Optimization Vs. Authenticity: 4 Real-World Cases For Authenticity
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash.
Not that I spend a lot of time reading statistics on psychiatrists, but I noticed that the latest batch of numbers from the American Psychoanalytic Association shows that the average psychotherapist sees 2.75 patients.
Not 2.75 patients per day – 2.75 patients, period. That’s not a lot of couch time.
And I thought my client load was light.
Why are so few people using psychoanalysis? One big reason is psychiatrists. They’re much more likely to prescribe medicines to treat mental-health issues than they were even 10 years ago.
Medicines are easier, and more profitable by extension. And they don’t require years of self-examination to achieve the occasional breakthrough.
(On the other hand, psychoanalysis never turned anyone into a lemur.)
What does this have to do with marketing? This same sort of behavior happens more and more in marketing, and no one has bothered to notice.
And it's wrong.
Let me reprise a statement I made in a previous blog post: There is nothing an organization can buy and no one they can hire that can take the place of that organization thoroughly and innately understanding who they are, who their customers are, and why they're here.
That’s basically the end goal of psychoanalysis, only for organizations. And just like psychiatrists' patients, organizations are increasingly getting the quick-and-easy pill treatment instead of a deep dive into who they are and why, and the hard work of remaking themselves into something closer to the ideal.
In marketing terms, it's a choice between authenticity and optimization, and more organizations are choosing optimization.
Here's why that's a mistake.
Successful Organizations Are Authentic
“Authenticity” has become more buzzy than it needs to be, but for good reason: truly successful organizations are authentic. They’re true to themselves. Everything they do is an accurate reflection of who they are and why they’re here.
All the organizations the TED-talkers love to cite – Apple, Zappos, Nike, Red Bull, and so on – were authentic before they were big.
If the internet had never been invented and shoes were still sold in brick-and-mortar stores, Zappos would still have found a way to be Zappos. If there were no such thing as computers Steve Jobs would have found a vision and created an organization that reflected it. If it hadn’t been caffeine in a can, Red Bull would have found something else to elevate … and eventually launch into space.
Let me give you four more cases from my own experience where success was a direct result of authenticity.
Marvel Entertainment
While it helps to be a content juggernaut, the fact is that Marvel is still an extension of Stan Lee’s creative vision and personal style, and its ethos can be found in Stan the Man’s responses in the letters column that ran in Marvel comics 50 years ago.
With great authenticity comes great responsibility; whether I was writing for Marvel Entertainment or Marvel U.K., I could feel myself slipping into Stan Lee’s unique voice, and I had to restrain myself from screaming at the wife and kiddos, "It's clobberin' time!"
Marvel rules the box office and trounces DC at every turn, and I know why: It’s Stan Lee's voice and vision – regardless of the medium, after all these years.
Delta Dental of Wisconsin
It’s not a long way from Marvel Comics to dental insurance when the subject is authenticity. DDWI knows its mission and its customers, and makes sure its employees know, too. Oh, and DDWI truly treats its employees like family.
The award-winning “Experience the Delta Dental Difference” campaign still has legs, in part because we insisted on having all layers of the organization represented, and in part because of videos like this:
This is unscripted and totally from the heart. In fact, what you don’t see in this video is Ann Kramer crying during the filming. That’s how much working at Delta Dental of Wisconsin meant to her.
There’s a reason why the two creative forces behind the “Experience” project, Scott Kosinski and Brad Rutta, are highly successful marketing executives. They know what comes first.
The New York Times
While media outlets like Time and CBS News have fallen by the way, the Times is thriving. Its goal is to be “the Netflix of news,” but it pursues that goal in a totally organic fashion. Nothing the Times does runs counter to what the Times is; nothing falls below its standards – which I can tell you from personal experience are the highest I’ve encountered.
The Times has been able to successfully move into other media where others have failed by knowing its strengths, knowing its audience, and staying true to its identity. Newsroom upheavals aside, it's hard to find fault with that.
Krause Publications
Probably the largest publisher you never heard of, KP became a juggernaut in hobby periodicals by putting hobbyists in charge and giving readers exactly what they wanted. It wasn’t perfect or pretty or even grammatically correct, but it was real – and it made millionaires out of some long-time employees, only failing when new, corporate owners got away from the grass-roots, know-thyself approach that pushed KP to the top.
Optimization Without Authenticity Is Worthless
Now, consider the alternative to all these success stories – optimization.
Absent of authenticity, optimization says, “Well, we don’t know what we are but we don’t think we’re very interesting, so we’ll just try to rank high for a bunch of keywords and try to get influencers to link to us and have a bunch of cool pictures on our Instagram feed and wish everyone a happy St. Patrick’s Day on Twitter.”
And all it does is let more people see how phony you are.
Once you know who you are and can approach SEO and social with a genuine sense of self, optimization strategies aren’t horrible. But until you’re authentic, until you’re true to you, it’s wasted effort.
No matter how much time and resources it takes, you have to do the organizational psychoanalysis first before you start prescribing cures. If you don’t, you’ll be spending the rest of your organizational days chasing the latest placebo without ever really knowing what you’re treating.
If you think your organization might need some couch time, contact us. We can help.
(And if you want to hear the Official Theme Song Of Authenticity, click here.)