Is ‘Authenticity’ fake?
The #7 idea in next week’s Time cover story – “10 ideas that are changing the world” – is Synthetic Authenticity. “Promoting products as ‘authentic’ is serious business these days,” says Time writer John Cloud.It’s also apparently a hot (or ‘kool?’) concept in some ad campaigns. Stoli Vodka headlines trumpet “Choose Authenticity.” Kool cigarettes urge people to “Be Authentic.” Even the state of Maryland jumped into the fray, Cloud says, with its “Even the fun is authentic” promotion.
One thing’s for sure: you can’t have a true marketing movement without a gospel, a guiding tome, a clever book.
Enter Authenticity by James Gilmore and Joseph Pine. It inspired most of Time’s # 7 world changing notion. Ever read The Experience Economy during the Internet bubble? Gilmore and Pine wrote it. It introduced the notion of consumers being willing to pay a premium for “staged experiences” perceived as having inherent personal value. Think Starbucks.
In Authenticity, the authors believe the current “aura of inauthenticity around some brands is killing them.” The crucial factor dividing success from failure, Time interprets, “will be whether a business is perceived as real or fake, authentic or inauthentic.”
How should a company convey authenticity? Three ways, say the authors.
Approach # 1 involves companies being totally transparent and true to themselves and their claims. Think Chipotle Mexican Grill which only serves non-antibiotic meat. The challenge with Approach # 1, however, is that when you screw up (think Jet Blue stranding passengers for hours) your authentic company’s reputation gets nailed.
Approach # 2 involves openly faking it. Case in point: Verizon paying for product placement on the TV show “30 Rock” and Tina Fey eyeballing the camera when she says, “Can we have our money now?” This strategy is total tongue-in-cheek transparency. It says ‘I’m authentic because I’m openly fake.’
Approach # 3 is to be “fake-real.” In this scenario, the company doesn’t have to be exactly what it says it is. The Canyon Ranch, a famous spa, isn’t really a ranch. The Daily Show isn’t a news show. Uh, okay.
Is this all a pile of crap or is there some nugget of validity?
Tom Asacker, author of A Clear eye for Branding, thinks authenticity is a “hollow cry.” He says “authenticity schmauthenticity!” To Asacker, it “smells of the marketing puffery we chide.” He continues, “What consumers really want is a good act. Like theatre goers, they want to suspend disbelief and ‘get lost’ in a well-crafted and well-executed brand experience – consistency, sincerity, and a perfectly attuned expression of their desires, sensibilities and identities.”
Maybe it’s me, but isn’t Asacker saying the same thing as Gilmore and Pine?
Then again, doesn’t Gilmore and Pine’s new marketing doctrine remind you of their 1999 Experience Economy? Check this out: “Stop saying what your offerings are through advertising and start creating places – permanent or temporary, physical or virtual – where people can experience what those offerings, as well as your enterprise, actually are.” It wouldn’t be the first time a marketing guru re-spins one brilliant idea.
So, here’s the question for you? Does any of this authenticity stuff have validity for B2B technology companies?
If you’re a B2B technology company selling signaling hardware or voice response systems or high performance computers or enterprise software or virtualization solutions, is it important for “users” to feel authenticity from their vendor? Or do they just need a product that works and keeps rolling along, seamlessly delivering value? Should B2B companies create feeling experiences for their customers?
If a B2B company is in a commodity, price-driven market with lots of competitors sounding alike, one way it can differentiate is to invest some time and money making it a socially aligned business. This effort doesn't have to be the sole purpose of the company, but rather one genuine initiative among many.
Time’s John Cloud says, “People want their purchases to elevate them, to transform them. They want products to connect them to history or to a cause.”
Ditto for high level B2B decision makers who are increasingly saying, “Why not spend money with a company that has a great product and also cares about the world in which it competes?"
So allow me to introduce Authenticity Approach # 4: build great products, create trusted, high value partnerships with your customers and spend a little time and money helping others.
Let’s call it “Self-serving, genuine caring, B2B authenticity.”
Bad news: our deepening intimacy with electronic devices is apparently to blame for our growing apathy toward communing with nature.
I broke bread with Carol Cone recently, enjoying a spirited discussion about social causes and how B2B companies can help make the world a better place. 
I've been trying to get my head around Google's 