They’ve been around for a while now, those Desirée Dolron-shot ads for Louis Vuitton, showing the craftsmen and -women at their work. Vermeer-inspired, beautifully executed, and quite ludicrous.

Put aside the sexual connotations of these ads. Even though you don’t have to be that much of a semiotician to find “The young woman and the tiny folds”, illustrated with a girl working on a red handbag – a handbag! A vaginal symbol if there has even been one, according to Freud – with, well, tiny folds, rather obvious. Anyway.

The brand strategy here is quite transparent. Jumping on the luxury-should-be-about-craftsmanship bandwagon, Louis Vuitton tries to associate its brand with old-fashioned, artisan production. The result is, however, a bit like an upscale version of the claim of “using recipes we create at the kitchen table” on the frozen microwave lunch I had today. Why? Is it because, as Business Week points out, most Louis Vuitton products aren’t handmade? Not necessarily. Not that many people have the privilege of visiting a Louis Vuitton factory, and anyway, authenticity isn’t the same as truth.

In “The organizational construction of authenticity: An examination of contemporary food and dining in the U.S.” (don’t you just love academic titles?), authors Glenn Carroll and Dennis Ray Wheaton divide authenticity into four types; moral authenticity (Whole Foods), idiosyncratic authenticity (Dogfish Head brewery), type authenticity (that Italian restaurant where the owner’s mother sits at a table, and is overweight) and craft authenticity. Rather self-explanatory, craft authenticity is authenticity based on the artistry and mastery of the people making the product, and a refusal of industrial mass production. In everything from food to furniture to luxury bags, craft authenticity has been an extremely influential concept over the last years. In fact nowadays I feel rather embarrassed serving guests any food stuff about which I cannot tell a story involving several generations of artisan producers, techniques abandoned by the rest of the food industry before the 1950s, a mythic element of the secret-sauce kind, and a ridiculously long production time.

Projecting any kind of authenticity requires three things, according to Carroll and Wheaton: a visibly projected identity claim, credibility of the claim, and an identity that’s perceived as reflecting the meaning of authenticity in question. It’s obviously the second ingredient that’s the weak link here. The marketing claim is hard to verify, and it’s not particularly consistent with the brand’s general image.

If there is one luxury brand that has totally done away with every connection to Old World quality, instead choosing an aggressive brand exposure strategy that has got it associated with your little sister’s most annoying friends, well, it’s Louis Vuitton. In fact, a typical Louis Vuitton quote goes like this: “Showing off her Louis Vuitton collection (she had the sunglasses, belt, wallet, and garment bag!), Heidi Montag looked cute in a sleeveless beige top and light khaki trousers …” (from celebrity-gossip.net). The demureness of the 17th century-esque seamstress does not rhyme with the brashness of the stereotypical consumer.

The point of Carroll and Wheaton’s article is that authenticity is projected more credibly when it is organisationally constructed. A feature of the organisation – highly visible, costly to change and implicitly permanent, should radiate the symbolic meaning of authenticity that the company wants to project. But modern production is a pre-requisite for keeping Louis Vuitton’s operating margins well above the industry average. Would making a more reality-based campaign on the small part of the company’s production that’s actually made in an artisan way (custom-made products made in an atelier in Paris) do? Perhaps. Or maybe Louis Vuitton should simply rethink their strategy.

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.

The market as a conversation: a constantly repeated mantra for 21st century brand communication. You might argue that “the brand is not possible to own nowadays, you can’t totally dictate your brand image anymore” suggests an idealised past that never existed, (change is, as you know, good for consultants) but anyway. But the accompanying idea that brands should be more human, less corporate and engage in personal conversations, though interesting in itself, seems to result in many cases in empty non-conversation, in boredom. “How do you like your coffee?” tweets the software company, and feels it’s now engaging with the human world in human way, by imitating how “real people” speak. Nothing happens.

Well of course, this kind of conversation is never engaging to anyone in itself. It’s a classic example of communication with a channel maintaining function – the information transmitted is not all that important or exciting or fun, but engaging in the conversation helps for example to establish and maintain relations of various kinds with other people. The same conversation that one finds pointless with a neighbour you normally only greet with a “hello”, feels totally different with your best friend. A very human activity. And face it, yes there are brands you love, but you’re acutely aware that even with the most engaging brand personality, a brand can’t speak and has to go through a human being, who’s the actual recipient of your channel maintaining chats, and for them to be everybody’s best friend on that massive scale just because they work somewhere nice, well. Unfortunately, a brand is not cuddly TV alien ALF, where a voice and a hand that fitted his little furry costume could create the perfect illusion of a family member.

Paul Fusco wants to know how you take your coffee.

Without prior investment in the relationship with another human being, this “conversation” is just the lacklustre reality of a February morning talk with a stranger, or neighbour, or semi-acquaintance, on the tube. Yes, the snow is terrible, yes, you’d think public transport in a Scandinavian capital would cope with it better, no, I normally don’t have to use the subway to get to work, but today I have an early-morning meeting. Cue hopefully not too rude display of we’re-finished-here behaviour, e.g. concentrated texting or Metro reading.

So why is it so many brands don’t instead try the type of interpersonal discussion that doesn’t depend totally on relationships, being the great conversationalist? The great conversationalist is interesting, knowledgeable, entertaining, shows her/his personality – which leads to a favourable view of the person, classic brand equity in fact. This inevitably leads to dinner invitations. Difficult, yes, but nothing in commercial communication is easy. That’s why people like me are (sometimes, very well) paid to spend all day and, frequently, all night creating it.

Brilliant at one-way communication, brilliant at two-way communication. And quite dashing.

And, anyway, the really interesting brand-as-conversation idea surely should evolve around where you and your customers place and replace your brand within the large tapestry of human life. What you might call cultural conversation. It might well be created with the help of one-on-one talks, and it can certainly be helped by following online conversations about your brand. But it’s above all a question of understanding and reacting to what your customers or fans or users need, think and do on a larger scale, and in a deeper way, no matter the medium. What do they dream about, what are their biggest griefs, their biggest prides? How do they use your brand in their life, and can you help them, honour them, challenge them even? Balancing that is being another kind of great conversationalist.

Actually, though useful for many things, there’s nothing intrinsically more engaging with two-way communication. Almost everyone in the whole world has been moved, touched and comforted on a very personal level by the totally closed one-way mass communication of recorded pop music. There’s no reason why your two-way conversations shouldn’t live up to the standards of the exciting, interesting brand personality your other communication channels imply you have going for you.

I’m a fan of maybe ten brands on Facebook. There’s one or two signs of support for friends’ businesses, some Stockholm clubs and art institutions whose events I want to be in the know about, and a couple of fashion/design magazines. It’s this last category that interests me here, as there is no particular practical reason for becoming a fan, other than getting the basic info of a new issue coming out. Well you don’t exactly have to be Bourdieu to craft a very simple theory of why I associate with certain brands (as a friend once put it: “habitus galore!“), so I won’t bore you with it. (Even though I think the question of type of product is mysteriously absent when the most avid of Brand Conversation Evangelists are preaching. Frankly, if you’re a toilet paper brand, you ARE a little less fascinating to strike up a conversation with than if you’re Acne.)

What fascinates me a bit is this: the very act of Facebook fandom seems to lessen my appetite to actually go out and buy the magazine. Not that I read the magazine on-line instead, that wouldn’t be especially interesting. I just… lose interest a little. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I suspect not – there’s something quite logical about this paradox. You could call it the commercial brand equivalent of “slacktivism”, simply signing up digitally for a cause without any actual change of behaviour or donation. (Purely digital activism is not all bad, of course – here’s a piece for design mind that makes a case for it, but sort of avoids the question of bottom-line contributions.)

There are as you probably know hundreds of models of consumer motivation, but one that seems useful here is Dan Ariely and Michael I Norton’s concept of conceptual and physical consumption. Conceptual consumption, meaning the psychological consumption of ideas and concepts, can occur both together with and independent of physical consumption. Basically, they argue that conceptual consumption is implicated in, and plays a large role in even the most basic consumption acts, such as eating or drinking. Rather than just eat something to survive, human beings add a lot of conceptual layers to the act: “Is this dish fairtrade/eco/healthy?”, “Doesn’t this dish feel a bit 80s?”, “Will my colleagues thinks I’m unmanly if I choose the salad?”. The satisfaction of successful conceptual consumption (feeling good about yourself in a number of ways for choosing the small, expensive, stylish, fairtrade chocolate) often drives behaviour even when it’s in conflict with physical consumption (assuming that you enjoy the taste of the cheap private label stuff more). My thinking is that if the conceptual part of the consumption of a brand’s products is large, it can be replaced by other interactions with the brand, that allow you to get the good bits without effort or having to pay.

It’s a common observation that the artefact is losing importance, that the enjoyment of physical ownership (the record collection) can be replaced by the access to shared digital files (Spotify) without much grievance. But the Facebook page does not even offer a part of the product, like the streamed Spotify album vs its physical (deluxe edition with book and linen cover) counterpart. It’s just the brand as a sign, without the product. And it’s interesting that when it comes to some brands, for many consumers, that might be what counts. In a world where more and more social life happens digitally, what’s the value of owning a pair of New Hip Brand shoes vs showing that you’re in the loop by being a fan of said brand on a social network?

The more a brand is building its strategy on its magic as some sort of status signifier, the easier it would probably be for the consumption of its products to be replaced by some free, purely symbolic consumption – the conceptual part of consumption is satisfied in any case. It leads to an interesting challenge for luxury and subculture brands: how to balance brand, product and digital presence, to be both in the conversation and in business?

This girl I’m sure you’re familiar with: the Health-Happiness-Energy Woman. Dressed in white, she goes down to the beach, stretches out her arms, and JUMPS. She does this to express her joy of living, and, not infrequently, her love for algae smoothies. An odd creature if you would meet her in real life, but so common in the brochures, ads, websites, posters that surround you that you don’t even notice her. A stock image cliché.

All communication is based on some sort of shared references. Designers communicate with a visual language that’s meant to be understood by the recipient, often instantly. It’s no wonder then, that many marketing communication images are constant repeats, Plato-esque variations of the same ideal images – especially when representing abstract concepts: fun, health, stress.

The low cost of images from the gigantic stock image banks, and probably in turn the working conditions of stock image photographers (creating images for maximum usability for popular keywords instead of a defined brief, at low fees), mean that these cheesy concept images are everywhere. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, communicating through simple symbols – woman biting apple for healthy, grey-haired man with sweater over shoulders stroking a golden retriever for post-retirement healthy. It does get the point across instantly to broad target groups, even if those images are equally instantly forgotten. If you’re trying to differentiate your brand against competitors, obviously they’re very counter-productive …

… but easy as they are to mock, these stock image clones are also a reminder of how easily visual clichés are reproduced, and difficult the balance is between communicating well within the reference world of your audience and being dispensible, derivative, boring. There are a myriad of similar repeating images/visual elements in the sexier, slicker high-end part of the design world, that can be just as damaging to your brand.

The fascinating thing about stock images: you only really start to notice the Health-Happiness-Energy Woman when she’s taken out of context and multiplied, like in this post. Different models, different beaches, different oceans – the same jump. And you only really see the strangeness of her ways when you look at a picture that strays too much from your mind’s ideal image. Like this one, above: too heavily bent forward, she looks bound for the humiliation of landing face down in the sand. Now, she’s almost a little disturbing, her open mouth possibly letting out not a joyful shout but a mad scream. Another angle, colouring, pose might have instead tweaked even this quite hopeless image subject from cliché to readable-but-attention-grabbing. But instead, most photographers settle for slight variations of the exact same image.

Another thing, how can they all jump so HIGH?