Article by Alex Spagnoletti, Digital Strategist at The MediaShop and member of the IAB SA Branded Entertainment & Content Marketing Committee
Alex Spagnoletti, Digital Strategist at The MediaShop
As humans, we want authenticity at our core. But it doesn’t always show. We are easily seduced by the shiny thing, it’s natural.
We’re at a tipping point now, we’re over-fed and bloated from the lack of authenticity in our digital world. What tends to happen when we’ve over-done a thing, we tip the sea-saw to the other extreme, a noble attempt by society to get the balance back.
In an oversaturated digital world where numbers of followers have been a survival currency, privacy is becoming aspirational.
The creator economy exists by monetising human desires. At one point we all needed to be seen and connected, and validation (and monetisation) came from accessibility (being online and connected). Now that everyone is online, it feels like we’re paying a sort of tax, and anonymity becomes a privilege and a new aspiration.
So what does anonymity have in common with authenticity? In the world of digital marketing, we’ve moved from Celebrity Endorsements to Macro Influencers, Micro, to Nano in an evolution towards more anonymity and therefore resulting in credibility and authenticity.
Is the new influencer completely anonymous and who can afford to be offline? Anonymous influencers can sell us something we wish we had, something to aspire to have an abundance of – time. If the influencer is not flexing over their new outfit, meal restaurant, lip filler, or K Beauty brand, what are they doing, and who is the person lavishing away on their abundant clock. It piques interest, right?
Reading has become an aspiration because of a lack of time. To express that you have agency over your own brain, in an overstimulated world is a flex (authentic) and influencers are carrying books around with them as a status symbol (not authentic). This re-enforces the need for real-ness. With concentration spans shrinking, being able to spend time and attention reading is a lost privilege that we are clinging to.
So, with an acute awareness of the scarce resources of time and attention, Consumers will become more selective with the little they do have and critically evaluate content, based on relevance to themselves. This is where authenticity will need to shine.
Trust has always been at the core of authenticity. So, what constitutes trust?
The Edelman Trust Barometer found that people trust influencers when they:
- demonstrate expertise
- share real experience
- teach useful skills
- align with their values
The most credible spokespersons were unsurprisingly:
- Scientists/experts
- People “like me” who use the product
- Category technical experts
As AI makes synthetic creators, cloned voices and automated content commonplace, audiences will increasingly judge authenticity not by production quality, but by signals of genuine conviction. Trust will shift from “Who made this?” to “Why should I believe they care?” Consumers will constantly be evaluating content, based on relevance to themselves and Brands will be under pressure to show a balanced, less “salesy” approach to marketing.
This brings to mind Dove’s radical honesty initiative titled ‘r/eal Reviews’ campaign which recently won a Cannes Lion award. The campaign sourced unscripted, unfiltered product reviews for the Intensive Repair 10-in-1 Serum mask, directly from Reddit, turning genuine consumer critiques (the good, bad and ugly) into unedited social content and billboards.
Another winner was The Ordinary, who launched the ‘Periodic Fable’ showcasing how the beauty industry is filled with buzzwords that are confusing and misleading for their consumers. The purpose of the campaign was to separate scientific fact from marketing fiction by exposing the industry and shining a spotlight on misleading terminology.
I wonder if the honesty economy is here to stay or if it’s the tail-end of a trend that’s been around over the past few years catalysed by consumers feeling duped by a lot of the marketing out there. If it’s here to stay, AI will need to leverage authenticity by scaling content that is truly unpolished and unedited.
Marketers will also need to hold their customers in higher regard and remember that they are curators of their own reality and not easily swayed by a brand’s sales pitch.