We would agree with the above statement. In fact, brand authenticity has become more important than the price point of items [1]. These days the important attributes that build brand loyalty for a company are environmentally-friendly business practices, social responsibility and giving back to the local community. All attributes that contribute to brand authenticity.

However, we often talk about brand authenticity as if there is a common, agreed definition that everyone subscribes to. Yet there are different definitions. For example, one definition of brand authenticity is:

Being “authentic” for a brand means that the brand is genuine and true to itself. It means the brand is honest, transparent, and consistent in its values and actions. This means that the brand is true to its core mission, values, and beliefs and upholds those values in its marketing and communication efforts. Authenticity also means that the brand is connected to its customers and community honestly and meaningfully [2].

Another definition states:

Brand authenticity refers to if consumers believe a brand is genuine about their products/services, promises to customers and brand values. Authenticity is a key component to building a cohesive brand strategy [3]. 

WHAT DEFINITION OF BRAND AUTHENTICITY DO YOU RELATE TO?

Both definitions are similar. They refer to the belief in genuineness on the part of customers and how a brand connects to its clients. Interestingly, neither definition mentions the concept of honesty. Yet, part of how we understand authenticity has to do with our concept and understanding of honesty.

This raises the question, does honesty just refer to the truth of the content produced by a brand, or does it extend to how the brand produces that content?

Perhaps you think that if the content a brand uses is true to its core values, how it is created is irrelevant [4]. This is a variation of the “end justifies the means” philosophy. The end goal is to build client trust and loyalty. How that is achieved doesn’t matter too much. After all, consumers are looking for genuine content that reflects the company's values and beliefs. Does it matter if we can achieve that by using AI and no one is the wiser?

AUTHENTICITY, HONESTY, AND AI

Several issues need to be considered when weighing up how AI can potentially impact a brand’s authenticity.

• Because of the way AI scrapes and collates information from the web, it can be difficult to verify its output. This is a potential risk to a brand’s authenticity. Many people who use AI regularly do not trust it [5]. When people who use AI don’t trust it, it would be unwise for a brand to rely completely on AI-created content without some way to check and verify the output. A brand needs to develop a risk mitigation strategy if it plans to rely on AI content.

• It is easy to become reliant on producing AI content without taking into consideration the potential negative impacts on a marketer’s originality and creativity. Creating content requires hard work, and creativity does not always arrive on time to meet deadlines. Hence AI is highly attractive because it takes the hard work out of creativity and can be relied on to produce material for the impending deadline.

However, are we being true to our brand and ourselves if we rely on a program to do our hard work and be creative for us? 

Another definition of brand authenticity is:

“The extent to which consumers perceive a brand to be faithful toward itself, true to its consumers, motivated by caring and responsibility, and able to support consumers in being true to themselves.”

If consumers are looking to our brand to empower them to be true to themselves, there is the implication that we must first be true to ourselves, to the creative talent we have and the hard work that creativity often involves.

• It is possible that AI can be used to exploit and misuse people’s private information. Concerns about the use of AI have led to an open letter to pause AI experiments for six months to allow time and space to consider the safeguards necessary when using powerful AI tools.