Why Being More Human Is Your Brand’s Biggest Asset In 2025 And Beyond

This expert opinion by Lou Dubois, founder of Lou Dubois Consulting, was originally published on Inc.com.

Modern business is about far more than just selling great products. For sustained financial success, stronger customer loyalty, and trust (not to mention employee retention), brands need to act, operate, and sound more human. Particularly in the age of AI, ensuring that your brand stands out with a consistent, non-automated voice is perhaps more critical than ever. Generalized, cookie-cutter customer experiences are not just ignored but abhorred. There is an overwhelming amount of research showing how important a meaningful human connection is to maintaining a strong, resilient brand.

Research from Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman states that 95 percent of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind, with emotion a bigger factor than price or logic. A study from Motista found that emotionally connected customers have a 306 percent higher lifetime value compared with merely satisfied customers. And an Edelman study found that 81 percent of consumers must trust a brand before making a purchase—a trust built through authentic communication and transparency. 

But it doesn’t take science, or innovative tech, for your brand to be more human.

Here are five simple ways your brand can be more human.

1. Embrace Transparency And Vulnerability

In a time when customers can fact-check claims and share their experiences (good and bad) in real time across digital platforms, brands that openly acknowledge mistakes, share behind-the-scenes struggles, and admit when they don’t have all the answers build a deeper trust than those that project (and often fake) perfection. Patagonia’s famous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign and its honest discourse about supply chain challenges showcased how vulnerability can actually strengthen brand loyalty. And more recently, Dove’s “The Code” campaign was a company pledge to never use AI-generated women in their advertising, helping to tackle the issue of technology perpetuating harmful beauty ideals.  

2. Highlight Your Rock Stars—Employees And Customers

Yes, the term “rock stars” is incredibly cringe, but every brand has them—the people who quietly make a difference in meaningful ways. When I worked at Hilton, we described ourselves as “a business of people serving people,” and that often came to life best through the front desk agents, the housekeepers, the bartenders, and the bellmen. Those individuals became the central characters in almost all of our storytelling. Nobody will book a hotel if the beds aren’t comfortable and the rooms aren’t modern and clean, but at the end of the day, it’s those employees who will make an experience memorable for a customer and make them return.

Another way to look at this is to highlight customer stories. Some of the best recent examples here are Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” campaigns, showcasing photos and videos from everyday users, and Airbnb’s “Made Possible by Hosts” campaign, in which short films showcased real-life travel experiences made possible by hosts and their hospitality. 

3. Nurture Your Community

Just as economic capital can lead to additional opportunities for a business, social capital drives long-term, meaningful connections with customers. Social capital is simply the equity created through quality interactions between a brand and its customers. When a brand has earned social capital (and continues to engage its most loyal customers), those same community members become some of your best advocates. Word-of-mouth marketing is great for any business, and moreover, if your brand happens to experience a crisis, that community can help act on a brand’s behalf. Think about it as building up a bank of loyalty to help promote brand awareness and values, which leads to …

4. Live Your Brand Values And Purpose

To put it simply, customers want to do business with brands that share values and beliefs similar to their own. Research from Givsly in 2025 found that 88 percent of consumers purchase from brands that align with their values. This is why marketing products cannot be your singular focus—you need to focus (and spend money on) marketing campaigns that highlight what your company stands for. One of the best ongoing examples here comes from AllBirds, which emphasizes its values of comfort, style, and environmental responsibility of their footwear through transparent, data-driven messaging, including labeling the carbon footprint of products. Whatever your brand stands for, make it a point to make that a central storytelling narrative for your business.

5. Prioritize Real-Time, Personal Responsiveness

While automation and agents can handle many customer interactions, the moments that matter most are when brands respond with genuine human care during critical customer moments. Whether it’s a small-business owner or restaurant staff responding to a negative review with empathy and action, or a massive brand’s social media team taking a moment to showcase a customer milestone, these small human touches create lasting emotional connections. The brands winning in 2025 understand that speed without humanity is just efficiency, while humanity with appropriate speed can build lifetime loyalty.