Call them brand attributes. Personality traits. Key distinguishing characteristics. You can even just call them what they are: adjectives. Every marketing strategy has ‘em; the list of four to six descriptors that define a brand’s personality.
As a writer and creative strategist, I revere these lists. They’re the first page I flip to in a brand guide, and the essential filter I rely on to separate my best lines from all that other stuff that ultimately doesn’t get used.
This all falls apart though, when the list contains my least favorite word in the history of brand marketing: authentic. And if it also boasts synonyms like genuine and real, forget it. A moment ago I was getting ready to write copy, but now I’m scanning instagram, checking the weather… anything other than getting inspired about your brand.
I know. As marketers we’re supposed to love authenticity. Consumers demand it! To garner trust you have to be real! But really? Let’s break it down. Google pairs authentic and genuine as synonyms, defining the former as “of undisputed origin,” the latter as “truly what something is said to be.” In other words, they both equate to some variant of “the real deal”: that which is naturally occurring, unmanipulated and fundamentally true.
But one of the things I love about brand building is that it is, at heart, about making stuff up. As marketers we constantly invent stories that link our brand’s values to those of our consumers, then work to tell those stories with enough creative juice to strike a chord. Great brand building is one part strategy, two parts art and three parts theater. It is the opposite of authentic.
Now before anyone gets feisty, let me be clear: I’m not advocating scams or rejoicing in misleading consumers. Quite the opposite. A worthy brand must be built on core business values that are in fact authentic, genuine and real. If you’re building an organic food brand, you’d better be doing the hard work of creating organic food. If you’re building a fashion brand for real women, you’d better have a product assortment that caters to all sizes.
Being authentically committed to core values as a business is great. But using authentic on your short list of personality traits is unhelpful to your creative teams. When we turn to that list for inspiration to guide our work, it begs the question “authentically what?” After all, one can just as easily be authentically selfish, rude or cheap as authentically [insert desirable trait here]. Authentic, served up in isolation, gives us very little to work with.
Give me spunky or distinguished or contemplative or reckless (but please not all in the same moment!). Give me steeped in history or civic-minded, wry or raucous. Give me adjectives that conjure the sound of a voice in my ear and paint a palette of colors in my mind’s eye. Push beyond the every-brand buzzwords (iconic, I’m looking at you) and stretch for the unexpected and thought-provoking.
Give this gift to your creative team, and we will pay you back work that is genuinely superb.
Find more on defining your brand here.
