The Trust Advantage: The Currency of Modern Brands (Virtual Only)

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In an era of AI-fueled skepticism, data anxiety, and endless choice, trust isn’t a tagline - it's the result of thousands of touchpoints and micro-moments: how you show up in a feed, how your app functions, how you use customer data, and how your brand's actions match up with its language. Marketers understand the importance of building a consistent brand experience that earns consumer trust, but the reality is hard to orchestrate. Join us as we hear from specialists and marketers who are driving growth and building trust with robust strategies, insights, and frameworks. 

Related Content

AI and Accountability: Turning Risk into Your Reputation

 Event Recaps

Agenda

TIME EVENT DETAILS LOCATION
Thursday, April 30, 2026
11:00am
- 11:01am

WELCOME REMARKS

Tara Caiazza
Vice President, Brand ANA
11:01am
- 11:37am

AI & ACCOUNTABILITY: TURNING RISK INTO YOUR REPUTATION

AI is accelerating everything, from the speed of your decisions to the risk of getting them wrong. For your customers, this new landscape is a minefield; they are surrounded by more data and disinformation than ever, and they are often unsure who to trust.

Building that trust and reputational resilience starts with understanding what's expected of you—the cultural context, evolving customer and key stakeholder perceptions, and where things are headed next. This session provides the critical public insights and strategic frameworks you need to navigate this complex terrain. We will explore the significant risks that both action—and inaction—on AI hold for your brand and discuss what this new reality means for the future of advertising.

You’ll leave with a clear understanding of where the public stands on AI and accountability, and how to build a resilient brand that can thrive in an age of uncertainty.

Matt Carmichael
SVP, Consumer Trends and Thought Leadership; Editor, What the Future Ipsos
Lisa Zielinski
SVP, Creative Excellence Ipsos
View Event Recap
11:37am
- 12:10pm

HOW MARKETERS CAN BUILD A WINNING OPERATING MODEL IN THE AGE OF AI

Trust in society is waning, and marketing is part of the challenge—but it can also be the solution. With AI transforming how brands connect with consumers, the risk of further trust erosion is real and urgent. This session brings together leaders from Lippincott and Cox to explore how marketing must evolve its operating model—not just to rebuild trust but to thrive in a future where AI agents are as influential as people in brand engagement. Join us to gain actionable insights and strategies to confidently navigate this new landscape and turn the AI disruption into an opportunity for authentic connection.

Brian Stifel
SVP, Customer Experience Cox Communications
David Mayer
Senior Partner, Director of Marketing & Customer Strategy Lippincott
View Presentation
12:10pm
- 12:45pm

A LEGACY OF TRUST

Butterball didn’t become the most-recognized and most-loved turkey brand in the United States by chance – they did it through years of intentional cultivation of their reputation with their customers. Join us for this session that breaks down the ways this iconic brand builds, maintains, and measures their customer relationships that are all founded on one principle: trust.

Christa Leupen
Director Purpose & Consumer Communications Butterball
12:45pm
- 12:50pm 		BREAK

12:50pm
- 1:25pm

AI AND CX: THE EMPATHY GAP

AI drives significant CX wins through scale and cost reduction, but it creates a trust problem when it misses nuance, gets facts wrong, or sounds cold in high emotion moments.

Research shows an empathy gap where customers still prefer humans in service and sales. The next step is artificial empathy, which combines cognitive empathy and affective empathy so AI can detect emotion, adapt its response, and handle sensitive moments without breaking the relationship.

This session shares a practical playbook to map empathy needs across journeys, audit AI touchpoints, instrument emotion signals in voice and text, and measure impact on both loyalty and business outcomes.

Lee Hsieh
Head of Marketing and Patient Experience Ventura Neurosurgery
Professor Yuping Liu-Thompkins
Head of Loyalty Science Lab Old Dominion University
1:30pm
- 2:05pm

FROM GOOD TO PROVEN: BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR BRAND TRUST

Most brands are already doing good. The problem isn't intent, it's evidence.
 
In an era where consumer trust has become the most valuable currency in marketing, the brands pulling ahead aren't necessarily doing more than their competitors. They're measuring what their competitors are ignoring.
 
This session makes the commercial case. Amy Williams, CEO of Good-Loop, draws on cross-brand evidence to show that trust is a more central driver of brand equity than most CMOs currently account for, and that the social impact programmes already inside their organisations are generating measurable commercial value that goes uncaptured.
 
Lindsay Smith, Brand Director at Sheba (Mars), brings that argument to life through Hope Reef - one of the most rigorously measured purpose-led campaigns in the industry. She'll walk through how Sheba built the business case from the ground up: how they partnered with Amazon as a delivery channel, how they gathered both brand-equity data and hard sales data, and ultimately how they turned an ocean-restoration project into a scalable growth story.
 
The takeaway isn't "do more good." It's about finding the good you're already doing, institutionalising it properly, defining the metrics that matter and sweating your assets. 

Amy Williams
CEO and Founder Good-Loop
Lindsay Smith
Brand Director, Sheba Mars
2:05pm
- 2:10pm

CLOSING REMARKS


Cancellation Policy and Notes

No refunds will be granted for any cancellations or for 'no shows.' Unused registrations/applications have no monetary value and cannot be credited to future years or events. ANA will not issue refunds or credits due to failure to redeem a discount coupon during the registration process. You may transfer your registration to a colleague at no additional cost.