A brand may have found the right words, defined its values, refined its identity, and formulated an admirable promise. Yet a far more demanding question remains: is that truly what one feels when encountering it?
Brand authenticity is not declared. It is demonstrated.
We have learned to recognize the external signs of a brand.
A logo. A color palette. A voice. A website. A few carefully chosen words to tell a story, a reason for being, or values.
But a brand is not only revealed by what it chooses to say.
She reveals herself through what she does.
In the way it responds to a request. In the care it takes with its packaging—and not just its graphic design. In its return policy. In how it welcomes a new employee. In the deadlines it promises—and those it meets. In what it's willing to do to make a sale, but also in what it refuses to do to remain true to its core values.
This is often where something breaks down: between the brand positioning displayed and the experience actually lived.
And this distance, however discreet it may be, always ends up telling us something about the company.
Brand positioning is not a text
Brand positioning is still often reduced to a formula.
A few lines in a strategic presentation. A value proposition. A slogan specific enough to distinguish the company from its competitors.
This work is necessary. But it is only the beginning.
Because a brand positioning only truly has value when it becomes a principle of decision-making.
It should allow us to answer questions that are far less elegant than those of a branding exercise:
Does this new offer reflect who we are?
Is this way of serving our customers compatible with the promise we make?
Is this campaign attracting the right people, or simply as many people as possible?
Does this decision actually improve the customer experience we want to offer?
Is our way of billing, recruiting, selling, designing, or responding consistent with the brand we are?
At this precise point, the brand ceases to be a matter of communication.
It becomes a system.
Positioning defines its logic. Brand identity gives it form. Customer behaviors, decisions, and experience give it reality.
When these elements tell the same story, the brand becomes legible.
When they contradict each other, the public feels it.
We have become particularly sensitive to brand inconsistency
Today, it only takes a few minutes to compare an organization's promises with its reality.
A company proclaims its obsession with customer service, but makes it nearly impossible to speak to a human.
A brand claims simplicity, but imposes a labyrinthine customer journey.
An organization builds its discourse around proximity, then communicates in a cold and interchangeable language.
A company presents itself as deeply committed, but disengages as soon as this commitment becomes too inconvenient.
This is perhaps one of the most important changes in our contemporary relationship with brands: we no longer receive their narrative as truth. We evaluate it.
We are looking for correlations between the displayed values and the observed behaviors.
We check if the actions confirm the words.
This phenomenon partly explains the growing interest in brand authenticity within marketing research. Studies on the subject link perceived authenticity to credibility, transparency, integrity, originality, and a degree of continuity over time.
But the word authenticity can itself become deceptive.
Because authenticity is not a posture that one adopts.
It is a conclusion that others reach.
You can't decide to be perceived as an authentic brand
This is probably the most interesting paradox.
An organization may decide to be more transparent. It may seek greater brand consistency. It may clarify its beliefs and review some of its practices.
But she cannot decide that her audience will find her authentic.
This perception belongs to the one who observes.
That's why attempts to "look authentic" so easily backfire.
Storytelling becomes more intimate. The tone more spontaneous. Communications show more behind-the-scenes glimpses. Founders speak out. Values occupy an increasingly prominent place on the pages. About.
None of these practices are problematic in themselves.
But when they do not truly correspond to observable realities in decisions or customer experience, they simply add a new layer of communication to the initial problem.
The interesting question, therefore, is not:
How can we make our brand more authentic?
It would be more like:
Is our brand consistent between what it promises, what it does, and what it actually delivers?
The change appears subtle.
However, it shifts the entire focus of brand strategy.
Each point of contact becomes evidence
A brand is never experienced as a whole.
It is encountered in fragments.
An advertisement.
A Google search result.
A conversation.
An invoice.
An email.
A delivery.
An error.
An answer to this error.
Each of these touchpoints contains clues about what the organization truly values.
That's why brand consistency doesn't simply mean using the same colors and tone everywhere.
Consistency can make a brand perfectly recognizable without making it coherent: coherence begins when this same logic is also found in its decisions, its behaviors and the experience it creates.
Visual consistency matters, obviously. Verbal consistency does too.
But the most important form of coherence lies deeper: in the correspondence between what the brand promises and what the organization actually delivers.
A brand that talks about simplicity should reduce friction in the customer journey.
A brand that claims to care should make that care perceptible in every interaction.
A brand that promises expertise should create signs of mastery even before the customer can technically evaluate its work.
An organization that places people at the heart of its mission should be able to show where this conviction concretely influences its choices.
Otherwise, words remain just words.
Brand inconsistency has a cost
The problem is that it is difficult to attribute this cost to a specific line item in an income statement.
It is rare for a customer to write:
I did not purchase because your brand promise and my experience did not present an insufficient level of congruence.
He leaves.
He hesitates.
He complains.
He compares prices.
He makes fewer spontaneous recommendations.
He's not coming back.
A promising candidate doesn't apply.
A potential partner doesn't understand exactly what distinguishes the organization.
A donor never develops the level of trust necessary to become more involved.
Brand inconsistency therefore often manifests itself under other names: problems with conversion, loyalty, reputation, recruitment, differentiation or perception of value.
This is also what makes branding work easy to relegate behind needs deemed more urgent.
Redesigning a page, launching a campaign, or publishing more content immediately seems concrete.
Questioning the promise that organizes the entire brand experience requires more perspective.
However, improving a brand's manifestations without questioning the system that produces them sometimes amounts to continually correcting the symptoms.
A consistent brand makes decisions simpler.
There is another way to look at the question.
Brand positioning is not solely intended for the public.
It also serves the organization itself.
When a brand clearly knows what it stands for, who it exists for, the particular value it seeks to create and the compromises it refuses, a multitude of decisions become easier.
Should we launch this offer?
Accept this mandate?
Participate in this trend?
Use this tone?
Modify this service?
Collaborating with this partner?
Add this feature?
Positioning then acts less as a message than as a strategic filter.
Not everything becomes simple. But the decisions are no longer entirely improvised.
And this internal consistency naturally ends up producing external consistency.
Not because the organization strives to repeat the same thing everywhere, but because the same principle guides what it does everywhere.
Perhaps we should talk less about brand authenticity
By being invoked so much, authenticity runs the same risk as many brand concepts: becoming a quality that everyone claims but that no one can truly demonstrate anymore.
So perhaps it's better not to try to appear authentic.
Let's focus instead on being precise about what we promise.
To build experiences capable of delivering on that promise.
To identify the places where our actions still contradict our convictions.
It is also important to accept that a truly defined brand cannot please everyone, respond to everything, and take every direction.
Authenticity may eventually result from this.
Like trust.
Like credibility.
Like that impression, difficult to create but immediately perceptible, that an organization knows who it is.
Ultimately, a brand doesn't become strong because it tells its story perfectly.
It becomes so when, frequently and for a sufficiently long time, Everything she does seems to tell the same story.
References
The reflections developed in this article are based in particular on work devoted to the perceived authenticity of brands, the search for authenticity by consumers and the consistency of signals transmitted through the brand experience.
Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F. & Grohmann, B. (2015). Brand authenticity: An integrative framework and measurement scale. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 200–218.
An important reference on perceived authenticity and its dimensions — credibility, integrity, symbolism and continuity — as well as its links with brand attachment, word-of-mouth and choice.
Bartsch, F., Zeugner-Roth, KP & Katsikeas, CS (2022). Consumer authenticity seeking: Conceptualization, measurement, and contingent effects. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 50(2), 296–323.
The authors shift the focus from the brand to the consumer and study the search for authenticity as a disposition that influences how offers are evaluated.
Massi, M., Piancatelli, C. & Vocino, A. (2023). Authentic omnichannel: Providing consumers with a seamless brand experience through authenticity. Psychology & Marketing, 40(7), 1280–1298.
This research examines the congruence of signals between different touchpoints and shows that a more consistent experience can strengthen perceived authenticity as well as purchase intention.
Papadopoulou, C., Vardarsuyu, M. & Oghazi, P. (2023). Examining the relationships between brand authenticity, perceived value, and brand forgiveness: The role of cross-cultural happiness. Journal of Business Research, 167, 114154.
The study explores in particular the relationships between brand authenticity, perceived value, forgiveness of the brand and purchase intention.
Halwani, L. & Cherry, A. (2024). A Consumer Perspective on Brand Authenticity: Insight into Drivers and Barriers. International Journal of Business and Management, 19(1), 21.
This qualitative study highlights credibility, transparency, uniqueness and proximity as factors promoting perceived authenticity, while inconsistency, unreliability and pretentiousness can weaken it.
