By Scott Stratten
Authenticity, and Why It Matters More Than Ever
Like transparency, I don’t find authenticity to be a strategy. You either are or you aren’t. Authenticity is very subjective. It’s not even about being true to your brand beliefs, but it’s about being true to the beliefs that your market thinks you have. Sure, we support those things with our dollars, but 10 or 15 years ago, social issues didn’t help or hurt companies the way they can now. It used be about putting a pink ribbon on your product and donating a percentage of profits to breast cancer research. Now people know what actions you are taking to support what you believe in. And today, people buy into brands more than ever for reasons outside of products or services.
Negative feedback can be an opportunity for a positive outcome. A few years back, FedEx had a famous occurrence with a video that went viral of one of their couriers throwing a package over a fence. They came out the same day with a blog post saying it was not acceptable. It was quick and authentic, and they left the comments section open. They also told consumers what actions they were taking with the courier and the customer. In the end, they made themselves look better than before it happened.
Decide what voices you will listen to. Often, the outrage will come from people who are not and will never be your customers. Remember, authenticity doesn’t mean “good” all the time. A lot of brands are afraid to polarize, so they are not authentic. On my blog, I pointed out a restaurant in Georgia after they mocked a customer who gave them a bad review. Now, I am never going to dine there, so they don’t care what I have to say, and people who eat there like the fact that they ripped a customer online. So I may think they are awful, but at least they are authentic.
Being authentic doesn’t mean you have to share everything to everyone. I’m as open as it gets, but I never talk about religion or politics. I don’t share those things, because they have nothing to do with my brand or what I’m doing. At the end of the day, branding is what someone thinks when they hear your brand’s name or see your logo. It’s in the eye of the consumer, not the brand. The customer will vet your brand based on what they see.
