Beauty, luxury and wellness are playing a new game of trust in Singapore and Malaysia

Social media may be where consumers discover brands, but product quality, customer reviews and personal experience are increasingly what convince them to buy, according to a new study examining consumer trust across Singapore and Malaysia’s beauty, luxury, wellness and hospitality sectors.

The report, “Understanding consumer trust”, found that 61% of respondents use social media to discover brands, products and services. Yet when it comes to credibility, customer-led content ranked highest at 35%, followed by expert-led content at 30%.

Everyday consumers were also the most trusted voices overall, selected by 61% of respondents, compared with 17% for micro-influencers and 15% for celebrities and other well-known personalities.

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Conducted by Brazen in partnership with global media intelligence company CARMA, the study surveyed 337 consumers across Singapore and Malaysia. It found that while reach remains important for generating awareness, proof is increasingly playing a greater role in moving consumers towards purchase and shaping longer-term brand opinion.

Product quality and performance ranked as the strongest influence on purchase decisions, followed by customer reviews and ratings, and personal trial or experience. For brand opinion, consistent quality over time, trustworthy information and transparency ranked highest.

Wellness is becoming the connective tissue

The findings come as beauty, luxury, hospitality and health and wellness continue to grow as consumer sectors in both markets, with the report pointing to greater convergence between them as a key opportunity for brands.

Health and wellness emerged as the category generating the highest level of consumer interest at 91%, followed by beauty at 81%, hospitality at 77% and luxury at 72%.

The report highlighted the growing intersection between wellness and other lifestyle sectors, particularly as hotels increasingly position themselves as wellness destinations and luxury shifts beyond products towards experiences.

Singapore’s health and wellness market is projected to reach US$42.5 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5%, while Malaysia’s market is forecast to reach US$18 billion at a 4.68% CAGR, according to the report.

However, the study suggests that brands cannot rely on a single trust-building formula across these categories.

In beauty, real customer results were the strongest trust driver, cited by 42% of respondents, ahead of ingredient transparency at 23%. Influencer recommendations ranked at just 6%.

For health and wellness, proven results led at 36%, followed by medical expert credibility at 24%. Clear information and education accounted for 18%, while recommendations from brand representatives and others were less influential.

Hospitality consumers placed the greatest weight on service quality at 36%, followed by personal experience at 23% and reviews at 18%.

In luxury, quality was the clear trust anchor at 47%, well ahead of prestige and status at 18%, brand image at 15% and reviews at 14%.

The findings suggest that while influence can help brands enter the consideration set, consumers increasingly look for evidence that is relevant to the category before deciding whether to trust them.

Singaporeans and Malaysians want authenticity, but not in the same way

The study also points to a distinction between the two markets that could have implications for regional campaigns.

Consumers in both Singapore and Malaysia ranked authenticity as the strongest driver of brand trust. Across the full sample, 46% said they most trusted brands that felt authentic and relatable, compared with just 14% who preferred brands that felt aspirational and premium.

However, the type of content consumers considered most credible differed sharply.

In Singapore, 41% selected customer-led content as the most credible format, compared with 20% for expert-led content. In Malaysia, the pattern reversed, with 41% selecting expert-led content and 28% choosing customer-led content.

Malaysian respondents also recorded consistently higher levels of interest across beauty, health and wellness, luxury and hospitality, suggesting a more enthusiastic and receptive lifestyle audience. Singaporean consumers were more measured, with greater emphasis on customer proof before developing confidence in a brand.

The report therefore argues that the two markets should not necessarily be treated as broadly similar audiences requiring only minor localisation. While Malaysia may offer greater appetite for frequent, locally relevant content supported by credible experts, Singapore may require a more evidence-led approach built around verified reviews, customer experience and clear proof points.

AI leading discovery 

Trust is also being reshaped by the way consumers search for information. The study found that 70% of consumers across Singapore and Malaysia use AI to research companies, products and services, signalling a shift from traditional keyword searches towards recommendations, planning and more personalised discovery.

For beauty, this could mean consumers turning to AI for recommendations based on factors such as skin type, climate, budget and personal preferences. In travel and hospitality, consumers increasingly expect recommendations tailored to their interests, budgets and desired experiences.

The report also points to the growing importance of earned media in this environment, stating that more than 80% of LLM citations stem from earned media. As consumers increasingly use AI to research brands, credible third-party sources could therefore play a growing role in determining which brands appear in AI-assisted discovery and how those brands are described.

For lifestyle brands in particular, this reinforces the importance of building evidence that consumers can independently verify. A beauty brand may need visible customer results, while a wellness brand may need proven outcomes and expert credibility; for hospitality, service quality and personal experience can provide the proof consumers are looking for.

Taken together, the findings suggest that the next phase of AI-assisted discovery may be less about simply getting brands into the answer and more about giving AI systems credible material to draw from in the first place.

For brands operating across beauty, luxury, wellness and hospitality, the challenge may therefore no longer be simply getting consumers to notice them, but giving them enough credible proof to believe them.

The findings echo a broader shift in how credibility is being considered in AI-generated search. A separate report from Burson, “The credibility paradox”, analysed more than 55,000 AI-generated responses across seven major AI answer platforms and found that AI-generated narratives supported by observable and independently verifiable evidence were generally more believable than those built around subjective or institutional claims.

Burson’s findings point to a similar principle: visibility in AI-generated answers is not necessarily enough to influence audiences. Product launches, customer experiences, awards, workplace reviews and third-party coverage were among the types of evidence that helped make AI-generated narratives more believable, suggesting that proof increasingly needs to exist across an organisation’s wider earned, owned and social presence.

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