Axios House: Brands win by focusing on communities

CANNES, France — Brands have spent billions trying to reach audiences and those winning have tapped into their audiences more directly, several panelists said at Axios event.

Why it matters: In an AI-focused world, consumers and audiences are seeking a more authentic interaction with brands and creators.

• Case in point: Dove asked Reddit users for real feedback on a new product — good or bad — then ran the top 100 comments, including criticism. It's up for an award this year, said Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman.
• "By showing the criticism, it validated the promoters," Huffman said. "Being willing to acknowledge that not everybody loves this landed the message in a much more powerful and authentic way."

Axios' Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn moderated discussions with Huffman, "Saturday Night Live" writer and weekend update co-anchor Colin Jost, NBCUniversal chairman of global advertising and partnerships Mark Marshall, and Josh Richards, entrepreneur, multi-Hyphenate creator and cultural architect. The June 23 event was sponsored by Mastercard.

What they're saying: The same playbook applies to creators, Richards said. The brands with longevity serve the community already there, not the next audience they're chasing.

• "A lot of creators end up having a shelf life of two years because they don't serve the community that's already following them," Richards said.
• Jost said brands win for the same reason. "A couple of them were like, we didn't really know about this idea at first, but when we saw it, we were so happy."

Between the lines: At scale, community trust can become a direct commerce engine.

• For instance, NBCUniversal's Performance Insights Hub lets brands measure the real sales impact of its ad schedule for the first time. Marshall said.
• Shoppable content – ads or videos that let views buy a product directly without leaving what they're watching – is the new frontier, Marshall said. It "isn't just a QR code…it's the idea of how do we show the real impact of what their investment was."

Zoom out: Playing a role in the underlying infrastructure is Reddit, which turns 21 this week and is one of the most cited sources in answers generated by major AI platforms, Huffman said.

• "LLMs don't live. They can't experience music, wear clothes or have hobbies," he said. "For that real experience, it has to come from other people."
• Reddit has 126 million daily active users and is targeting a billion by making its product easier to use every time, Huffman said.

The bottom line: The business opportunity isn't in the ad, it's in the community around it. The brands winning right now are the ones humble enough to let the audience lead.

Content from the sponsor's segment:

In a View from the Top conversation, Mastercard Commerce Media EVP Nili Klenoff said the next frontier of commerce is agentic.

• A third of consumers surveyed by Mastercard in April said they would trust an AI agent to buy something on their behalf, for up to $1,000, Klenoff said. "Agentic commerce is starting to happen."