Authenticity has nothing to do with how much you share.
It is about what you share.
— Neil Patel
Authenticity has roots much older than Instagram.
The concept was popularized by the Existentialists, most notably Heidegger and Sartre.
It's summed up in an 1835 statement by Kierkegaard: “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live or die."
Where heroes live and die for others' ideas, authentic people would be anti-heroes.
It's only anti-heroes who follow their own paths; and who disrupt and innovate.
For brand marketers, authenticity's opposite isn't inauthenticity, but Disneyfication, , storytelling that renders every story "safe" for audiences who can't handle the truth.
It's summed up in an 1835 statement by Kierkegaard: “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live or die."
Where heroes live and die for others' ideas, authentic people would be anti-heroes.
It's only anti-heroes who follow their own paths; and who disrupt and innovate.
For brand marketers, authenticity's opposite isn't inauthenticity, but Disneyfication, , storytelling that renders every story "safe" for audiences who can't handle the truth.
So how can your brand be authentic?
The short answer: it shouldn't.
Your brand doesn't need to be authentic. It merely needs to be honest.
In a survey, Foresight Factory asked customers to choose "good moral values" from a list.
While 84% chose "being honest," only 16% chose "presenting an image true to self."
Customers don't care if your brand is authentic.
They don't expect it to be.
