It Seems Fake--Hints of Inauthentic Branding

I am fascinated by the origins of words. The word “Sincere,” for example, is Latin. Some think it’s derived from early day marketing. 

As one story goes, ancient Romans used to like marble statues. Why? Presumably—like modern day home exercise equipment—the statues were an ideal spot for draping one’s laundry. Either way, the interest in marble statues drove up demand. As demand rose, quality fell. Less reputable sculptors used inferior marble and filled in the cracks and pocks with wax, which looked great until a hot day when they started to ooze. In order to differentiate themselves from the shoddy stuff, quality sculptors began marketing their statues as “Sine Cera” Sine is the Latin word for “without’ and cera means “wax.”


Now we know something or someone who is “sincere” means it, not fake; they’re the real thing.

[Ironically, the authenticity of this story is debated among etymologists, but I like the story so for this post, I’m going to go with it.]

These days we know that contemporary audiences are becoming increasingly cynical. In focus groups and qualitative interviews, people report that if they sense an organization is “trying too hard,” they are turned off.

This creates a real challenge. How do you position yourself in a crowded and skeptical marketplace? I took a quick gander through my local grocery story to see how the big hitters with big budgets do it. Here’s what I observed:

• Stuff you don’t need is usually more spun. When it comes to the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, items of substantive benefit tend to be presented pretty simply:  Roasted squash for example is positioned as “Roasted squash” with a picture of squash on the bag. On the other hand, flavored, carbonated, bottled water is called “Pure Life Splash.”

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• The genuinely bad for you stuff is often positioned as far away from its origin as possible. My husband brought home some yellowish, greasy goo in a tub. It was called “Garlic Spread.” I found this hilarious—the product is a verb! What are you eating? Spread! What are you driving? A “Go!” And let’s not even speak of “Spam;” The poster child of ambiguous products is now a verb for stuff that clogs up your email.

What does this mean for those of us trying to connect?

• Research. Maybe your audience swoons over hearts and unicorns and Sally Strothers. Or maybe they twitch and itch when they see anything that seems to have come from “the man” and only trust information they read from posters stapled to light poles. Ask them. Do it often.

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• Don’t forget the product. If there is a trend to position the bad-for-you stuff on the emotional experience and skip the product entirely, it’s because on some level we the people want to be able to justify a bad choice to ourselves (I needed that Ben and Jerry’s; I did). But has there been some marketing backlash as a result? Granted, it’s important to talk about benefits and outcomes and all that, but don’t forget to anchor them to the product. If you don’t, and your language starts to soar into the atmosphere, people will question your motives.

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• Let the people speak. It used to be that you could completely control the messages about your organization. Maybe it was Ebay who changed that forever with the feedback scores, but now we expect to hear the consumers’ experience. If you got three stars out of five, what went wrong? If people are bashing you on Facebook or Twitter, will your carefully crafted campaign ring true? What to do? Harness the voice of the people. Recognize that you have lost some control, but gained some power. No, you can’t control every little word that comes out about you, but a great, authentic story from a customer will take you farther than a pretty postcard ever could.

Kyndra Wilson, KW Brand Translation

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