In his excellent piece on authenticity titled "Who Do You Love" FastCompany contributor Bill Breen states, "overloaded by sales pitches, consumers are gravitating toward brands that they believe to be true and genuine. Hunger for the authentic is all around us. You can see it in the way millions are drawn to mission-driven products like organic foods."
"Authenticity is now the benchmark against which all brands are judged," extols John Grant in his book The New Marketing Manifesto. At one point in time much in the marketing world was concocted, formulated, burnished, molded and designed around fictional storytelling. In a recent article PR industry guru Paul Holmes hammers the sea change: "The communications landscape will demand a degree of authenticity. In the past it might have been possible to get away with marketing messages that projected an image disconnected from the reality of the brand experience or actual corporate behavior. But the new communications environment is predicated on almost absolute transparency."
Every brand must work hard to define its unique recipe for authenticity and real-ness. Being truly real requires extraordinary effort, discipline as well as focus to divine the core emotional fabric between a brand and its consumer – meaning to more fully understand what is true and relevant to them.
Building the Higher Purpose Brand… All brands exist at the front door of commerce, and are therefore assumed to be about a solicitation to buy. A built-in ulterior motive if you will. Therefore, as consumers increasingly prefer true, real, trustworthy relationships with brands they care about, one thing bubbles to the surface that can determine overall how authentically authentic the entire proposition will be. Successful brand engagement centers on relevance. This concept is best understood when a brand is able to identify and embrace a Higher Purpose. We’re talking about unselfish behavior that goes way beyond just artfully presenting the product features and benefits.
A Higher Purpose is just that: making an effort to really know the concerns, passions, emotional needs and personal interests of a brand’s best users. Then, in tangible and demonstrable ways, working to put the brand on a path that will intersect with and support what the consumer intrinsically cares about. More succinctly brands can help consumers realize and fulfill their quest for understanding, experiences or knowledge by developing and investing in an activity of value to them. Home decorating and improvement activity at its root can spring from a latent desire for self-expression and creativity, a prevailing or over-arching mission to invest in family interaction and connection. So what is the higher purpose here? Is it artistic expression? Supporting family values and interaction? Whatever the instrument, the point is a successful brand relationship must be built off a foundation of reciprocity and exchange. This puts real teeth in the concept of authenticity. What’s real? The experiences and connections brands can help consumers participate in, the communities of shared interests it can help build.
No posing allowed… There is risk here, too. You can’t be a dilettante at this and succeed. Give the consumer credit for smelling half measures or lame attempts from a mile away. Something done without soul or real values and honesty will ultimately have the appearance of fakery -- like a poorly executed house painting job weathering and peeling after the first big storm. Any form of marketing make-up applied to dress up the appeal that fails to achieve real human connection can backfire. Actions speak louder than words. Authenticity and higher purpose is not something to claim, it is a by-product of something you do.
The Case for Consumer Insight It is time now to come to the brand strategy table with an entirely new mindset. One that understands the organization’s primary mission – to sell more stuff more profitably – will be best served by embracing consumers in a dynamic love affair. And true love should spring from helping enable their personal desires and passions. Stands to reason then that securing a deep understanding of their interests is paramount to making the Higher Purpose strategy work.
Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for recognizing and embracing a sense of mission when they see it – the pet food brand that envisions its role not only to deliver the best nutrition possible (this is table stakes) -- but even more importantly to work overtime to help facilitate and celebrate the unique, enduring and emotional connections people have with their pets. This kind of brand behavior is the springboard to selling more stuff more profitably.
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