Ben Moore 0:17

Thank you so much, Jordan. Thanks for having me.

Ben Moore 0:27

Absolutely. So, I'm Ben Moore. I've been working in social media for the past 16 years now across Paris, New York and Los Angeles. I've been working at companies like TikTok and on the agency side before. And when it comes to BeReal, I joined the company about 18 months ago to open up the monetization of the platform in the US, but also to make the comeback that we deserve, especially in a world of AI, you know, media consumptions, addictions about social media. We think that at BeReal, we're fighting the good fight and I'm very excited to be here today to talk about it.

Ben Moore 1:26

Yes, that's exactly what it is in terms of go to market. We're the only social network standing against the grain. It's not a secret that social media is much more about media consumption than the social component of it. So we're the only platform bringing back the social connections, the ability for people that know each other to stay in touch with each other and to actually check in on their friends and family. And we think it's very much necessary not just for our generations that really are getting tired of you know the fakeness of the big platforms but more importantly for the generations to come. There's no yeah there's no social network today and that's exactly what BeReal is.

Ben Moore 2:37

Yet. So as a user being exposed to you know constant ad load and AI-generated ads or AI-generated content it's going to just you know impact the trust that you have in the platform and in the algorithm like you're going to open your app whether it's TikTok or Instagram and you're just going to passively consume media just to be entertained just to create that dopamine rush as a consumer. It's even worse because the ad recall and the purchase intent are very much impacted and that's what we've shown with the study that we've done with Nielsen a few months ago.

Stands out from that those AI inundated feeds thanks to the finite feeds that we have. People are not you know seeing content from strangers but they're not seeing content that they don't want to see. There's no refresh at the end of the feed. When you're done scrolling, which takes about two minutes, there's literally an end of feed message on BeReal that says, "Hey, enough screen time for today. Go live your life outside."

Ben Moore 4:12

Yeah. And those platforms have the well monetization has always been the focus. All right. But they're really optimizing for time spent. And I think the next wave of social is not about the time spent. It's about rebuilding that trust, but it's also about showing that engagement and people participating in your platform in a proactive way, in a very spontaneous and intentional way is way more is way better than actually, you know, the doom scroll and the passive media consumption. And yeah, we need to we need to collectively move away from that premise which is about you know money at all cost because ultimately people are going to keep you know building algorithms that keeps people on the app and it's not what social media was meant to be.

Ben Moore 5:28

So the way we're making sure that we find this you know healthy balance between the ad load and the actual BeReal posts from actual users on the feed is pretty simple. We first we make sure that the frequency of the ads are very much balanced. So we push an ad every five posts and not more often like other platforms. But more importantly, we're also encouraging the brands and we're guiding them towards adopting the codes of BeReal. So what makes BeReal so unique is the front and the back format with the front camera taking a picture of your face and the back taking a picture of what you see.

And that's what we're really pushing for or helping the brands built on BeReal. We also have a creative studio that helps you know brands understand how they should show up and the more really the key here is the authenticity of the content. The more authentic the content the ad is going to look, the better it's going to perform. And I think that's the key here of you know pushing ads or serving ads that are native and that blends into a feed of you know real people not having to wonder if what this is real or not.

Ben Moore 7:12

So, yeah, we're measuring all of the KPIs that really matter for those advertisers, working with third party platforms that can, you know, neutrally measure the effectiveness and the performance of those KPIs. But I would say the one that really stands out on BeReal because of the nature of the platform because it's so intentional because BeReal has become such a ritual. We really stand out with our click-through rate. Meaning that whenever people see an ad, and we know that because we've measured it with a with our audience, we know that 56% of BeReal users click on an ad because it feels like a BeReal and so that impacts eventually the click-through rate which is three to five times higher than on any other platforms on BeReal.

Ben Moore 8:31

Yeah two ways to do that. First one, as a brand, if you have a BeReal account, it's really easy for you to show up and to build that trust with your audience. So, examples like Jacquemus, which is, you know, this big fashion house that you would never, you know, suspect that they need to build that audience on BeReal, is actually posting every other day on BeReal, if not every day, especially during our shows. They want to show the behind the scenes. They want to show, you know, stuff that they don't show on any other platforms.

And we also have a bunch of more natural example like QSRs. I'm thinking of Burger King top of mind right now which actually post discount codes on BeReal here and then to make sure that you know their audience get access to some sort of exclusive content exclusive codes to buy their sandwiches and I think yeah those brands get it and the brands that get it you know keep coming back whether it's in an organic manner or in a paid media manner so they can launch ads but they and also partner with creators. We have this offering that connects brands with our creators so that the content that they're promoting looks even more real.

Ben Moore 10:07

You know, it's interesting because BeReal has always been, you know, the Gen Z social network. But in the past seven to eight months with the rise of the AI slop and AI inundating things, we're seeing more millennials come back to BeReal. The ones that were there, you know, during the golden moments, the viral moments of BeReal three, four years ago come back to it because they have an account and they're like, "Okay, well yes, Instagram or TikTok are no longer what they used to be. It's full of I need that connection.

I need, you know, that proof of human that built around." And I think yeah, we're seeing a little bit of that shift, you know, even older demographic come back to BeReal first because of the nostalgia trend that has been around in the US, but also globally where people are, you know, really excited about how the '90s have been really changing their daily lives, but in a good way. You know, in the 90s, I'm a millennial. I grew up with a Game Boy to play games. I grew up with a Walkman to listen to music.

And looks like those people around the same age as me are going against the Everything app that has been so much of a push in the last decade. And yeah, that's the trend. We're seeing people coming back for BeReal because they have memories on BeReal that they want to go back to whether it was college or you know their a new chapter of their life that they were documenting every day thanks to the daily posting BeReal or just to keep in touch with friends that they might have lost touch with or yeah just to just for the ritual aspect of it.

Ben Moore 12:25

Yeah. So that's one of the features that has been really improved since the acquisition two years ago. The app was created by two French guys, acquired by another French company in 2024. And a lot of the resources that have been put into that have been invested was not you know around marketing. That's why people are like oh BeReal you're still around. I haven't heard from you in a while. That's because we put the money where our mouth is. We've put the money into the product. Making sure that the onboarding when whenever you install the app from the app store, you open it, you can, you know, get back on it or really stop posting in a few clicks, in a few taps.

And so in that process, we have indeed the moment where it says, "Hey, you have those friends that are on BeReal. Do you want to reconnect?" And if you were on BeReal, they're going to retrieve your account and we're going to notify you. Every day about your memories, what you were up to in 2025, in 2024 on that same day. And that nostalgia Yeah, that memory lane is really a strong component of the value prop of the app.

Ben Moore 14:13

Yeah, a lot of the conversations in the industry for the past year now has been about how AI is going to potentially replace real humans and for creators and later on for users that really raised the question about is the creator that I'm following the actual person that I want to be, you know, following. Is MrBeast the actual MrBeast or is it his AI twin, his avatar? And so I think that's what really planted the seed for the bigger conversations that a lot of experts and advertisers are going to have nowadays is about you know the place that AI plays in the content creation.

And I think the next big wave of social media is not only getting back to what made it so unique 20 years ago when Facebook released its website, but also the that proof of human. How do we make sure that by the architecture by default you don't have to wonder if it's a real human being or an avatar, a bot, an AI twin. And a lot of experts in the last I would say six months now I've been raising that point Mark Cuban all of those big tech investors have been saying it the next big wave of social is that proof of human how do we make sure that people reconnect with one another in an environment that is AI safe and that is really guaranteeing the fact that everything that has been posted has not only posted by a real human but is human generated content and I think that by default today BeReal is positioned as the only social platform because we don't have any upload and no edit and utilizing both the front and back camera. BeReal is the only platform that can guarantee that proof of human.

Ben Moore 17:03

That's the million-dollar question. Jordan and I feel like and I know I've read it somewhere I think it's over 90% of people that can't tell the difference between AI-generated and human generated content and it's a problem because not only it's about trust but it's about you know actually believing if especially in marketing the effectiveness of the product you want to buy and so I think yeah regulating the space labeling the content but also making sure that there are enough studies out there that shows that when an ad or content is actually generated by a human it performs better than an AI-generated content.

So I think the more we'll lean towards those tools creating content for us at scale the more there are going to be you know other company measuring the impact and benchmarking it against human activity and I think that's what we need these days is really proof of results and I know there's there has been a regulation I've heard that brands in New York now, and even in California, have to label any AI-generated content. Some brands that are launching, I was talking about that with a friend recently that is launching is a cosmetic brand would rather work with actual models than using your AI generative tools and yeah, I think it's a good thing ultimately.

Ben Moore 19:33

And to that point, there is already a ton of data around how Gen Z is pushing back on AI, how people are really sick and tired of, you know, seeing AI slop within their feeds. We know that people don't like it. Whether it's millennial, Gen Z, or even the younger generation, I think the younger generation can smell it from a mile away. They have a better, you know, ability to detect AI-generated content than people that are not necessarily growing with it. And I think yeah, that's a good thing. More the more we'll have voices, you know, pointing the finger of how those machines are not really making their life better, but they're creating this trust crisis that is going to be an even bigger thing if it continues.

And of course if we have data especially in the industry emphasizing the fact that yes ultimately AI is great for optimization execution but all of the you know backend task that were a bit time consuming for the actual human and in contrary to that it's not really great for building trust and marketing ultimately I think it's going to be a good thing.

Ben Moore 21:06

Yeah, I will say it's going to be first people are going to slowly stop talking about AI everywhere, AI-fueled solutions. I don't think it's, you know, a buzz word that you should include in your pitches or in your slogan anymore. So people are going to get rid of that. We know that AI is everywhere and ultimately I predict that by the end of this year the AI buzzword will have the taste of a [unclear] battery. So that's also something I'm excited about. But in parallel to that I would say that out-of-home combined with social advertising is going to become more and more of a thing because of you know billboards being generated by AI but also because people are creating great stuff in the real world and out of home is one of the great way to you know to engage with an audience that physically lives there.

So I think one of the rising trend in 2027 is going to be combining social media campaigns with out of home campaigns and how one is going to improve the efficiency of the other and how will we how we'll see more you know billboards on feeds and how we'll see you know more campaigns out there on the roads really proving that yeah social media is great, but contact in the real world, advertising in the real world is also very important for branding.

Ben Moore 23:12

You can find me on LinkedIn. Ben Moore BeReal I think should do it. You should be able to find me. But yeah, you can also follow me on BeReal at Ben3Moore. Three, like the number. And yeah, my DMs are open. I'm always very excited to meet with people that have ideas to make the app even better, but also how to make a better impact in this social ecosystem. And thank you so much, Jordan.