Authentic? Stop right there. When Merriam-Webster rolled out “authentic” as their 2023 Word of the Year, I needed to pump the brakes. Word of the Year is a distinction that often says less about linguistics and more about culture.
(See also Oxford University Press Word of the Year: “rizz,” short for charisma. Like you do.)
If you’re in marketing, you know it’s nothing new to prize authenticity–much like how we rally around “transparency” and “vulnerability,” without always committing to the implications of the words. How often do companies talk about being transparent with their audiences, and yet bury their mistakes in questionable testing and research practices? We’re good at separating words from actions.
So if this is your year to gain trust and embrace authenticity, or if your team leader or CMO is doubling down on authenticity, promise me you’ll ask one question first: authentic to what?
Easy, right? Figure out your rubric, your message architecture, the hierarchy of qualities to which your organization aspires. M-W describes authenticity as being “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character,” something that’s all the more important as artificial intelligence and generative AI help us fake our way to human. For the past two decades, I’ve facilitated workshops with marketing teams and product leaders to help them figure out their message architecture, or hierarchy of communication goals, before they jump into website redesigns, design systems, or marketing campaigns. In Trustworthy, I wrote about building trust through consistency with a message architecture.
It’s no secret: I believe all authentic content starts with content strategy–and all content strategy starts with a message architecture.
So if you’re standing on that precipice, told to be authentic–the HORROR, right?–ask that question. Figure out your message architecture. And if you need help figuring it out, please DM me. I’m happy to talk tools, discuss process, or just… be real. Be authentic. Who wants to be authentic with me?
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Originally published on LinkedIn
