Brand Authenticity Pt I

A couple of my most interesting assignments during the last years have been developing brands within food and wine. As a result, I’ve spent quite some time observing brand strategies in this field. It does not take too long, though, to identify varying kinds of authenticity as the big, macro trend almost all food and drink brands have taken into account in some way.

Authenticity, of course, is considered a general holy grail for 21st century brands. No wonder, as we live in a culture that’s more or less obsessed with authenticity; almost anything under constant threat of being labelled fake. (Authenticity is a concept with a polemic sort of built into it; it’s never as visible as when it’s questioned).

It’s also, a term that is often either taken very literally as a “real” business (un)strategy in a genuine backlash against, well, inauthenticity, or discussed in an almost outraged fashion as a cunning way to trick people into paying a premium. Either making a fan portrait of Innocent Drinks, or “calling their bluff” by pointing to them being partly owned by The Coca Cola Company. For someone involved in branding, though, I’d say it’s important to have a more thorough understanding of authenticity. Seeing how this concept so heavily influences the way people make sense of their world, knowing how it’s created and how it’s maintained (hint: it’s rarely a one-person-holding-strings kind of job) is crucial.

In short, social scientists tell us these about authenticity as it pertains to brands:

Authenticity has many meanings. For example, authentic can be interpreted as being moral (“being true to your values”), or historically accurate, or true to a type (like a music genre).

Authenticity is socially constructed. It does not tell you anything about metaphysical realness, but about how it’s perceived. A brand, a product, a place is interpreted as authentic and treated as such: that’s when the value is created. (That does not mean that it’s arbitrary, though!)

Authenticity is not stable, but always changing – what was perceived as terribly inauthentic can become authentic with time. And what was once authentic can suddenly have to meet other demands on authenticity, the bar has been raised, by other brands or by other factors.

Authenticity is not universal, but individual – what is authentic for someone is not to another. Judging authenticity is very connected with being a member of some kind of social context; being working class, or being a goth for that matter. More specifically, the concept of authenticity changes with the amount of cultural capital a person has.

There is some great literature on authenticity, of course. For example, Michael Beverland has written about authenticity in premium wines, and Glenn Carroll and Dennis Wheaton about restaurants – I’ll get around to both of them in later posts, which will explore different kinds of authenticity, and how it’s is crafted and cared for.

You might also be interested in these posts:

1. Brand Authenticity Pt II – Louis Vuitton Jumps On the Craft Bandwagon
2. The Strange Case of the Behaviour Changing Sunglasses

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