This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, Amber Atherton is with us. She's the CEO of Zipper based on in San Francisco. Here in New York City today. Welcome you very much, lovely to be hit well. Great to have you. Uh. This is so on point about so many issues that we talk about, and timely given that people are going to do a lot of shopping over the next few weeks, they already are. Uh. Tell us how people are being
influenced digitally. And I want to start with Facebook because we talk so much about the outsized influence in electoral politics and so many different things, but I would imagine it influences consumer behavior as well. Yeah, and I think, especially if you're looking at gen Z as a demographic, Facebook's influence is falling dramatically. That is not the space that they want to be, That's not where they're hanging out. So how a brand is going to reach this new
generation of consumers. What we believe at Ziper's brands have this opportunity to bring to recognize fans and really bring them into these brand fan communities. And I think with seeing a lot of success with driving kind of customer acquisition through this brand way. Who does it really well? I don't think you can ignore like a glossier or a cure ology. These DTC companies are doing it so well. And why it's because it's this democratized approach to brand building.
It's allowing their customers in gen z want to be part of brand building, they want to be in focus groups, they want to create products together. So it's really that democratized approach that is winning with this consumer. I've amazed, right, I have a sixteen year old Jason has two teenagers and then a younger one. But I mean it's interesting my daughter just the things they reach out or like do this survey do and like they do a lot
of giveaways, and it's brands I've never heard of. But it's just amazing the amount of market research and just reaching out to consumers directly to kind of pull them into a brand. And I think this is what traditional brands and retailers are coming to Zype four is they want to be able to identify who their top one percent of fans are and bring them into a space where they can get real time insights like a because group two point oh, and they can really work with
their customers as their advocates. And why that's important is because of consumers trust their friends and family recommendations more than any other form of advertising. So I think that's you can't ignore about stat well. And they also it feels like for the past few years have trusted broadly defined influencers. We've been talking a lot about Kylie Jenner, her you know, vaulting into being the youngest self made female billionaire. Uh, the big deal she did with Cody.
Obviously people have moved and made purchases based on folks like her. Have we seen that peak or is that going to keep going up? I think we have seen this peak. However, I would class Kylie Jenner as more of a celebrity, and I think that actually celebrity is going to have this come back because they're still trusted. But only four percent of global consumers trust what an influencers recommending no kidding, no kidding, And is that because they think they're sort of on the take, And so
I think that you're just savvy. You know that someone's being paid to promote anything, So where is the trust there? It's just been completely eroded by every sort of microinfluencer, and I think consumers are just desperate to have a
genuine recommendation. So when you know that your friend is recommending a Glossier product or Tom shoes, you're far more likely to trust that than you are seeing an ad And I think going back to Facebook gen Z, they're using appookers, they're not on Facebook, they care about their privacy. There needs to be a new way to reach these consumers. Yeah, that's really fascinating. Um. And I do wonder about kind of some of these bigger brands, especially in the retail
sector that are are really struggling. Um, you know, are they figuring it out? Is it too late? Can they kind of change the model effectively enough. I think we're definitely playing an education role in this space. That community software is a new category, you know, it sits between loyalty and advocacy software exactly. And this is about brands involving their customers, getting closer to their fans to keep
their brand relevant. So I think there's a huge appetite for this type of authenticity with brands and their consumers now. So I think our solution is sort of at the right time and So when we think about sort of the platforms that are most used, you know, you talked about Facebook obviously, Instagram, Snap and others that the kids are using. I don't use them the kids TikTok TikTok exactly. So what's around the corner or is there anything emerging that you see as a platform of swords where a
lot of this branding is going to happen. Yeah, definitely. I think that gen Z are looking for a more raw kind of relatable aesthetic, which is why TikTok has done so well because it's unfiltered. It's funny. It's not about Instagram filters an avocado toast. It's about like raw aesthetics. So don't make avocado toast. Listen. I'm going to stand too. I'm a fan. But I think that what we are seeing as a trend across the board with this age range is this desire to be in a more private
chat based environment. But if you look at things like Discord or read It, they're really catering quite heavily to mail or like gaming communities. But what zipas building is
kind of social networks with brands. Now you love Tom's or you love Glossier, you can come in to be part of this kind of social network with brand that you love and meet other people are consumers that you're finding that you're you know, whether it's the younger generation that they're comfortable sharing their data points and if they feel like that they have a role in developing a
brand or helping out a brand. Definitely, if they feel like they're playing a role in helping out a brand, they're much more willing to share that information because it's a two way relationship. But I think what Facebook has damaged so much is that trust in social networks. But this is where brands have an opportunity because I still you know, I still trust the brand. So it's an interesting way to bring these consumers back into the forefront.
Uh just quick thirty seconds. You've worked in reality TV. Is TV sort of gone the way of the dinosaur in terms of branding and influencing? No, I think you know, DTC brands a spell ending a ton on TV ads, right, I think it's still relevant. We still want to lean into that kind of vorst reality content and Snap developing even more of their own vertical shows. So I'm not sure I'll be returning to reality to be anytime soon, but it's still a great medium. All right. Well, you've
got your hands full with Ziper. Amber Atherton, CEO of Ziber, based out in San Francisco. Here with us in New York City today