Authentic, but fake: how brands should join in consumers’ game

Social media users project an "amplified" version of their lives even as they purport to be their "authentic" selves , and brands must "join in on their game", according to consumer trends expert Meabh Quoirin.

Research by the Future Foundation, an international marketing insights company, has found that 84 per cent of people say "being honest" is part of the definition of "good moral values".

But only 16 per cent say “presenting an image true to yourself on social media” falls within the remit of good moral values.

One in three people say they only ever post about positive aspects of their life, rising to half of 25- to 34-year-olds, the research, conducted among British consumers, has found.

Attempts by brands to turn this social media psychology to their advantage will emerge as one of the big marketing trends next year, says Quoirin, the Irish managing director of the Future Foundation, which counts such blue chips companies as Coca-Cola, SABMiller, Adidas and Nissan among its clients.

The instinct to portray ourselves as “authentic” springs from “an aversion to everything mass marketing”, she says. “Everybody likes to think they’re going off the beaten track a lot more, that we’re not just ticking the boxes.”

But social media "authenticity" itself is a form of artifice. Quoirin, who gave a briefing to the Marketing Institute yesterday, cites the photo-sharing hashtag "#nofilter" as an example of people trying to portray their "authentic" selves in a manner that actually involves a degree of staging and "controlled reality".

Rather than meaning “no editing, no holds-barred exposure to who I am, where I am”, “#nofilter” is a “means to disguise the level of curation that is happening”, she says.

A recent study by social media marketing company Spredfast even suggests that at least 11 per cent of pictures labelled "#nofilter" on Instagram do in fact use one of its image filters to enhance the photograph. "Social media more than anything is a tool of image management. We might not go through that process consciously each time, but it is always there, underlying what we say and do," says Quoirin.

“There is an awful lot of social bragging going on, and that might feel disingenuous,” she adds. However, there is also an expectation and an acceptance among social media users that this is what everybody does.

The identities created are aspirational: About 30 per cent of so-called “millennial” consumers say they would like to be more like the person that they portray themselves to be on social media.

“Brands have to join in on the consumer’s game here,” says Quoirin. “They have to help consumers do the best thing. We can’t admit this, but we all know we need to look good.”

The cosmetics industry has long played the game with paradoxical concepts such as “the natural look”. Quoirin also identifies music streaming service Spotify as an example of a social media era brand that has exploited the contradiction between consumers’ desire to show off and the need to be subtle about it.

As part of Spotify's sponsorship of the Coachella music festival in California, radio-frequency identification wristbands were given to all ticket-holders and, if activated, could be used to "collect" custom Coachella playlists at "check-in" kiosks. This served several market research purposes for the event, while at the end of the festival, Spotify sent participants a "digital postcard" that documented their "Coachella experience" on their behalf.

“It was this beautifully curated personal narrative, if you like. It will be perfectly acceptable to post something like that. You didn’t do it, the brand did it for you,” says Quoirin. “You’re subtly suggesting that you’re not trying too hard, but you’re cool enough that someone has done this for you.”