Tired of the Photoshop: Your Brand Needs a Sense of Self

Editor’s note: This is part of Marcus Collins’ Check the Rhyme series, in which he extracts marketing insights from rap lyrics and explores the influence of hip-hop on the marketing world. If there were ever a game of Marketing Bingo, the word “authentic” would certainly have a home among the most referenced language and mainstay buzzwords that populate today’s jargon. But of course, it would. Who wouldn’t want their brand to seem authentic? Not only are modern-day consumers able to sniff out the slightest hint of inauthenticity, but often their disdain for it borders on repulsion. This sentiment is best captured in the words of Kendrick Lamar’s classic single, “Humble,” where he says: "I'm so fuckin' sick and tired of the Photoshop, Show me somethin' natural like afro on Richard Pryor, Show me somethin' natural like ass with some stretch marks." With such a consumer aversion to anything that might seem inauthentic, one would think that marketers would have a better Rosetta Stone to talk about authenticity and how to best operationalize it. Unfortunately, we don’t. But Lamar's declaration serves as an evocative illustration to help us get started. To be fair, authenticity has long been an elusive concept for humanity. Even the ancient Greek philosophers—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle—wrestled with the nebulous nature of what it means to be authentic. So, of course, we would be bound to struggle with the concept as well. The origins of the word actually hail from the Greeks, derived from the term “authentikos,” meaning genuine or principled. Almost 2,000 years later, interdisciplinary scholars would define authenticity as being “true to the self.” But what does that mean exactly? Being true to self is a matter of consistency and context, where the highest levels of authenticity are achieved when a person’s presentation of self transcends context. Marketers, It’s Time to Stop Stereotyping and Tell Better Stories Go beyond the logo and products If the foundation of authenticity is the self, then marketers must first establish what the brand is beyond the brand mark, which is logo, iconography and products. What does the mark signify? What does it stand for? What does the brand believe? It is impossible to be true to oneself if you don’t know who you are beyond what you do. Take Google, for instance. Google believes that the world would be more productive if its information were better organized and more accessible. It just so happens to do this via search, maps and a host of other productivity-related offerings. The brand itself, however, is not defined by its products. Rather, the products are a reflection of the people, processes and technologies that manifest said products. And the brand signifies its collective conscious and worldview defined by its conviction and the way it sees the world. The brand’s products and other marketing activities are examples of how the brand presents itself. Create something real, not Photoshopped If higher authenticity is about the consistent presentation of self, then the brand’s communications, kinetics and partnerships should be unwaveringly demonstrative of its convictions regardless of context, occasion or time of year. However, year over year, we find brands behaving in a manner that is not consistent with their presented selves, which calls its authenticity into question. Take Black History Month. Every February, a litany of brands come out of the woodwork to celebrate, empower and acknowledge Black Americans, but this level of affection is practically nonexistent from many of these same brands during the other 11 months of the year. This is not context transcendence. Rather, this is the brand being defined by the context, the result of which can be eye roll-inducing for the public. This is the metaphorical “Photoshop” of which Lamar has grown “so sick and tired.” His lament, like it is for many of us, is a want for something real, regardless of the circumstances. Don't disregard context Though we debate whether something or someone is authentic—consistently true to self despite the context—we cannot ignore context because we do not exist absent of it. To transcend context does not mean to disregard it. As we move from one setting to another, our relationship to the context changes, which impacts how we present ourselves. However, despite these shifts, we still exist. These shifts are a part of us; translations of how we make meaning based on our worldview. For the brands that present one set of messaging for Black History Month and an inconsistent message the rest of the year, are they truly inauthentic? The same people, processes and technology are producing the messaging on behalf of the brand. However, perhaps the marketers’ ability to translate the brand’s worldview into a new context, without being divorced of self, is the real culprit. Marketers must not only understand the brand’s self, but they must also translate its self when in a particular setting. And they must do it while having an understanding of how the brand’s self is perceived by the public, the arbiters of authenticity. To do so skirts the metaphorical Photoshop and feels more natural to the consumer, as would a body with "stretch marks" or “afro on Richard Pryor.” This is no easy feat. Hence, it's why marketers continue to grapple with the concept of their brands participating in culture while maintaining authenticity. However it is achievable, and it starts with an understanding of self. Not just the branded products that the company creates but also the convictions that demarcate the brand’s worldview reflected in said products. But as today’s technology provides more transparency for the public to see brands in different contexts, it has become increasingly important for even the most average brands to navigate this complexity with great sophistication.