Authenticity – the New Marketing Cure
The key trend in today’s marketing is all about proving “authenticity”. Products that have “an internal truth and capability”, “defined heritage”, and a “well-grounded value set” are defined to be authentic, according to Interbrand, a branding consultant. Hence it is not abnormal to see businesses tell lengthy, detailed stories about their products.
Authenticity is what businesses see as a cure for people’s decreasing loyalty to brands. In the old age, the marketers had greater influence because the only signal consumers could acquire about the product was the images that its brand built around it. Strength of brand was once considered to be highly proportionate to the signal of product’s quality. However, with ease of accessing information online today, consumers can instantly discern facts and lies about products they contemplate buying. Cascades of comments and online reviews on social media also help consumers to form more accurate, unbiased impression of a product. This shift in how consumers pick up signals has made them more likely to abandon brands they used to purchase from to try new ones that they hear about or to buy nearly identical products at a lower price. Furthermore, a poll conducted by Havas, a marketing agency, reveals that consumers in North America say they only trust about a fifth of brands and that consumers are especially wary of big brands.
This new environment, where consumers are more fickle, impermeable to commercials, and less trusting in big brands, can be favorable for new businesses that wants to introduce new, qualified products. For the product that has a network effect, if fraction of people using the product exceeds above the tipping point, the product is likely to succeed as the upward pressure of demand to get their market share to the stable equilibrium at a higher equilibrium. As the article in the Economist hints, the new driving force that will push the product over the tipping point is authenticity. Equipped with the right story, any new product has potential to overcome big brands and lead the market (though probably not for long).
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21678216-authenticity-being-peddled-cure-drooping-brands-its-real-thing