The Challenges of Brand Authenticity
The cognitive gap with consumers, facing adventure, troubles when keeping brand value…
Authenticity is the final award after you fighting all the difficulties.
1. The cognitive gap with consumers
Let's look back at what consumers want brands to do for authenticity: being honest, having clarity and loyalty to values, advertising by creating experience (not ads), etc. The authenticity sought by consumers is complex and varied under different contexts. Thus, as points mentioned above, the cognitive gap about "authenticity" between brands and consumers leads to a misunderstanding from some brands.
For example：
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Although consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making purchasing decisions, 49% of marketers are planning to increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2019.
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67% of marketers say they plan to increase their use of brand-created visuals to emphasize brand image, but only 15% of consumers say that’s the type of content they most want to see from brands.
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67% of consumers say it’s important for brands to provide them with personalized experiences, yet 55% of people either disagree or are ambivalent about whether the majority of brands today actually provide them with a personalized experience (Stackla, 2019).
In fact, sometimes the publicity from some famous brands also failed because of the cognitive gap with consumers.
For example, Pepsi quickly pulled Kendall Jenner’s “Jump In” ad on April 5 after complaints the spot appropriated the Black Lives Matter movement for commercial gain. Pepsi said the ad “takes a more progressive approach to truly reflect today's generation and what living for now looks like.” However, consumers insist that appropriating the Black Lives Matter movement for commercial gain shows contempt of serious problems. Thus, after that Pepsi received a strong condemnation of the notion of brand authenticity (Lacy, 2017).
It seems that in the battlefield of authenticity, brands lose at the beginning because of the cognitive gap with consumers. However, besides the cognitive gap, sometimes brands lose authenticity because of another reason: they may be reluctant to take risks.
2. Authenticity might mean adventure
As the writer Dorothy Parker said,
beautiful language only goes skin deep,
but ugly cuts clean to the bone.
To be authentic is to be ugly
(Leberecht, 2016).
Matthew Kershaw, managing director of content at Iris Worldwide, stated a similar point: giving up control is no easy feat. “You have to really believe in your product. You lose some of the aesthetic, but you gain so much more. That's what authenticity is – it does not have to be pristine.” (Salim, 2017)
Apparently, the adventure is worth it, and many brands get success basic on it。
Lush video. Available at https://smartmediaagency.com/2021/06/six-shining-examples-of-authentic-marketing/
From 2014 to date, Lush Cosmetics has posted short videos on the manufacture of certain products. In the ‘How It’s Made’ videos, the unpolished workers speak with a natural simplicity to explain the steps of the manufacturing process (not a communications expert). For Lush Cosmetics，showing off the original production process needs enough courage, but it adds charm and sincerity to the brand image. Finally, this format is also a new way of presenting the company’s values, both implicitly and explicitly (Smart Media Agency, 2021).
Posters of The Hans Brinker Hostel in Amsterdam. Available at https://smartmediaagency.com/2021/06/six-shining-examples-of-authentic-marketing/
Another interesting example is about The Hans Brinker Hostel in Amsterdam： For more than 20 years now, the budget hotel admits that they are awful，and this kind of statement is the central pitch of each of its advertisements. Indeed, in all its campaigns, the cheap hotel focuses on the absence of amenities and services, which will never be provided. On the one hand, flaws are celebrated with honesty. On the other, customer expectations are kept very low by this assumed exaggeration, making them easy to exceed. Judging by the hotel’s repeated campaigns, transparency taken to the extreme, coupled with a healthy dose of humor, seems to have borne fruit (Smart Media Agency, 2021).
For brands, if facing the ugly truth just require courage, then sometimes loyalty to brand values may mean the harder thing: giving up some business interests.
3. Loyalty towards brands is really hard
"Companies claim they want to save their customers’ best interests,
yet at the same time they want to make money out of customers."
(Gilmore, JH, & Pine, IBJ, 2007)
Brands often show views related to social responsibility/ethics to favor consumers, but when these values contradict their business interests, some brands choose the latter one. Non-adherence to values is a killer to authenticity.
for example, the backlash when Netflix backed out of its support for net neutrality after it became clear that it would affect their profitability (Lopez, 2017)
Let us have another positive example：
The Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign. Available at https://instapage.com/blog/building-brand-authenticity
Dove’s values are related to empowering women and changing the conversation around beauty. The success of this brand is basic on their real acts in line with the values.
For example, they created The Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign to exemplify how Dove has successfully aligned its mission of helping women develop a positive relationship with their appearance and its own marketing efforts. In the video, Dove has women describe themselves to a sketch artist who draws them without seeing them. And then has a stranger describe that same woman to the sketch artist. They place both sketches next to each other and have the women view them side by side. It sparks a realization in these women that they’re their own worst critics.
In addition, they created a fund in 2004 to organize activities, including discussions about online bullying, with organizations like the Girl Scouts, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Girls Inc. Actions loyal to brand values ultimately lead to Dove's authenticity and success (Tyson Quick, 2021).
You may have found the difference between these two examples: the latter brand values do not contradict company interests. In an opposite way, it promotes brand interests. Authenticity-based brand values should be directly linked to business benefits (the company's real business).
As Kestenbaum (2019) stated, authenticity creates identity and a desire to be associated with the brand. That in turn makes consumers willing to pay the full price for a product. That is the direct link between authenticity and profitability that is an enormous barrier and challenge to many legacy brands.
When brand values are contradictory to business interests, it is hard for brands to be loyal to their values. However, consumers are sensitive, and they keep examining whether brands are doing what they say.
To summarize，authentic brands are an expression of who I am, ascending beyond the traditional connection between brands and consumers by becoming an integral part of who someone is (Epstein & Landsvik, n.d.).
“When it comes down to it, we’re all human.
We respond to being treated well.
We reject what’s fake or dishonest,
and we are drawn to authenticity.” (Fertik, 2019)
I'm sure you have discovered that brand authenticity is complex, and it cannot be executed through an approach of one size fits. For brands, the only way to drive in the right direction is to understand their consumer groups more.
