What’s the buzz: Trust

What’s the buzz: Trust

In this edition of What’s the buzz, we speak with Senior Strategist and Concept Developer Rune Seir about what it means for brands to move beyond visibility and build meaningful, lasting connections with the communities they want to reach.

With more than a decade at Advance, Rune brings deep experience in shaping interactive storytelling, audience-focused experiences, and strategically grounded creative work. Much of that experience comes from helping one of our longest-standing clients, the LEGO Group, create experiences that consistently balance creative ambition, user engagement, and long-term brand trust.

Rune’s perspective is clear: when brands stop seeing themselves as the centre of the story and focus instead on the groups they want to connect with, they can show up in ways that deepen relevance and strengthen brand loyalty over time.

Understanding communities is key

For Rune, thinking in terms of communities creates relevance that continues long after the brand stops talking. “The content you create makes up only a fraction of the conversations around your brand. So, the more value your content provides, and the more it facilitates meaningful peer-to-peer conversations, the more relevant your brand becomes to the community,” he shares.

Rune stresses the importance of honesty when learning to understand the community around a product. “You need to be very honest about who the people you’re speaking to really are, not who you want them to be,” he explains. “Trust is built when a brand leans into a community’s existing nuances, identifies common ground, and communicates around what is actually important to them.”

“Trust is built when a brand leans into a community’s existing nuances, identifies common ground, and communicates around what is actually important to them.”

People value the effort

In a media landscape that’s increasingly flooded with high-volume, low-effort content, Rune emphasises that the brands standing out are those that move beyond the hunt for likes and views by showing how their product solves real problems for a community.

“It’s the difference between selling a product and supporting the interest, or activity, that surrounds it,” Rune explains. “If a brand can show that they are willing to invest time in what a community truly cares about, it signals a willingness to meet people where they are. That is when the brand’s relevance starts to transcend what it is selling.”

“If a brand can show that they are willing to invest time in what a community truly cares about, it signals a willingness to meet people where they are. That is when the brand's relevance starts to transcend what it is selling.”

Community creates connection

At a time when social media feels increasingly disconnected, Rune sees community as a meaningful counterweight. “Spectator behaviour on social media is often a lonely activity, and people are craving real, human connection. When you create opportunities for people to connect around shared interests or circumstances, you contribute something people genuinely want more of: a sense of belonging.” 

For brands, community thinking helps shape better, more informed decisions over time. “When you activate a community around your brand, you become part of the conversation through comments, posts, and ongoing discussions,” Rune explains. “Especially as more people are using AI and chat tools to search for products online, these conversations become important sources of information that answer questions about your brand through trusted voices in the community.”

From a product point of view, these discussions provide a valuable flow of insight into what to focus on next. “When you make space for real dialogue, you create a feedback loop that tells you what questions still need answers and what people want to see next,” Rune says.

Ultimately, Rune sees community as more than a channel for engagement. It’s a way for brands to stay relevant, understand what people actually care about, and contribute to conversations in a way that reaches far beyond visibility.