ABSTRACT
One of the over-arching aims of this book has been to explore the complexities of the notion of authenticity and to try to conceptualise what this means for public relations professionals and brand managers whose work involves presenting brands in a way which is believable for a broad range of stakeholders. According to Schallehn et al (2014), antecedents of brand authenticity are object authenticity, where the authentic is the original, and self-authenticity in a social world, in which authenticity relates to the ability to remain true to one’s own identity despite corrupting external pressures. Authentic brands thus position themselves from the inside out, containing three important brand attributes which make up a brand trust model: individuality (uniqueness); consistency (behaviour matches communications); and continuity (core brand attributes remain stable over time). The trust comes from the fact that users assume that the brand promise develops from the brand’s internal nucleus (Schallehn et al 2014). Brand authenticity can thus be seen from different perspectives: 1) objectivist in which authenticity is ‘an objectively measurable quality of an entity’; 2) constructivist where authenticity is a projection of one’s own beliefs and expectations onto an object; and 3) existentialist in which authenticity is about being true to one’s self (Morhart et al 2015:201). Organisations, therefore, have to battle with this contradiction of how to massify a notion of authenticity, whilst at the same time presenting a product, brand or service as somehow authentically real to individual users. Authenticity is often used as a commercial asset and may have critical socio-promotional impact through normalising certain versions of ‘authentic’ self-identity via consumption and promotional practices (Edwards 2010). Contemporary authenticity can therefore be seen as socially constructed and personally determined. Beverland, for example, notes that ‘brand managers are not the sole creators of brand meaning’ and that there are disparate sources of brand meaning such as ‘a connection to time and place, authenticity as a form of self-expression’ (2005:460). Authenticity often becomes a prevailing consumer purchasing criteria in which consumers seek to confirm their own self-image by engaging with organisations and brands they perceive to be real or authentic, in an active affirmation of choice, so getting authentic branding right is important (Gilmore and Pine 2007). The authors mentioned above are all agreed that 131authenticity can be understood as a constantly changing concept which is connected to context, and which is in part constructed by the audience.
