every campaign. 

At Mailchimp, the company achieved this through its core brand persona of the ‘expert absurdist’, which was first established in a 2018 rebrand. This personality is designed to balance genuine marketing expertise with humour and creativity. 

“Our subtle branding wink neatly conveys this,” Jeremy says.” It shows our customers that we get them and we got them.”

Subtlety and precision, Jeremy says, are important – with small details often making a big difference to the way a customer interacts with a brand. 

“Some of the strongest brand signals come from the small, thoughtful touches that reinforce who you are,” he explains.

“Make them smile, make them laugh, make them feel or remember something about you that day. It's about building long-term memory structures for people – or mental availability – so you can be recalled quickly in buying situations.”

Once these details are in place, it’s best for brands to avoid deviating from them. 

"It's important to stay true to your identity instead of chasing every trend,” says Jeremy.

“Rather than reinventing your tone of voice for each new platform or cultural moment, focus on creating work that feels relevant while remaining unmistakably your brand. Make sure the value exchange and marketing communication is worth your audience’s time.”

But for a brand personality to feel believable, marketing needs to be closely aligned with product development and user experience.

Customers are more likely to feel like a product’s marketing is inauthentic when marketing teams are disconnected from wider business functions. 

“One of the most effective ways marketers can collaborate with product development is by ensuring both teams are working from the same customer insights – which is the most valuable source of truth available to us,” Jeremy says.

“Rather than creating a marketing story independently, marketers should share what they're hearing from customers so product teams understand the problems people are trying to solve.”

A key example of this within the Intuit team, Jeremy says, is the company’s Clustomer campaign – a portmanteau of ‘cluster’ and ‘customer’ – launched in 2023. 

“The idea for this came after we discovered our customers’ biggest pain point was figuring out better ways to personalise at scale,” he explains.

“We wanted to visualise that problem in a fun and simple way that marketers could identify with, and thus the Clustomer idea was born. A tangled mess of customers with different behaviours, all grouped together as one audience.”

The campaign was designed to spotlight a challenge that the marketers recognised, presenting its segmentation and automation tools as the solution. 

“The campaign demonstrates how collaboration can ensure the marketing story matches the customer experience,” Jeremy says.

“Because the creative message was grounded in real product capabilities rather than intangible claims, the campaign felt authentic and reinforced customer trust.”

True brand advocacy

But once you have customer trust, how do you measure it? 

It can be a challenge to understand the ‘why?’ behind customer purchasing decisions – a high repeat purchase rate could mean a customer resonates with and connects with a brand, or it could just be habit. 

According to Intuit’s Science of Loyalty report, 28% of repeat purchases come down to routine, 20% are because a product is available, and 3% because it’s inconvenient to switch. 

“Marketers must not mistake habit for loyalty,” Jeremy says. “In this context, first-class customer experience has never been more important, and marketers must design experiences to be as frictionless as possible.”

But building up trust can make a real difference.

The same research finds that 80% of consumers say that they will only buy from a brand they know is trustworthy, 65% say they share values with their preferred brand, and 47% of repeat purchasers say recommendations from friends or family help them decide what to buy. 

“Genuine loyalty thrives in trust, shared values and authentic content,” Jeremy says.

“I would also call out how being consistent pays off in the long run. Consistent creative execution builds familiarity, strengthens brand recognition and improves marketing performance over time. 

“Aligning this creative consistency with meeting customer expectations and delivering quality service helps move your audience from routine repurchasing to conscious preference to true advocates.”