A quote by a renowned historical figure says that “all war is based on deception.” In running a business, you’re technically at war with the competition but instead of relying on deception, what you need is the opposite - transparency and authenticity.  In this article, we will take you through what brand authenticity is, how it benefits a company, and the steps to take in bringing it home to your own business. 

What is Brand Authenticity?

Brand authenticity is the quality of a brand formed from consistent efforts to express or develop an original and unique picture of itself. Customers are solely responsible for perceiving how well a company performs with this quality.

Customers are the rightful judges of brand authenticity because they are attentive to both the vivid and blurred elements of branding. Moreover, the major purpose of building an authentic brand is to create an impression on the customer - so customers become the right people to tell what impression they end up having towards a company.  

To the customers, brand authenticity appears as painting a picture of what a business or brand is and what it represents. 

The few businesses that understand and apply this in their strategy reap the benefits when they can transmit a distinct picture of themselves. Unfortunately, what this implies is that having a half-done brand authenticity process is more like having no brand authenticity. It is either good or nothing.  

Many new founders reading through this article may want to know how difficult or easy it is to go about building their brand authenticity. We think the answer is that it is neither difficult nor easy. If you apply good communication skills and put on a positive attitude, we’re sure that you’ll breeze through it.

Why is Brand Authenticity Important?

Brand authenticity is a quality that is common among all the big names you can think of, from Apple to Space X to McDonald's. If it is synonymous with successful companies, then that means it is quite important and worth taking a look at. But what makes brand authenticity important for businesses? Here’s what we know. 

It Promotes Trust

Let’s go outside the business world for a bit. Imagine that you meet someone new and all through the time when you know them, they keep proving to be their true and honest selves no matter the situation. Wouldn’t that prompt you to believe in them and trust their person? We bet it would. 

The same applies to brands and companies in the business world. For these institutions, the process of building brand authenticity involves being steadfast in who they are known to be and doing what they are known to do. 

The sheer dedication that is required for this is part of what draws customers to trust authentic brands. The ideology behind it goes something like “If this one brand has been able to commit to x or y standard of behavior or operation over these years, then I believe that they are authentic and can fully trust them.

It Helps Build A Huge Customer Base

Successfully building trust creates a ripple effect of benefits. First, businesses get to retain their existing customers and keep them from shuffling between their products/services and those of their competitors. 

As the trust from customer to business increases, the customer also gradually transforms to become more loyal and supportive of the brand. 

Now, one thing about loyal and supportive customers is that they find it easy to tell their families, relatives, and friends about the brand they have fallen in love with. We certainly do not expect everyone to have the same high or lovable perception of the brand in question, but you can agree with us that there are chances for some of the loyal customer’s families or friends to want to try this amazing new brand out for themselves. This is how one loyal and supportive customer can create widespread awareness and patronage for a compelling, authentic brand. 

It Reduces Disputes

Building brand authenticity eliminates doubts about the kind of business a customer is dealing with. This happens because the brand authenticity process reveals a business’ standards and the quality of its products and services, thereby, ensuring that customers are fully aware of what they get by patronizing such brands. 

As a result of this foreknowledge, customers are less likely to disagree with or complain about service quality, creating a smooth business experience and reducing opportunity costs associated with dispute resolution.  

Elements of an Authentic Brand

At this point, we believe that you’re interested in knowing what and what makes up an authentic brand. What are those things that you could begin to practice to build your business authenticity? Are they easy to implement or do they require a lot of effort? We have it all answered here. 

Consistency:

Consistency is an element of brand authenticity that does more for the business in question than for its customers. Applying this element involves sticking to one particular way of expressing your brand, for example, by using the same color, font, logo, or brand slogan. 

A more in-depth form of brand consistency also exists and it is expressed in the performance of brand employees. This could be through their greetings or dressing or even in the way they approach problems or perform tasks. 

The benefit of such steadfastness is that it distinguishes a business from its competitors and this is strikingly necessary where two businesses offer identical products or closely related services. Of course, you wouldn’t want to have your customers patronize a competitor simply because they are unable to differentiate your brand from the competitors.  

Trustworthiness: 

‍

A major component of an authentic brand is its trustworthiness. What this means is that customers can wholeheartedly rely on your brand. They can trust you to be fair in resolving disputes and they can also trust you to deliver quality service every single time. 

The more trustworthiness points you accumulate, the more the number of loyal and active customers you will realize. In some sense, it is even possible to say that brand trustworthiness directly translates to patronage, especially when a brand has existed for a while and its customers are no longer trying it out just to figure out what it feels like. The proof of the positive impact of trustworthiness is that 83% of shoppers prefer to buy from brands they trust. 

Storytelling: 

‍

All brands have their unique stories and they try to tell this story through every possible avenue including advertisements, vision and mission statements, and the like. As part of brand authenticity efforts, a business will have to develop its story, make it clear enough to be understood by its customers and invent ways of laying it out in the public for everyone. 

The storytelling element of brand authenticity must be applied carefully otherwise businesses will find themselves passing several different ideas of what their story is. This would be an awful situation and there’s no need for us to say that such errors could cost a business its hard-earned reputation. 

Brand Authenticity and the Audience - What’s the Relationship?

Brand authenticity connects businesses and customers in a tight-knit. The process of building an authentic brand projects an outward reach from a brand to its customers or potential customers. In response, customers see these authentic brands and move towards them out of trust and the convenience that comes with it. 

The convergence that happens here dictates a directly proportional relationship between brand authenticity and customer loyalty. Interestingly, actual statistics also support this claim, stating that about 88% of consumers like and support brands that they perceive to be authentic.  

How to Build an Authentic Brand

Know your customers:

The 21st century and, precisely, the year 2023 has revealed exciting things about the relationship between businesses and customers. The first of such is that the customer-business relationship is fast evolving thanks to technologies like big data and AI. 

At the moment, we’re at the place where businesses need to pursue customization, convenience, and even transparency before they can successfully woo an average customer. 

This change in behavior and preference towards business products and services means that brands have to go above and beyond what has been previously accepted. They have to do much more to align themselves with the people they are selling to. In addition, they have to keep a close eye on the customers to recognize any change in trends and implement that in their services. 

The summary of this aspect is that knowing the target customers gives brands their general direction, from where they can begin to devise their unique traits and properties (in the form of elements, communication channels, and more) which accumulates into building brand authenticity. 

Develop your brand elements:

The first step to take in building an authentic brand is to develop your brand elements or assets. This process starts with listing out all the promotional things that your band is currently lacking. Talk to your business team and gather ideas about the critical elements that could be missing in the current brand. 

Perhaps you need to find a brand slogan that will resonate with the customers or you need a new website to stand out in the online space or maybe it is your tone and messaging that needs some change, and if not, then it could be that your entire brand colors need a retouch. 

There are several different kinds of brand elements. However, some of them are just not as useful as others and so to avoid wasting much time and effort, it becomes very important to hand-pick assets that are relevant. 

After this comes studying your chosen assets with the aim of understanding what they are and how they function. The information you get here will facilitate the last step which involves crafting a unique version of these assets. 

It is important to remember that once the specification for a brand asset has been agreed on, only very small, incremental changes can be made moving forward. 

Determine your communication channels: 

Now you have your brand assets all sparkly and ready to go, but what channels will you use in getting your customers acquainted with these brand elements? 

Are you going to lean more towards online channels like video marketing, pay-per-click advertisements (PPC), and search engine optimization (SEO) or would you rather use more traditional setups like paper billboards? 

Whatever your choice, there is surely one or more solid tools that you could use to maximize your reach or simply bolden your idea and make your brand stand out as rich and promising. 

For example, you can decide to post physical emails to a select group of customers but first, apply AI or graphic design tools in creating the content and appearance. 

Conclusion

As we’ve seen in this article, developing an authentic brand is a necessary agenda for businesses that have long-term growth plans. Apple, Amazon, and a handful of other companies have tapped into this strategy for many years, and today, they are reaping the full rewards. 

But just before you jump at the idea, we must warn you about the mistakes of several companies. This mistake involves segregating the work of building brand authenticity to a business marketing team alone. Brands are built on the activities and contributions of business leaders, operators, stakeholders, and entire teams, so it is imperative to have a brand authenticity effort come from all quarters. With this at hand, you can now begin your brand authentication journey. Don’t forget to read more helpful articles on our blog.

ALSO READ: AI and Social Media: Here Are 5 Ways Businesses Stand To Benefit

‍