The “authenticity” lie in marketing
Endless gurus tell entrepreneurs and creators it’s the key to success. But it’s not as simple as that.
In the latest episode of the Brand Sauce podcast, I get into what being truly authentic means, why it’s not a strong content or brand strategy by itself, and what you can focus on instead.
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Episode transcript:
[Music]
A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Coco Moco's podcast, and she made an offhand comment that kind of sent me spiraling a little bit. She mentioned that one of her most burning pet peeves in marketing speak is the word "authenticity." She went on a little bit to talk about how authenticity doesn't really mean anything more because it's been so overused by so many different people in so many different contexts.
I'll be honest, when I heard this, I kind of stopped a little bit and felt a wave of shame come over me because I realized in my career in marketing, I have used that phrase so many times—not only with friends, trying to advise them on the types of side hustles and projects that they're doing, but also with paying clients. I've said authenticity is important. And I think Coco was onto something here. I don't think it actually means anything. How has authenticity become meaningless in marketing, and what can marketers do instead? We're going to talk about all that today on Brand Sauce.
Welcome to Brand Sauce, where we make strategic marketing simple and a little spicy so that companies and marketers of all sizes can focus on doing the right things and doing the right things well to grow the brand. I'm your host, Joe, and I have over 15 years of experience in marketing. I will tell you that I have picked up some really good tips and tricks along the way. And by experience, I have learned a lot of wrong ways to approach marketing and brand building. So today, we're going to talk about authenticity. Now, maybe that's not the right thing we should be thinking about.
I've been doing marketing for a long time. You can probably see—if you're watching on video—you can probably see a little bit of gray hair. I'm being kind to myself; there’s some gray hair poking out here. I've got a decent amount of experience in marketing under my belt, and earlier in my career, I was very focused on social media strategy for one of the agencies I worked in. That is when I first remember hearing and using the word "authenticity" a whole lot. In the ways that I talked about social marketing being an effective channel for brands and how brands should approach that, as opposed to the different ways that maybe they think about more traditional media like print, radio, or television.
I think the reason why not only I used that but I heard so many other brands and marketers use that and adopt that language into the way that I talked about marketing is because, in the earlier days of social media, when brands were starting to experiment with that space more, I think they were a little unsure of how to show up in that space or maybe they just didn't understand that they needed to show up in that space a little bit differently to be effective there.
Especially if you think about a stereotypical, very large corporate brand—a company that's been around for dozens, if not a hundred years. They have a very specific way of thinking about how they do advertising in terms of, "Here’s out-of-home. Here’s what a TV ad is going to look like. Here’s the specific box that we put a radio ad into." And it all comes together to build out our brand persona and our marketing strategy. But when you think about social media, and the way that that particular set of platforms—you know, back in the day it was more so Facebook with some Twitter and then Instagram—this was even before Snapchat was maybe a place for brands to explore, and certainly predates TikTok. This is back before Musically was even a thing. The way that brands, maybe in a stereotypical way, would take their first pass at social, they would take some of these other assets that they had used and just put them into that same platform and expect the same results.
But as anyone who, just as a user, has scrolled through their feeds and seen both individual creators and brands who do social very well, you've also seen ones that have done it very, very poorly. And you scroll past as quickly as possible. And the ones you scroll past as quickly as possible, what they're usually doing is they're not being interesting. They're not being engaging. They're talking about themselves. They're just repurposing the same content that they might put in a more polished channel or a channel where a consumer might expect a little bit more polish, like a TV spot. But that doesn't always work in social. In fact, it rarely works in social or even beyond social, just digital in general. Because people are primed—or at least they were back in the day—to be interacting with content from friends and family. People who are not multi-billion-dollar corporations who would not have entire departments of marketers working to curate every message. It was just their friends posting an update of what they had for lunch. I mean, literally, that was an early use case of Twitter—telling people what you're doing, explaining what you had for lunch. This is like 2008, 2009. I'm not saying it was good. I'm not saying it was actually interesting. And, actually, that was a way that people kind of made fun of social and the desire to post on social in those earlier days of these particular platforms. But I think there's something true there. Because that's how people expected to see their friends and their family and their connections—people they knew in real life—perform and behave on those platforms, when a brand shows up and does something very, very produced and polished in comparison to your friend just saying what they had for lunch or they're looking forward to the weekend because it's been a long week at the office, to see a brand show up in that way, there’s a huge disconnect. And immediately, just our brains are like, "No, I don't want this. I don't want to see an ad." People don't like ads. They don't want to see them just injected into every part of everyday life.
So marketers and brands started to understand that, to be effective in these channels, they needed to show up differently. And to be different in those channels, they needed to be—for lack of better terms—maybe a little bit more approachable or a little bit more interesting, a little bit more attention-grabbing than maybe a 30-second commercial dropped into the feed would be by itself. So I think that’s why we started to see brands being advised to be authentic in their social media presences. Whereas the idea of creator came to be a little bit more understood and accepted, this phrase and this idea of authenticity continued to be something that people said over and over again. That that was a way that you would connect with people. Because I think there were a lot of ideas around the word authenticity that people understood would be ways to be interesting and relevant in a feed as someone's scrolling through.
So in a way, when an ad agency or a consultant was telling a brand to be authentic within social, part of what they were saying is, "You need to loosen up a little bit. You need to speak like the people speak on these platforms. You need to behave like they do in these platforms. Or at least you need to appear to be somewhat similar to the types of things they see from other people who are not brands." Because people don’t like commercials. Outside of the Super Bowl, people aren't going to be seeking out that content or be interested in seeing it that much. People want to see something that's surprising, that's engaging, that's entertaining. And a brand just talking about itself and promoting its products is not going to be that thing. But if you start suggesting being authentic, then maybe that's a way where a brand can start to understand, "Here's how we show up a little bit differently in these platforms so that we start to connect with people and get their interest and their engagement." So these platforms can be a place where we show up, create engagement, and help expand our share of voice and our mindshare for consumers so that we can be successful in the broader marketplace.
Because I think brands understood that the point of being successful on social is not to have a good social following. At the end of the day, it's just another place—granted in a different format with different rules, different beliefs, different attitudes, different behaviors—a way for them to expand the mental footprint, reach more people, and to hopefully successfully grow their brand. And by the way, this is before algorithmic reach got crushed. There was a time where if you had a million followers on Facebook, you could put a post and you could reasonably expect that you would reach 800,000 people or more. Facebook understood they said, "You know what? These brands are trying to be here. They understand this is a valuable and relatively inexpensive platform where they can reach people in addition to all the other things they’re doing. Maybe we should make it a little pay-to-play." And that’s what they did. So now you see brands doing a lot more work in trying to gain those algorithms to reach those audiences organically as well as viewing all these different social platforms as different standard media channels that they will use to try to reach people.
I think another reason why authenticity became this kind of buzzword within the world of marketing is around the time that brands started using social media to reach consumers was around the time that a lot of Millennials started to become more serious of a purchasing block of consumers. And by saying you needed to be authentic and social with them was a way to signal to Millennials, "You guys are too smart to see through standard advertising, and brands need to adjust and speak to you differently. Because you’re clever. You can smell out [ __ ] you’re different. We need to adjust as brands to be relevant to you because you’re so different and special."
And you know what? There’s a lot of language around Gen Z as consumers right now. I've talked about it within social myself. I've talked about it on TikTok, about all these different articles that say how unique and different Gen Z is and how they've made the sales funnel irrelevant. Sales funnel is still there. The style of the content might be a little bit different, but the funnel is still the funnel. I think it's an imperfect model, but it works. But the point is, I think Gen Z loves hearing how unique they are, the same as Millennials did, the same as Gen X did. It’s like their counterculture. They’re totally not buying into corporations and everything else. Guess who's running corporations now, y’all? Every generation loves being told how unique, clever, and smart they are.
And the phrase authenticity was just one of the ways that, in the early days of branded social media, brands were able to tell their target consumers—Millennials, who they were most likely to reach within Facebook and Twitter and Instagram—that they knew that they were special. So why don’t you open up your billfold and give us a purchase? My generation is probably the last one still carrying a wallet from what I've heard, but the point still stands.
But here's the problem: is that authenticity in and of itself—what that means—is just turning on a camera and speaking. I'm not doing that right now. Most people, when they go on social—especially if they’re a creator or they’re working on behalf of a brand—are not just going to turn on the camera and speak. The type of content you see on TikTok where it's some random person, where something funny happened and all of a sudden they have a million followers, that may be authenticity. I'm thinking specifically of one of my favorite little videos of all time. It’s like a barbecue. There's a kid running around. An adult asks him what he’s running with, and it's like a little piece of wood. He says, "A knife." And he cackles and runs. That is authentic. Let me see what you have...a knife? No, but that is not repeatable. That’s not consistent, and that's not in service of a brand.
And that’s fine. That’s why people come to social media and spend time on these different platforms. That’s why I come to social—because I want to see the little kid running around saying that he has a knife, and the adult panicking. Amusingly panicking, but panicking a little bit.
So just turning on the camera and speaking your mind—that's not really what brands or organizations or creators who are being successful in these platforms are actually doing. They may not admit it, but anyone who's showing up on camera consistently in your feed and you look through, and they are doing this as a thing—they’re trying to make it a thing. Trust me, they are rehearsing. They are putting together their notes. They are practicing. There is nothing purely authentic. There may be things true to their personality that are showing up on camera, but that is not true authenticity.
There’s a lot of other things at play that they are doing to make sure they are going to be able to find and connect and retain an audience for whatever ends they are trying to reach within social. Just turning on the camera and talking or capturing some crazy slice of life—that’s incredibly engaging, but that’s not how you build a brand. To build a brand, you need to be intentional, and you need to be consistent.
Authenticity maybe could be a part of that in some way, shape, or form, but it is far from the best way we have to describe how brands can show up in these places and make an impact and connect with people.
So, as a brand strategy within social, what’s a better way to think about it? What are ways to think about yourself or a brand and the strategies you need to employ to show up effectively to reach and connect with an audience, to build an audience, to engage an audience, to be interesting and relevant, and show up time and time again, and have people understand who you are, what you're about, and be interested in what it is to maybe make a purchase?
Authenticity should not be in the first 20 words you use to describe a content strategy approach, please. These platforms—going back to how brands were advised to approach social media—the point of authentic posting wasn’t about being true to themselves. The reason that brands were told they needed to be authentic was because that was an easy way to communicate that they needed to be interesting.
So, a content strategy for a brand, for a creator—let’s leave authenticity at the door. How can you be interesting? How can you be breakthrough instead of authentic? Can you be provocative instead of authentic? Can you be probing? Can you be confrontational? Can you be wild, chaotic, unpredictable? Can you be dramatic? Can you be funny? Can you be thought-provoking?
There are plenty of brands and creators who have been successful using any one of those particular things as one of their anchors. And importantly, they do it consistently over time because that consistency—especially when you pair it with a gimmick—helps people understand who you are and what you do. So that when you show up time and time again, they’re more compelled to press that follow button for you.
When I think about individual creators who are interesting, who are breakthrough, who find an audience because whatever they’re doing is interesting to people—it’s unique—I think about John Kane. That’s the guy who has a couple of bridges for sale.
I’ve got some bridges for sale. Some...uh...I got some bridges for sale. So I'm selling bridges. All of his videos have a very specific aesthetic. They're usually locked down, he’s outdoors, he’s kind of disheveled, and he has kind of a winter coat over a suit coat, coat over a tie. He’s unshaven and he's saying the same things over and over again. "I have bridges for sale."
Make checks out to Disco Meth Party LLC. Please make checks payable to Disco Meth Garden Party LLC. Make checks payable to Disco Meth Garden Party LLC.
I have no idea if that's what he's actually like in real life, and there's probably a flavor of what his real personality is within those videos. But I guarantee you that’s a persona. It's a little bit of a gimmick, and I don’t say that in a negative way. I say that in a very complimentary way.
But what he’s doing is interesting. It is breakthrough. You want to watch. It’s consistent. It’s all the landmarks of solid brand building. Now granted, he’s not selling a product the way a company is, but in a way, as a creator, he is selling himself. And he’s doing that, I would argue, much more successfully than an approach that would rely on, “Well, just be authentic. Just turn on the camera and be yourself.” I think that’s lazy advice. It doesn't mean anything. It leads people into trying to act like they’re being themselves in front of the camera, and it doesn't really work.
Someone else that you've probably seen in your feeds more recently is Danny D. He is the guy who just has a little bit of text about what's going on in the news, and he raises his leg up over his head to the song "Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise" that is done over and over again.
I think, in terms of authenticity, we're probably seeing very, very close to what this person's personality is, 'cause I think that comes through in some of the content that they do. But at the same time, it's still a very intentional piece of content. It's still very intentional brand building. It is consistent brand building. Yes, it is maybe authentic, but the reason why they are breaking through and finding and building an audience is not just because they're being authentic. There are more important elements at play than authenticity for that person.
And lastly, the chef Olivia Tman. You might recognize her as the person who cooks really delicious-looking meals with fast-paced editing—rocking that in my elder millennial sweet spot. I'm talking like the Ramones, I'm talking White Stripes. "I'm cooking our pasta directly in this for a little extra flavor and a really nice texture. Don't ask any more questions."
And there's always a part where she throws something down, leans over the camera, and just slips you a double bird. I won't do it because I don't want to steal her thunder; she doesn't need a guy demonstrating how great she is. Again, I think this may be authentic to her personality to a degree. I assume that what she is like in real life, there are elements of what you see in those cooking videos. But at the same time, there is a persona she's playing up. She is performing for the camera. She is doing something that is consistent, repeatable, and different from the other creators you see, so that she can find and build an audience.
On the brand side of things, Red Bull always has been, and I think probably always will be, a very good example of this. Because yes, they are a drink brand, but their content is almost never about the actual drink. It's about all of the events they host that are kind of crazy and zany, like the Fluke Dog and the soap box races they do. "This is astonishing that he's going backwards through here. Fantastic. He's making it look easy." Or it's about the incredible and frankly, a little frightening athletes they sponsor who do crazy stunts—like the guy who jumped from deep space.
Okay, here we go. Felix.
[Music]
It's authentic to them, sure. But again, is that the best word to describe it? I don't think it is. It's something very consistent. It's very ownable to them, because the type of content and how they put it out there is not like anything that you see from any other brand. And so, it's at a point now where, because they've been doing that consistently for 15-20 years, you know a Red Bull social post when you see one.
Is authenticity the best way to describe that? I don't think it is. I think what they're doing is interesting, it is breakthrough, it's kind of inspiring, it's often very funny. Is it authentic? Maybe. But why would we use that word when there are so many other better words to describe what they're doing?
So going back to what authenticity means for a brand or a creator: Is authenticity really what the goal is when you turn on that camera or when you make a post? I don't think it is. I think it goes back to what the goal has always been, and always will be, for any type of brand or creator within these spaces. What can you do that is consistent? What can you do that is interesting? What can you do that is relevant? That is how you build a brand.
Authenticity can be a part of it—maybe it won't—but I think the more that I think about this, the more guilty I feel about the times in my past, in my professional past, when I've said, "Yes, authenticity is key to success. It's important to success." I think I was way off base, and I'm thankful for Coco Moco calling that out specifically because I think she is spot on. It's a word that can have a lot of meaning, and it can be useful. But I think because of how much it's been used, it's basically irrelevant.
Instead of trying to be authentic no matter what you're doing, or who you're selling, or what you're trying to accomplish, try to be interesting. Try to be relevant. And try to be consistent.
Talk to you next time on Brand Sauce!
This has been Brand Sauce. I'm your host, Joe. Thanks for listening. As always, if you have suggestions or questions, please send me an email at brandsaucepod@gmail.com, or you can follow me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or visit me on the web at BrandSauce.co (that's not .com, it's one word). Thanks for listening, and I'm not going to tell you to be authentic out there, but in your own way, try to be true to yourself. Alright, see you next time.