Authenticity of Self and Brand

  In college, I fell in love with Martin Buber, an early twentieth century Austrian philosopher known for ‘I and Thou’.  He basically said you are three people - who you think you are, who others think you are and who you really are.  I believe this is true of both people and brands.  The goal is to get the closest to what is true, authentic, in your messaging to your audience. Interestingly, humans have a vast ability to sense what is not authentic.

  To be authentic leads me to what I hate about AI.  AI eats data.  It consumes it.  It consumes it so that it can regurgitate it when asked to do so.  The data it regurgitates is average, middle ground.  I call it lukewarm - from Revelation the Church of Laodicea was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.  When one is lukewarm, it is not distinctive let alone revolutionary.  When a brand strategy, branding or creative is lukewarm it does not move the audience.  C+S uses AI as we all do.  We use it for research, just to get started, for rough cut VO, etc, etc.  BUT when I hear or see brand strategy, copy and the like coming from AI, I cringe.  We are humans.  We are all unique.  AI strategy is fine, but not great.  I could be wrong but I thought the point of advertising in this now very, very noisy world was to stand out.

  The only way I can think of standing out is to show our humanness more than ever.  Show it in our relationships, our customer service, our creativity.  We need to be fearless.

  To be fearless, we need to know who we are.  As I look at social media, I often see everyone’s profile picture change overnight - to the latest fade!  I have not even had a chance to think about whatever the subject is.  I like to think about it and talk about it.  I like to look at the end of the matter as far as I am able to logically think through it.  That is what I don’t like about the world today.  It feels full of AI and group think - and I just want to have coffee and talk, really talk.  Back to Buber… In that exchange over coffee, you may think I am someone while I think I am someone else, but I do believe that the real me gets to develop, and become more confident.

  Now back to brands, brands need to learn to be who they are rather than who they want to be, or who they feel others (their audience) wants them to be. I think what makes them stand out is being authentic.  Today, take some time to think about what makes you or your brand authentic, special and different.

  ~ Heidi Habben | Owner