Marketing & Communications

Beyond Transparency:
Why the Next Competitive Advantage Is Translation

While raw corporate transparency has officially become baseline table stakes, the next competitive differentiator belongs to brands that reject complex data dumps and actively translate technical jargon.

By Mary Austin Harrelson | Published 1 week ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Photo by Ivan Yeo on Unsplash

I was standing in the shower reading the back of a shampoo bottle. Which, admittedly, feels like a quintessentially millennial thing to do.

But somewhere between the ingredient list and the directions, I found myself slowing down. Not because I was trying to avoid sulfates or decode a sustainability certification, but because the bottle was doing something surprisingly rare. It wasn't simply listing ingredients or making broad claims about being "clean." It was explaining why each ingredient was there and what it actually does for my hair in language that made immediate sense.

Native had turned what is often a wall of unfamiliar chemistry and a bunch of scientific hubbub into deeper understanding.

It reminded me of something I've noticed across the sustainability space. For years, brands have invested heavily in becoming more transparent. They have published ingredient lists, lifecycle assessments, sourcing commitments, carbon disclosures, recyclability instructions, and environmental certifications. Transparency has become an expectation rather than a differentiator.

According to NielsenIQ's 2026 analysis of health and wellness consumers, purchasing decisions are increasingly driven by people who are "self-directed, intentional, and informed." Rather than relying solely on brand familiarity, consumers are evaluating products based on functional benefits, ingredient transparency, and how well products deliver clear outcomes. NielsenIQ argues that the next phase of growth will belong to brands that translate these evolving expectations into products that deliver understandable, personalized value.

Transparency has become table stakes

Brands have spent the better part of a decade responding to growing consumer demand for transparency. Product labels have become crowded with sustainability claims, certifications, ingredient disclosures, and increasingly complex scientific language intended to demonstrate credibility.

But research suggests that simply adding more information isn't necessarily making consumers more confident.

McKinsey's research on sustainable packaging found that while 55% of U.S. consumers are highly concerned about the environmental impact of packaging, environmental considerations still rank well behind price, quality, brand, convenience, hygiene, and shelf life when consumers make purchasing decisions. At the same time, 60–70% of consumers said they were willing to pay more for sustainable packaging, and roughly one-third would buy more sustainably packaged products if they were better labeled.

Consumers aren't rejecting sustainability — they're struggling to recognize it in ways that connect to the decisions they're already making. Sustainability is often communicated as an environmental outcome, while consumers are evaluating products through the lens of health, quality, convenience, safety, and performance. The opportunity isn't simply to disclose more sustainability information; it's to translate it into benefits people immediately understand and value.

The brands getting this right aren't simplifying science — they're translating it.

Native is one example.

Instead of asking consumers to trust an unfamiliar ingredient list, the brand explains what ingredients do in plain language. Coconut oil moisturizes. Shea butter conditions. Citric acid balances pH. Rather than forcing consumers to decode chemistry, the product interprets it.

RXBAR took a similarly disruptive approach when it launched with packaging that simply listed its core ingredients directly on the front of the wrapper: "3 Egg Whites. 6 Almonds. 4 Cashews. 2 Dates. No B.S."

It wasn't revolutionary because the ingredients were unusual. It was revolutionary because consumers no longer had to interpret marketing language to understand what they were buying.

Keogh's, an Irish potato chip company, extends this philosophy beyond ingredients to provenance. Through its Spud Navigation platform, consumers can scan a QR code on each bag to discover the specific potato variety inside, the field where it was grown, when it was harvested, and even the name of the person who cooked that particular batch. Rather than treating traceability as back-end supply chain data, Keogh's transforms it into a tangible story of people and place. It answers a question many brands overlook: not just what am I buying, but where did it come from, and who helped make it?

Each brand is doing something deceptively simple. They're translating complexity into relevance.

Why translation works

Today's consumers have access to more product information than ever before, yet more information hasn't necessarily led to greater confidence. Ingredient lists, certifications, QR codes, and sustainability claims have increased transparency, but they have also increased complexity.

Research from the International Food Information Council's 2025 Food & Health Survey found that while most Americans are confident the U.S. food supply is safe, nearly one-third changed their purchasing habits in the past year because of food safety concerns. Meanwhile, the IFIC Consumer Perceptions of Food Chemicals Survey found that consumers' concerns are often driven less by actual risk than by the presence of unfamiliar ingredients or chemicals. Together, these findings suggest that consumers aren't simply looking for more information—they're looking for information they can confidently interpret.

Behavioral science helps explain why. Psychologist Norbert Schwarz's research on processing fluency found that information requiring less cognitive effort is more likely to be perceived as credible, trustworthy, and easier to act upon. In other words, communication doesn't simply transfer knowledge—it shapes how people evaluate it.

Brands that translate complex science into clear, accessible language aren't reducing scientific rigor; they're reducing the effort required to understand it. By lowering cognitive friction, they transform sustainability from something consumers have to decipher into something consumers can confidently understand.

That clarity matters in today's trust landscape. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, 70% of respondents believe business leaders deliberately mislead people through falsehoods or exaggeration, yet 80% believe businesses should play a role in addressing societal issues when they can make a positive impact. Consumers haven't stopped looking to brands for guidance; they've become far more discerning about how that guidance is communicated.

The next competitive advantage

Standing in the shower that morning, I wasn't expecting a lesson in sustainable marketing. But somewhere between "cleanser derived from plant oils" and "Lather. Sing. Rinse. Repeat,” I realized I wasn't reading an ingredient list anymore — I was reading a translation.

Perhaps that's the next competitive advantage. In a world where information is abundant, brands won't earn trust by saying more. They'll earn it by helping people understand.