Brand Authenticity: How To Build A Brand People Love

Pat Walls

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Updated: September 12th, 2024

What Is Brand Authenticity?

Brand authenticity refers to the extent to which customers perceive a brand to be faithful toward itself and its consumers.

According to Social Media Today, 86% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding the brands they like and support.

Thus, brand authenticity makes stronger connections as genuine messages and ideas resonate more powerfully with people.

Brand Authenticity Key Takeaways

For startups and small businesses, it is more difficult to gain traction when the business is not marketed as a trusted brand.
During the digital age, protecting brands' reputation requires regular monitoring and listening to what your customers say about the brand.
Generally, brand authenticity has four key components namely:
- Continuity: Being faithful to self
- Credibility: Being true to the consumers
- Integrity: Motivation of caring about the customers and taking responsibility
- Symbolism: Supporting the consumers in being true to them

Understanding How Brand Authenticity Works

Building an authentic brand is not a complex idea. Ideally, an authentic brand is simply a decision to remain honest in everything you do. Therefore, ensuring quality products is not all that a brand should do to remain authentic.

Startups that combine transparency and brand honesty are the ones that benefit from ambassadors, who are willing to do their marketing for them.

Put simply, brand authenticity helps brands thrive because:

Good reputation breaks above the noises
Brand authenticity helps brands to build stronger connections
An authentic brand stands out from dozens of competitors who fail to let customers see behind the curtains.

Therefore, building an authentic brand is critical to the success of startups.

Real-Word Examples Of Startups That Achieved Authentic Status

1. Airbnb

Airbnb has continually focused on building brand value by creating authentic connections with and between users.

For Airbnb, they understood that user-generated content can help promote the sustainability message expanding the customer base and building a loyal community around their brand.

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The company has aligned smart content marketing with its mission, successfully connecting customer service and engagement with helpful and interesting content.

Through such initiatives, Airbnb has gained popularity as an alternative to hotels, with the authenticity of the consumption experience being a critical differentiating factor.

2. Patagonia

Patagonia is our second example of brands that have built authenticity by standing behind its marketing efforts with its core values.

To date, Patagonia has worked tirelessly to stand out as a responsible brand and one that has a detailed understanding of every aspect of its operation.

Patagonia core objective is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”

Therefore, Patagonia fulfills its mission by investing in renewable energy and giving monetary incentives to employees so that they do not drive alone to work.

How to build Brand Authenticity

Be real and honest
Connect through stories that add value, educate, answer questions and give useful tips
Remain open to sharing what you do with the world, and tell your customers how you got there
Keep brands consistent through marketing and sales channels
Create easy and clear communication with your audience
Do not forget about innovation as a tool to propel your brand ahead to the future.

Social media platforms provide a solid base for establishing brand authenticity. thus, use the different social media platforms to stay connected with your audience.

Twitter

An online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, known as tweets.

Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @twitter
Website: https://www.twitter.com

Businesses using Twitter:

1856 successful businesses are using Twitter ➜

Get Twitter ➜

Facebook

American online social media and social networking service company based in Menlo Park, California.

Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @facebook
Website: https://www.facebook.com

Businesses using Facebook:

1518 successful businesses are using Facebook ➜

Get Facebook ➜

Case Study

Be Authentic

If you go around chasing every trend and only focused on yourself and money, you’re going to lose very quickly.

There have been many times where we have been tempted to do this but stayed true.

Sure we sacrificed sales, but we kept our integrity, played the long game and people saw and appreciated that, and really began emotionally investing in the brand.

Valentin Ozich, on starting I Love Ugly ($300,000/month) full story ➜

Authenticity

As a brand, you want to deliver an experience that authentic, honest and transparent.

Don't make the mistake of giving your audience less credit than they deserve.

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meet the author

Pat Walls