The need for ‘Authentic Authenticity’

In a world where the lines between real and fake are often blurred, read what our Senior Designer Joe thinks about the importance of brand authenticity.

Authenticity has become one of the go-to buzzwords at the top of brands’ checklists over the last few years. Stemming from an increased distaste for the overly staged content, typically highlighted by trends like ‘Instagram vs Reality’, the clamour for both personal and corporate brands to appear real and raw has been huge.

This desire can be seen across multiple platforms including stock photography, with the fairly recent launch of dupephotos.com , a self-proclaimed ‘anti-Unsplash’ (Unsplash itself was originally created as an anti-stock photography site). So, it comes as no surprise that brands began to focus on creating content and campaigns with authenticity at their core. This authenticity, however, isn’t always as it seems.

The issue with faking authenticity is it can fly in the face of very real brand perceptions and stick out as being inauthentic. This is also true for influencers/celebs and has become particularly prevalent in the beauty and fashion space with ‘brand x influencer’ collaborations. Sephora has just pulled J-Lo’s range of beauty products from its shelves, the news of which was met online with the general sentiment being another cash grab bites the dust. When held up against other similar celeb product lines, there was a lack of belief that J-Lo had much to do with the product range, let alone used it herself, leading to more of a disconnect from the consumers.

We’re also seeing a rise in this trend in the sustainability space with greenwashing currently putting every brand rightfully under the microscope. Consumers want products and brands that believe and action what they’re putting out into the world. And the ease and speed at which they’re able to sift out content that fakes this is rapidly increasing.

That’s not to say that brands embracing authenticity are free of backlash either. Any brand that aligns themselves with certain values naturally stands to lose consumers/fans that are of the opposing worldview. We’ve seen this in recent years with Nike and Bud Light amongst others. [Source: Business Insider ]

Despite this backlash, it still serves brands well to genuinely embrace their internal values externally and therefore demonstrate ‘authentic authenticity’. In SproutSocial’s 2023 report, 21% of consumers follow a brand when the brand is aligned to their personal values. 57% will increase their spending with a brand they feel connected to and 76% will buy from them over a competitor. [Source: SproutSocial ]?

One example of a brand currently seeing fantastic growth as a direct result of consistently practicing what they preach, is Lucy & Yak. The sustainable clothing label initially built their community through apps like Depop and has now been operating their Re-Yak buyback scheme for a year. The aim of which is to keep their clothing in circulation far beyond that of a high-street alternative.

My personal experience of the brand has been an 18-month timeline from completely unaware to seeing their logo on a daily basis on the streets of London. They made and still make a huge effort to involve, listen and action feedback from their consumers and this has fostered an incredibly engaged community. And any person I’ve spoken to owning an item of their clothing has been a shining example of a brand evangelist, showing the importance of an authentic brand that people can align themselves to. Something that is more important than ever before and will only continue to grow.

It pays to be authentic. Is brand authenticity important to you? Let us know why in the comments below.

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