Reverse engineering authenticity
This is the third draft of an entry I’ve been trying to write on the topic. I’ve been poking around for the right way to think about it, so bear with my work in progress.
Authenticity. The word keeps coming up in various classes, and every time it’s used in class, I cringe.
In one class, we were told an advertising campaign failed because consumers felt the message did not resonate with what they felt to be the truth of the product. The product was fruit juice. The ads needed to be more authentic. Whatever that means.
In another class, we’re told the mission statement of a company failed to inspire because it felt inauthentic. It was written in corporate speak.
For a class project, we are being asked by a corporate brand to create a marketing campaign that will resonate with their target consumers. Go figure out what motivates these consumers, extract some consumer insight, then craft an authentic story for us to sell our products. Ok… so you want us to reverse engineer an authentic story?
It’s become something between a buzz word and the Holy Grail of marketing. No one seems to have realized that the very word’s definition means you can’t fake it. Or at least you can’t manufacture or reverse engineer it. Or maybe you can but it’s really hard and a bad idea. You definitely should not outsource it.
I think these marketing classes are trying to say: create something that people want to believe is true about the world or is true about themselves. That could be insightful, powerful branding. It could even move a lot of product. But it’s not the same as authenticity. There is still something forced and manipulative about it.
I think I cringe because these class discussions are diluting, cheapening what it means to be authentic as a brand - or as a product or as a person. If everyone thinks authenticity is something you can reverse engineer, then what happens to the people, products, companies that go to great lengths to be the real thing? Do they get flushed out by faked authenticity? My bet is that people have great BS detectors. So the more the wannabes try to fake authenticity, the more the real thing stands out.
