As the market is flooded with fake and inauthentic marketing it is now more important to be authentic. Authenticity is a tricky thing to fully grasp. You can measure perceived brand authenticity by asking your customers what they think about the continuity, credibility, integrity and symbolism of your brand.
Raise your hand if you are tired of brands claiming to be authentic when they obviously are not. I certainly am.
I’m talking about those who say they want to nurture the human spirit one neighborhood at a time but then don’t pay their taxes. Those who say they want to be the world’s best and safest employer yet threatens to terminate employees if they don’t keep delivering goods during a tornado. Or the many others that make statements the brand is unable to live up to.
In this article I will discuss the role brand authenticity plays in consumption. I’ll cover:
- Why authenticity is elusive to define and obtain
- Why authentic brands are rear in a seemingly inauthentic marketplace.
- How it’s best to approach brand authenticity and what it means to people.
- How to measure brand authenticity for your brand.
Brand authenticity is elusive
Authenticity plays a large role in marketplaces all over the world. This is especially true in lifestyle and self-expressive product categories. Authentic brands allow people to establish and reinforce who they are;1Fritz, K., Schoenmueller, V., & Bruhn, M. (2017). Authenticity in branding – exploring antecedents and consequences of brand authenticity. European Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 324–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2014-0633 both in their own eyes and society’s. This is due to the brand’s relevance to people’s lifestyles and self-images. Because people consider authentic brands more relevant to their self-images, they are also more memorable;2Manthiou, A., Kang, J., Hyun, S. S., & Fu, X. X. (2018). The impact of brand authenticity on building brand love: An investigation of impression in memory and lifestyle-congruence. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 38–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.03.005 a key driver of mental availability and brand awareness.
People value authenticity, a lot, so it’s no surprise that it has become a huge buzzword within the industry. The marketer’s echo chamber has never been as stuffed with authenticity claims as it is today. Ironically, authenticity claims have never been easier to debunk.
20-30 years ago things were much simpler. You could go out for a Sunday stroll, grab coffee at the nearby café while enjoying the day’s newspaper that wasn’t full of clickbait-y headlines leading to empty columns about the morning routine of whatever celebrity is trending this week. Then you would grab some pastries for the family and a nice bouquet for your partner and the whole thing would feel like a nice authentic experience.
Today is a little more complicated.
That is not to say that brands weren’t inauthentic before; they were. And there were plenty of them. But nowadays its getting easier to catch the discrepancies. The increasing amount of half-assed purpose statements definitely does not work in favor of modern brands. To make things even more complicated, brand authenticity has proven very difficult to define clearly. As a result, it’s even more elusive to obtain.
The takeaway from this section is that if you want to be considered authentic, you need to be willing to do the work. Authenticity means honesty, transparency and genuineness. It’s judged on experiences and feelings, not mindlessly adopted from ad copies.
Brand authenticity is dimensional
Because authenticity is so hard to define, it is best to take a dimensional approach. Felicitas Morhart, Lucia Malär, Amélie Guèvremont, Florent Girardin and Bianca Grohmann3Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F., & Grohmann, B. (2015). Brand authenticity: An integrative framework and measurement scale. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 200–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.11.006 offer the best conceptualization of authenticity to date. The Swiss and Canadian researchers see brand authenticity as the total combined perception of four different dimensions: continuity, credibility, integrity and symbolism.
Continuity
Continuity represents the timelessness of a brand, its ability to survive trends and fads, and its history and heritage. The idea is that brands that stay true to their brand promise and don’t dilute it by chasing whatever is in fashion at a given moment are perceived more authentic.
Age by it self can be a powerful catalyst of perceived authenticity. First of all it may provoke nostalgia where people reflect on the role the brand has played in their lives.4Fritz, K., Schoenmueller, V., & Bruhn, M. (2017). Authenticity in branding – exploring antecedents and consequences of brand authenticity. European Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 324–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2014-0633 For example, many adults relive moments from their childhoods by building LEGO models. Second, continuous brands are likely more embedded in culture and therefore considered more authentic.5Holt, D. B. (2002). Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), 70–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/339922
Credibility
Credible brands are able and willing to fulfill the promises they make about quality of their products and services. It’s about how well people’s expectations are met and how honest and transparent the brand is in shaping them. For example, being able to count on a Swiss army knife not to break when it’s needed, or trusting that Walmart will always have the lowest prices are both authenticating acts.
Integrity
Integrity is about the morals that guide brand behavior. It’s a brands commitment to good values and a genuine concern for their customers’ well-being. As a result, brands that possess integrity are often perceived as intrinsically motivated organizations that put passion above profits.6Nunes, J. C., Ordanini, A., & Giambastiani, G. (2021). The Concept of Authenticity: What It Means to Consumers. Journal of Marketing, 85(4), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242921997081
This might be the single most important aspect to consider if you want your customers to perceive you as authentic. Just think of the times when you have felt that a company cared only about getting as much money from you as possible. I’m willing to bet it didn’t leave an authentic impression on you. Greedy brands tend to use aggressive and insincere marketing tactics7Thompson, C. J., Rindfleisch, A., & Arsel, Z. (2006). Emotional Branding and the Strategic Value of the Doppelgänger Brand Image. Journal of Marketing, 70(1), 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.70.1.050.qxd which shatter people’s perceptions of their authenticity.
Symbolism
Last of all, symbolism is the ability of brands to become source material for people’s self-identity. In essence, it’s what people believe buying the brand says about them. This is the facet that controls how relevant to the self people consider a brand to be based on evaluations of all four dimensions and other attributes.
Symbolism is extremely subjective. While you may objectively conclude that a brand is continuous, credible and even has integrity, symbolism determines whether that’s valuable to you and how well it fits your self-image.
How to measure brand authenticity
Felicitas Morhart and her colleagues are nice enough to provide us with a scale we can use to assess brand authenticity. It’s relatively short at only 15 items meaning that its quick and easy to administer. You can for example set it up in Google Forms and mail to your email list, or ask customers to fill it out when they shop in your store. A good idea would be to incentivize participation, for instance, by offering discounts or freebies to those that take the time to fill out the questionnaire.
Here below is the questionnaire:
Brand X is…
Continuity
- a brand with a history
- a timeless brand
- a brand that survives times
- a brand that survives trends
Credibility
- a brand that will not betray you
- a brand that accomplishes its value promise
- an honest brand
Integrity
- a brand that gives back to its consumers
- a brand with moral principles
- a brand true to a set of moral values
- a brand that cares about its consumers
Symbolism
- a brand that adds meaning to people’s lives
- a brand that reflects important values people care about
- a brand that connects people with their real selves
- a brand that connects people with what is really important
Next steps
By now you should have a better idea of what it means to be authentic and why its a valuable trait to have. Go ahead and grab the questionnaire and set it up in a software you like (Google Forms is free and will do the trick). You should replace “X” with the name of your brand and use a 7-point scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. Building an authentic brand is time consuming and requires a lot of effort. But the payoff is well worth it, especially if you are selling a product relevant to people’s self-images.
References
- 1Fritz, K., Schoenmueller, V., & Bruhn, M. (2017). Authenticity in branding – exploring antecedents and consequences of brand authenticity. European Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 324–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2014-0633
- 2Manthiou, A., Kang, J., Hyun, S. S., & Fu, X. X. (2018). The impact of brand authenticity on building brand love: An investigation of impression in memory and lifestyle-congruence. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 38–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.03.005
- 3Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F., & Grohmann, B. (2015). Brand authenticity: An integrative framework and measurement scale. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 200–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.11.006
- 4Fritz, K., Schoenmueller, V., & Bruhn, M. (2017). Authenticity in branding – exploring antecedents and consequences of brand authenticity. European Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 324–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2014-0633
- 5Holt, D. B. (2002). Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), 70–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/339922
- 6Nunes, J. C., Ordanini, A., & Giambastiani, G. (2021). The Concept of Authenticity: What It Means to Consumers. Journal of Marketing, 85(4), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242921997081
- 7Thompson, C. J., Rindfleisch, A., & Arsel, Z. (2006). Emotional Branding and the Strategic Value of the Doppelgänger Brand Image. Journal of Marketing, 70(1), 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.70.1.050.qxd