Authenticity in Marketing: A 6-Pack/Case Study
“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”
-May Sarton
Take a walk down the beer aisle of your neighborhood grocery store and pick out the craft beer brands - the ones that are independently owned and operated, not part of juggernaut corporations like Anheuser-Busch, Miller Coors, etc. Unless you’re a big ol’ beer nerd, you probably picked up a 6-pack of Goose Island, Blue Moon, or Shock Top and allowed me to prove my point. Each of these corporate craft brands was either created or bought by Big Beer, making it more difficult for the average consumer to choose true craft.
“Who the heck cares?” you ask. “All I want is to crack open a cold one with the boys.” But back up a second - consumers can say the same thing about any product on the market. Who cares if I didn’t go to the local bakery when I can get doughnuts from Dunkin’? My clothes from Target fit just as well as the ones from the boutique down the street would have. The soaps I bought from Walmart still clean as well as the ones from that online store.
You, as a business owner, established your company knowing two things:
- The world is saturated with products like yours; but
- Yours is better.
Whether your design is sturdier, your ingredients are fresher, or your materials are unbeatable, you started your small business to give the world access to better products and services than they’d been able to access before.
Yet, consumers still walk down the beer aisle and pass over the local craft for a case of Shock Top. They still skip the local bake shop and sit in the Dunkin’ Donuts drive through line. In many cases, the big names have decision paralysis on their side. When you’re overloaded with choices, you’re going to pick the name you’re most familiar with.
That’s where authenticity comes in. “Authenticity in marketing” may seem like an oxymoron, but consumer buying patterns have progressed since the Mad Men era. It’s not enough to buy a glossy insert in Time magazine advertising the new Packard. Many consumers, especially the up-and-coming generation*, want to know their product before they leave the house and will perform extensive research to assess its benefits and compare it to other brands.
In this blog series on authenticity, we’ll discuss what authenticity means for a business and how to achieve it while taking a look at the brands that do it right. Craft beer is the perfect springboard for this conversation - small production facilities are in a battle to maintain their authenticity as the big names buy up their competitors and narrow their exposure to the public. After AB InBev’s recent purchase of Wicked Weed, the discussion of how to stay true to craft roots has come to a head.
If you take nothing else from this introduction, just remember that staying true to your message may not always be the easiest thing, but if done right, it will ultimately help you cement your position in your community.
How do you strive for authenticity in your marketing? What does authenticity mean to you?
*Note: I refuse to use the word “millennial,” especially regarding marketing. A quick Google search will tell you that millennials have killed every business known to modern man when it’s the brands’ fault for not shifting with the times. Don’t look at the label, look at the consumer patterns and figure out why they’re happening. It’s not as hard as it seems.