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Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers
Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers
One lovely day in the summer of 2002, I had an in-person business meeting scheduled with an Englishman. He was a new client and I had been advised by a colleague who also rode motorcycles not to reveal myself as a motorcyclist until after a new business relationship had been cemented. Yet, it was a beautiful day and my motorcycle was a 2001 Triumph, made in England. I considered the sunshine and the English connection (if my client noticed that I arrived on a Triumph) an excuse to ride to the appointment.
pass test in a blink
Within minutes of my arrival, the Englishman led me out to the parking lot to show him my motorcycle. When he read the name on the gas tank, he whispered, ‘A Triumph.’ Then, taking on a dubious tone, he turned to me and said, ‘Aah, but was any of it made in England?’
Fortunately, Triumph had placed a tiny Union Jack decal above the taillight. I pointed to it, said yes, and witnessed a change in facial expression that suggested I had just passed a critical test.
What my made-in-England Triumph has is the perception that authenticity equates with value. This is true of much more than motorcycles. Indeed, the perception of authenticity equates with value among informed and uninformed consumers in any market – so much that it often makes deep wells of creativity unnecessary in effective marketing.
authenticity = value
Because the concepts home-made and locally-grown trigger the impulse to buy, a small hand-made sign offering home-made relish made from locally-grown cucumbers helps to sell more hotdogs at a hotdog stand. Likewise, a poster of Shaun Cassidy from 1977 might sell at a garage sale today. The same poster autographed by Shaun Cassidy can fetch a high price on e-bay. These are further examples of how authenticity increases value.
You want the real thing?
Authenticity relates to truthful origins. The word comes from the Greek authentikós which means original. An authentic claim is worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact. An authentic product is original or made in the same way as an original – not false or imitation. Other concepts related to authenticity include real, actual, and genuine – all hallmarks of value.
Generally, people avoid substitutes or pay less for them when they can have the real thing. So, in 1969-70, Coca-Cola successfully advertised with the slogan, ‘It’s the real thing.’ When you buy a pair of Levi-Strauss jeans, the label declares, ‘This is a genuine pair of Levi's jeans.’ These companies understand the value/authenticity connection.
fakers keep out
Typically image-conscious teens still use the labels wanna-be and poser as insults. Likewise, the perception that a brand merely tries to be what it claims to be turns off consumers of all ages. People are also turned off by far-fetched claims. Below, a claim that Ladysmith, British Columbia has a ‘heavenly’ climate exemplifies this.
Creativity better than honesty?
When marketers take the route of simple, truthful authenticity, their markets often reward them with success. Yet, the supreme status of creativity is so deeply ingrained in the ad industry that advertising executives refuse to pay attention – or feel that they can do much better.
Creativity is viewed as so basic a requirement in advertising that people in that line of work seldom mention it, except to promote themselves to other industries. Yet, while creativity that is also original may be lauded, danger arises when creativity is divorced from authenticity. The results from an Association for Consumer Research poll ‘strongly suggest that consumers are deeply skeptical of advertising claims. Moreover, public opinion has remained extraordinarily constant [about this for at least] two decades.’ * Thus, public opinion considers creativity insignificant at best when companies and institutions take their messages to market.
For an example of creativity gone too far, consider the climate in Ladysmith, British Columbia. Ladysmith has a mild coastal climate. The summers tend to be sunny and dry; seldom hot. Bringing months of cloud and rain, the spring and autumn typically seem to run together. Despite mild temperatures, the short days and persistent damp gloom of winter lead some residents into depression. Regardless, a brochure promoting condos in Ladysmith claims a ‘heavenly’ climate year-round.
Ignore user experience?
One advertising agency that, incidentally, repeatedly wins awards for graphic design, apparently sees no place for actuality in the creative campaigns it develops. It uses a word-association game to generate campaign concepts. Let me explain.
If the client’s business were Mountainside Soapworks, for example, the agency’s staff would work with six columns of words on a whiteboard. At the top of each column would be the words mountain, side, mountainside, soap, works, and soapworks. The creative team brainstorms and lists associated words below these headings.
Under soap they list wash, clean, dirty, water, shower, sink, towel, bathroom, tub, and other words. Beneath works, they list paycheque, commuting, job, labour, boots, dress code, career, breadwinner, and others. The next creative challenge is to join words from the six columns into unlikely combinations. For example, dirty and commuting or water and career would be grouped with words from the other four columns. While the fun and creativity are underway, nobody bothers to consider the distinct benefits of using the client’s products.
Then, all at the creative briefing are challenged to draw creative sketches based on various groups of six words. The most creative sketches become candidates for the campaign concept. This is how a campaign built on a sketch inspired by valley shower boots hill flank suds job could be used to advertise soap.
The process undoubtedly stirs up fun and creativity. What about the actual experience of the product user, though? What consumer needs does this company’s soap address better than the competition’s? What can Mountainside Soapworks say about its products that would have the same appeal as the authenticity of a pair of genuine Levi’s jeans, or the try-me attraction of homemade relish made from local cucumber? Though the fruits of fun creativity might be appealing, when it comes to advertising, people want the truth.
true, genuine, relevant
From the smallest players to the largest, the advertising industry trumpets creativity as the key source of value. Creative Director is one of the most respected positions in the field and the phrase creative marketing is often used in the same sentence as solutions or success. John Grant, author of The New Marketing Manifesto, states, ‘Authenticity is the benchmark against which all brands are now judged.’
Overloaded by sales pitches, consumers are gravitating toward brands that they sense are true and genuine. In a December, 2007 issue of Fast Company, Bill Breen writes, ‘To maintain its integrity, a brand must remain true to its values. And yet, to be relevant or cool, a brand must be dynamic.’ A brand's values – the emotional connection it makes – define its realism in consumers’ minds.
the law of candor
In contrast to the empty entertainment and unreal overstatement often used to lure buyers, authentic, credible, easily verified claims are valued like gold. Because the average person simply wants truth in advertising, there are examples of plain truth making market leaders – even when the truth is expressed boldly and frankly. Consider Buckley’s Mixture cough medicine. It tastes awful, it works, and it has held onto its status as one of the top-selling brands in the Canadian market for many years.
The same values that compel people to seek the authentic and shun the fake and vacuous are involved in demanding fairness and accuracy in reporting from the news media as well as truth in advertising. Indeed, there are laws requiring truth in advertising while misleading claims are widely considered the province of the corrupt. The statement, ‘They just make up this stuff’ can paradoxically evoke pride in advertising executives and disgust in consumers.
listen for it
So, how does a company or an institution that has something to promote get to the truth about its products or services and express that truth so that the intended audience responds favourably? By listening for it.
distil it
In my experience as a key-messages consultant, the highest quality testimonials are not those asked for but those spontaneously provided. Accordingly, I coach my clients on how to listen to their clients, staff, and suppliers for the essential key messages, such as where the value comes from. Then, what sources of value distinguish them from competitors. To get that information in the words that the market uses simply requires listening – in most cases, trained listening.
quote what customers say
Listen attentively to enough people over a sufficient period and the truth of consumer experience becomes abundantly clear. Listen all the time and the larger sample size reduces the margin of error. Then, when you know how to distil the market’s sentiments, the result is authentic key messages of far greater value than a thousand word-association games could ever produce. Propagate those key messages to the market in the words that the market speaks and you can really hit the bullseye. No room for hyperbole. Plain facts can win over even the skeptical. Just like the name Triumph and the little Union Jack on my motorcycle.
- Glenn R Harrington, Articulate Consultants Inc.
* source: John E Calfee, University of Maryland and Debra Jones Ringold, American University: Consumer Skepticism and Advertising Regulation: What Do The Polls Show? Advances in Consumer Research volume 15
About the Author
Glenn Harrington is the Principal Consultant of Articulate Consultants Inc. Since 1996 he has specialized in consulting on authentic key messages as the basis for effective marketing, brand management, and client loyalty. http://www.articulate.ca/
Skeptical Debunkers and the Afterlife
One of the greatest sources of afterlife information ever was the British direct voice medium Leslie Flint (1911-1994). His seance sessions were well documented and recorded. During any seance, voices would resonate out of thin air around the medium. Throughout all the decades of his mediumship, no one could find any evidence of fraud or any sort of trickery. Leslie Flint was perhaps the most tested and verified medium who ever lived. According to his book, Voices in the Dark, Leslie Flint himself once said, "I think I can safely say I am the most tested medium this country has ever produced... I have been boxed up, tied up, sealed up, gagged, bound and held, and still the voices have come to speak their message of life eternal."
Because of the extraordinary nature of Leslie Flint's "powers," there are still many, many people who do not accept or believe in what he had achieved. Somehow they are not convinced enough in spite of the recordings, the overwhelming evidence, the information that came through, and all the witnesses who where in themselves definitely convinced. What I have found regarding nonbelievers, is they usually had the following attitudes in common: a strong prejudice or conviction in their negative opinion of Leslie Flint, poor information or knowledge in general about the subject of spiritualism, no personal spiritual or psychic experiences of any sort, an overall lack of open-mindedness, and finally an inability or unwillingness to fully investigate the possibility of the afterlife. Often it is one's religious beliefs that get in the way of allowing a more compassionate and understanding approach to the validity and innocence of spiritualism, or it is often due to an opposite view steeped deeply in atheism and an overwhelmingly materialistic and mechanical view of life.
Let us assume that somehow Leslie Flint was just a fraud, I don't know how he could have fooled everyone who attended his seances for 60 years, and he would have to be a magician many times more subtle than Chris Angel combined with the wisdom of King Solomon and the insight and psychic power of Edgar Cayce along with a photographic memory and an unusually creative and consistent imagination! If he really was just a stunning and ingenious parlor trick showman as the skeptics would want you to believe, then why did he not simply perform as an incredibly unusual magician and/or ventriloquist for a multimillion dollar income at places like Las Vegas? Or why did Leslie Flint, the so-called parlor trick showman, not acquire a multimillion contract with Hollywood or Walt Disney Productions? Instead, why did he leave his beloved dance partner and successful dancing career only to be an oftentimes broke direct voice medium spiritualist mocked by skeptics, condemned by devil phobic, closed minded Christians, and then bound, gagged and intimately scrutinized repeatedly for years and years by skeptical scientists, doctors and researchers?
The only way I could imagine it being a parlor trick (and it would have to be the most elaborate one ever in the history of humankind to have convinced so many people for 60 years of scrutiny and then never be exposed as a fraud) one would either need some sort of two-way hifi quadriphonic radio (because the voices often could be heard moving in mid air all around the room!) along with a hidden studio to hide away all the different personalities coming through and then imagine trying to do this in the 1930's, 40's, etc., (with what little technology available then) and with none or little financial support. Leslie flint was relatively poor throughout most of his life especially when others first discovered his mediumship.
Assuming no electronic equipment was used and yet was somehow still some sort of magician's trick, Leslie Flint would still need some very clever trap doors, hidden hallways, vents, ropes, pulleys, etc. prepared for his "actors and actresses" ahead of time everywhere he went to hold a seance which was often in many public locations throughout the UK or more personal seance rooms that could not have possibly been "rigged" ahead of time as these were all carefully scrutinized before any event. Obviously Leslie Flint would need quite a team of very stealthy accomplices with him at all times and all of them would have to be somehow paid for, and then always be extremely well informed regarding anyone attending beforehand whose names would often not be known until the beginning of the seance when Leslie Flint's Cockney spirit control "Mickey" announced them! And if his mediumship was faked, where are all the accomplices today? How is it that not one person has yet come forward to say they had been asked or employed by Leslie Flint to fraudulently mimic a huge number of different personalities?
How did Leslie Flint's always incredibly sharp and incomparable Cockney control known as "Mickey" in the spirit world (was actually John Whitehead who sold newspapers outside Camden Town, UK until he was killed by a truck when he was eleven) keep the same inimitable, young, childlike voice and same unique personality for so many decades? Mickey's Cockney accent and extraordinary unique characteristics show up regularly in the seance tapes which can be heard online at the Leslie Flint Educational Trust website. While carefully listening to these tapes, even the casual listener should sense that Mickey is indeed a genuine, true-to-life person (in fact a natural comedian) having genuine conversations!
How were those who came through able to correctly answer any questions from anyone in an audience? How did they convince so many people (including lawyers, governors, industrialists and members of royalty sometimes arriving as surprise guests for private seances) they were their dead comrades, relatives and/or loved ones? And before you say "ventriloquist" how could the voices continue to sound perfectly normal and move around the room even while Leslie Flint's mouth was gagged with colored liquid in his mouth and bound to a chair and no one else could be felt or seen in the room? And when he was not gagged, then why was Leslie Flint's voice, coughing, etc. often heard simultaneously along with the spirit's voices in the tapes?
Even though a few materialistic skeptic debunkers desperately tried to discredit Leslie Flint, not one person throughout the 60 years of his mediumship could find any hard evidence whatsoever of any cheating or conjuring. Finally after months of extremely careful observation, one skeptic concluded that the voices had to have emanated from inside his abdomen and another concluded it had to be some form of mass hypnosis or hallucination! Is that possible? Could he have swallowed a 1930's two-way wireless device with a hypnotic effect and quadraphonic voice output?
I would love to see how the world-famous skeptical debunker magician James Randi try to explain all this! He dares not because he cannot. The best he could do is come up with another hard-to-swallow explanation as ridiculous as the gastrointestinal radio or mass hypnosis. (No wonder I get indigestion sometimes while listening to some of these debunkers!) Even then, who or what would have provided all the personalities and information that came through? And then why would Leslie Flint commit hours and hours of his valuable time nearly every week of his life and go to such incredibly eccentric and absurd lengths just to "conjure up the dead" when Mr. Flint was already quite content in his twenties to be a dance instructor and award-winning professional dancer with his beloved dance partner?
The Bad Psychics website administration and members hate my article on Leslie Flint! It is because all the "evidence" I am presenting naturally clashes against the world views of those who cannot possibly accept the existence of unusual "unproven" phenomena such as ectoplasm and other exotic states of matter such as astral matter. Spiritualism is just too far outside of the box of their traditional way of thinking and therefore makes them very uncomfortable. I can also be quite skeptical and would not accept anything myself unless there was adequate evidence to support it. I first had to spend thirty-six years of critical research and analysis of countless books, videos, personal experiences and other such material before I was fully convinced of an afterlife. The Bad Psychics website is one of the most "skeptic" websites (authored by those who obviously had no direct experiences of true mediumship, near-death experiences, after death communications, etc.) I have ever seen and people need to be highly critical of anything before accepting it as real anyway. In fact I would be concerned if no one was at first skeptical in one's approach to any new and unusual phenomenon. Therefore, I have no problem with those who are still skeptical as long as they remain compassionately open-minded and are tolerant of those who claim to have experienced paranormal phenomena.
The Bad Psychics website administration's "evidence" against Leslie Flint is that Mahatma Gandhi's voice sounds different from when he was alive. Imagine dying and of course having to leave one's physical vocal cords behind to either be cremated or buried along with the body and then having to come back as a spirit talking through someone else's ectoplasm in the form of an artificial "voice box" wouldn't you sound different or at least a little hoarse and even possibly quite similar to many other spirits having to use the same ectoplasmic voice box? Not only that, Gandhi's level of vibration is most likely an extremely high vibration far removed from the Earth's vibration, and most likely another spirit much closer to the Earth's vibration had to have been present to act as an "astral" medium or channel sensitive enough to pick up Gandhi's thoughts yet still low enough in vibration to expresses through the "voice box." The whole process is anything but simple. Under these conditions, it is an enchanting miracle that anything like Gandhi's voice or accent comes through at all!
Who knows how many actual "bad psychics" may be featured on their website? However Leslie Flint, the ultimate antithesis of a "bad psychic" and one of the greatest direct voice mediums ever, absolutely and definitely does not belong there! The only reason (if you can call it that) they put him on that site is simply because of the kind of phenomena he was involved with, no other reason! He is prejudged "guilty" by association alone and incorrectly stuffed in the same "Crackerjack box" with all the other "bad psychics" making me quite skeptical of the validity of their judgement.
The fact that Leslie Flint is on that website proves that the authors of that website consider anyone who is a psychic a bad one! Even more disturbing is how some of the posters doubt the intelligence of anyone on the internet (calling mine and other such "woo" websites "stupid") who believes in spirits coming through seances. And if that were not bad enough, they would also condemn anyone with such an ability as almost criminal and always fraudulent completely regardless of who they are or what sort of phenomena they can or cannot produce when actually it is a clear indication of their bias, poor study, complete lack of appreciation, lack of knowledge and lack of interest in the extremely rare phenomenon of ectoplasm and the direct voice. This website's inclusion of Leslie Flint in the "bad psychic Crackerjack box" is a classic example of prejudicial condemnation without careful investigation.
Regarding those who are still very skeptical, it is only because they have not yet studied carefully and been able to identify the most honorable sources of this subject closely enough with an open mind, and with enough dedication and interest. They also lack personal experience of afterlife phenomena, which unfortunately is rarely or never experienced by those who are mentally and emotionally closed off to such things. Of course I do feel sorry for all those who never had any personal experiences like I have encountered, because such experiences are almost always extremely positive and provide personal proof and tremendous reassurance. The fact of its rarity unfortunately helps to keep this material world trapped in its own darkness.
Some of the most materialistic skeptics just don't want to accept that there is life after death anyway because it contradicts their personal interest and personal outlook and/or religious beliefs. Because any mediumistic phenomena would clash sharply with their life-long materialistic belief systems, no matter how obvious the evidence, nothing whatsoever will ever convince them otherwise; it would be just too far of a quantum leap for them to jump! Therefore any alleged sightings of ectoplasm, trumpets whirling in mid air, disembodied voices, spirit lights, etc. are too weird and too "Hollywood" to be allowed in their concept of reality and are therefore instantly dismissed as utter nonsense!
One can put definite, indisputable, obvious proof of survival right in the face of any biased sceptic, and still the prejudiced debunker would never accept it no matter what, because it violently clashes with the skeptic's deeply engraved, all too comfortable way of thinking and living. This is unfortunate, because when such people pass over, they risk getting trapped into long periods of self-delusion, and earthbound states (clinging to Earth because materialism is all they have known and accepted) could otherwise be avoided. However, regardless if one likes it or not, there is life after death! And for those who are humane, nonjudgmental, kindhearted, good natured, and know what to expect, it is extremely good!
More information and videos related to this article can be found right here: http://www.wholejoy.com/wholeness/news99q.html
Russell Symonds (Shaktivirya) has dedicated his life to finding wholeness and is living the "wholeness" lifestyle. His website, Science of Wholeness is a spiritual and nutritional information and research center dedicated to helping you find your keys to wholeness (everlasting joy, love, bliss, rejuvenation, and much, much more). There is no greater thing of beauty, value and joy as wholeness!
The rest of his original articles and his free online book can be found here: http://www.wholejoy.com/wholeness/NEWS.html
About the Author
I am a spiritual truth seeker looking for wholeness, or the perfect inner joy and abundant health that we all long for. I have found much of that wholeness through ionized water fasting, afterlife research, advanced dieting/nutritional supplementation, meditation, and transmutation of the lower chakra energies into a higher expression of joy and love.
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