Façade-Based Marketing vs Authenticity-Based Marketing

A lot has been written about marketing. It can be pretty hard to know what to believe.

I feel lucky. I had formed opinions on what marketing is first hand, working in events. I’d got my hands dirty trying to market theatre shows, gigs and more. I had ideas about what worked and what didn't before I'd read much (or maybe anything).

And then, as is the case for many younger brothers, I was influenced by my big brother. His forays into the business world ended with him often taking on the marketing roles. And he introduced me to ways of thinking that were different to the traditional ideas of marketing.

Because of that, I don’t think I ever had as much of an allergic reaction to the idea of marketing as some of my peers, friends and clients.

I learned that business can be more than just a way to make profit (again via my big brother). And I learned that marketing was an important part of this.

In preparing to be interviewed for the Association for Coaching’s Make Time for Marketing podcast series, I found myself thinking about what marketing means, really. My mind went back to the Yorkshire market down I grew up in, and the stalls that – in the 90s – were still put up every Wednesday in the market place.

That’s marketing. Taking your wears to the place where people can come and buy them. Showing them. Selling them.

In talking to the Association for Coaching’s Maxine Bell in preparation for my interview, I saw a key marketing distinction. (I should say that this distinction was at most 50% mine, and at least 50% Maxine’s.)

Here’s the distinction: façade-based marketing vs authenticity-based marketing.

And here’s some rough descriptions to guide you in your marketing decisions.

Façade-based marketing involves creating something that takes your product to market. It involves thinking carefully about what you think the customer who might buy your product wants to see, and then showing them that. Presenting yourself, or your company, or your product as that more than as what you or it really is. A very small version of this isn't necessarily a bad thing: it can be an act of empathy that helps people find a product that will serve them. Too much of this, however, becomes dishonest manipulation. This is, mostly, why people have an allergic reaction to marketing.

Authenticity-based marketing involves creating the most authentic, real and honest picture of what you are taking to market. It involves presenting things as they are, as often and honestly as possible. Some skill is perfectly acceptable here: you don’t have to tell your customers about every little corner of your life or every problem your product or business has ever had. You can bring the healthy, small version of façade-based marketing. The kind Goffee and Jones were talking about: be yourself - more - with skill. But you aren’t hiding, you aren’t putting anything between you or your company and your customers that isn’t true. Ever.

Especially for those of us in service-based businesses, and especially for those of us who sell, in some way, ourselves, authenticity-based marketing is in reality the only sustainable option. It is the long-game choice.

In the short term, façade-based marketing may well be a more effective strategy. It can get you to your ideal customers (and the sales) more quickly. But in the longer term, you’ll run into problems.

First of all, as my friend Nicole Brigandi told me when we developed ideas about personal branding, humans are incredibly good at scanning for incongruence. Sooner or later, many of them will spot that the person they meet isn’t the same as the façade they bought from. That destroys trust.

If the incongruence doesn’t show up straight away, it’ll show up in the long term. As I’ve said before, the worst possibility in a job interview is to pretend to be something you’re not and then get the job. You’re stuck with your façade then… for as long as you don’t want people to realise there was a façade. Which might be forever. You can try and phase it out but probably, like Ross's English accent in friends, it'll be obvious.

Authenticity-based marketing is different. First of all, if your marketing (a website, video, article, social media post, talk, anything) is authentic, then when people meet you they will feel like they already know you. The real you. Because they do know a part of you.

And however you or your work changes over the years in the future, your authenticity-based marketing will never go out of date. It will always make sense, because any changes you've been through will make sense, because they're true.

Lastly, authenticity-based marketing is an act of evolution. Anything you create from and through the real you will teach you something about you. As you create and share yourself, you will grow.

So we have a choice: create the façade or reveal the truth.

I know which I choose. 

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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online. 

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