Authenticity is the Most Truly Prized Brand Attribute

We may not know what's real today, but we surely know how to spot a fake - the result of a mediated, manipulated, and focus-tested effort. It's not spontaneous.

Take for example customer conversations. So much work goes into cramming all sorts of meaning into scripts, that at the time of delivery they sounds hollow and insincere, if not a little robotic. In fact, if you watched Bicentennial Man, you may be inclined to believe that robots want to have more heart.

You pick up the phone to call a company's customer service line, already regretting having done so and steeling yourself for the obligatory phone system purgatory. Then you get to a live person and fast forward through the litany of salutes. It is not the customer rep's fault, really. And it's not the script's fault, either. It was an attempt at presenting a uniform brand experience.

After being subjected to this treatment indiscriminately from many companies that implement "best practices" or work hard at benchmarking their services, we literally cannot hear the words anymore. Thus we cannot distinguish one company from the other.

There is a problem with this kind of script:

• it's not infused with the specific company's personality. Many newer companies get that - remember those error message on Technorati? At least they were entertaining. How about the "ooops" visual on Twitter? Chirping.
• there is no subtext. No room behind the actual words for the "actor", the person using it, to interpret the script. How you say "we're sorry about that", or "let me pull up your record", even how you ask for someone's zip code, could be personalized. It's about timing and how you say something.
• it's been watered down in an effort to make sure that three separate departments, and legal, are all satisfied with the exact words. No punch line anymore.

Am I saying you should improvise? Well, let's see what that means. Be voracious about what your company stands for. Learn all you can about its history, culture, practices, go-to-market strategies. Most importantly, learn about what happy customers like, learn about complaints and issues, too. Then forget it all to be in the flow with your customer.

The kind of pre-packaged marketing you are tempted to do:

• leaves no room for the customer. It's all been arranged in the script.
• leaves no room for you, either, as a representative of the company.
  

Authenticity starts with clarity about who you are, what you stand for, and how you are different. Know thyself [image courtesy of Immanuel Giel: Greek γνῶθι σεαυτόν or gnothi seauton] as the inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi said. In fact, become so intimately familiar with who you are, what you are about, that you do not need a script anymore.

The extra layer on that: how you choose to be in relation to others, the action verb we rarely talk in the context of communication is listening. You cannot fake listening - you either do, or you don't. Listening goes to the heart of realness, and it's very much part of the conversation. The part that moves individuals towards connection.

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

It takes some time to become embedded in a company ... it is why it takes so long for an agency or a new hire to "get it". There needs to be a sense of osmosis so that your understanding becomes part of your being. Once you have that, then you can authentically tell the brand story -- but you just tell it from your own perspective. That's when the brand becomes personal for us all.

Is it me? #3000?

[Rodney Rumford]

Authenticity is the only way for brands to go(unless you suck and don't care). your brand will be exposed by bloggers, facebook users, twittrers, etc if you are not genuine ad authentic and take your lumps. take the good with the bad

Rodney Rumford

[francois gossieaux]

It's an interesting discussion topic as to whether companies can be authentic or not - or whether it will just be perceived as a marketing gimmick?

David Weinberger wrote a case study on the topic - totally fictitious - which was published in the Harvard Business Review.

http://tinyurl.com/37hq8z

Francois

[mvellandi]

Why, it's been about a year since I first wrote about authenticity (or rather, "The State of Being Genuine")...and an excellent time to revisit the topic from a new angle.

"Authenticity starts with clarity about who you are, what you stand for, and how you are different"

I would add that people need the ability to excellently project that forward - otherwise misconceptions will happen. We can't always affect the perception we give off, as momentary passion, biases, and other circumstantial elements will contribute to the formation. However, we can do our best to maximize the desired image-of-self through techniques - yes, that reflect authenticity.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Gavin -

Congratulations, you are #3,000! It does take time. As I've written at MarketingProfs, we hardly give ourselves any time to digest information anymore; never mind giving it to others. The same happens with writing, copy gets better over time. Humans get better over time... and all other good things like parmiggiano, aceto balsamico, and vino rosso.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Rodney - I do think that providing good service is part of being genuine. We should not do the right thing so we're not exposed. We should do it because it's the right thing to do. I see you have a real passion for social media tools.

@Francois - I actually surprised myself by seeing that I had read Weinberger's case study. Thank you for sharing the link, it's a good article. Well, Pine/Gilmore wrote a book on Authenticity. It's hard to get a real sense of what is authentic - perception or reality?

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mario -

You say something I have observed in me many times here:

"We can't always affect the perception we give off, as momentary passion, biases, and other circumstantial elements will contribute to the formation."

Does it help to be present to the current moment? That's what I called listening in the post. I think it does.

[Mariana Sarceda]

Authenticity is the only way that brands can go. There's no other way to build a strong relationship with customers and stake holders.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Having said that, can authenticity be fabricated as many alluded to in the comments to that case study Francois linked here?

Thank you for reading and following this conversation, Mariana.