A client asked me for feedback about an promotional campaign they are planning to use in this year’s SF gay pride parade. IMO, it was culturally tone-deaf bordering on deeply offensive. Given that this client has a long history of supporting the GLBT community, I wanted to stop them from this misstep. The jury is still out on whether I’ll be able to do that, but it has given me opportunity to reflect on how something born of such good intentions can go so wrong. And, of course, how to prevent it.

One aspect of prevention is addressed brilliantly in Douglas Rushkoff’s book “Get Back in the Box.” In a nutshell, he talks about how inauthentic companies have become by pursuing branding as an end in itself rather than as an authentic expression of who and what they are. The brand gets disconnected from the company’s identity, yet the identity is directly experienced by its customers each day. The brand, and the campaign based on that brand, begins to bray like a donkey. It’s shriekingly out of synch. It’s impossible for the customer not to notice the disconnect. After you’ve hit this level of brand incongruity, trying to convey your brand to a culture the company doesn’t understand is a lot like watching Al Gore dance the makarena at the democratic convention: Discomfiting. A little embarassing. Even more scary: This sort of misstep is available to us all, ad infinitum

Part of the antidote – and one Rushkoff recommends – was given to us years ago on Saturday Night Live. Remember the psychologist who kept saying “Have you looked at yourself lately?” At the time, it was nothing more than the demented mantra of the navel-gazing boomer generation. At this moment in the corporate stew, it’s sounding more and more like wisdom. Too much looking outside for who you are and what to convey about yourself makes for a twitchy, cranky mess. You overreach and your customers can see strain. Too much looking within can make you a caricature of yourself, as in: “I’ve been spending a lot of time inquiring into why I don’t get off the couch.” The best brands are the ones that come from a company’s deepest authenticity and reach out to others from that place.

The key seems to be balance these two things: look within and respond to those you want to reach. Without both things working, you’re like a rowboat with only one oar in the water: you see the same scenery over and over and as you circle.

This isn’t rocket science, but it’s easy to forget. Plus, we’ve got all kinds of things in my way: ego, the fear of asking for help, of being ridiculed, or being left behind in the marketplace, all of which we cleverly disguise as time pressure. When anxiety strikes, the tendency to row in circles can be overpowering.

There is another choice: Have you looked at yourself lately? In an effort to be trendy and “competitive,” have you strayed from who your customers know you to be? Look, everyone wants to be the cool uncle visting from the distant big city, but the family needs the grump who lives down the block in the house stuffed with unread newspapers too. Which are you? How can you move from that authentic place to meet your customer? How can you compete without becoming something you are not?

Look at Al Gore now: The man who rode his passionate and deeply authentic obsession with the environment all the way to a relaxed, funny and passionate public presence. He’s making a difference. And isn’t that what we were shooting for in the first place?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under authenticity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.