Because here’s the paradox: the moment you try to be authentic, you’re already performing. Authenticity, by nature, resists artifice. But branding is artifice — even at its best.
The Myth of the Authentic Brand: Why Realness Isn’t a Strategy
It’s weird when a myth crumbles.
To be clear, I’m not talking about Zeus or the Greek and Roman gods we learned about in school—those myths will last forever. I mean, we’re still teaching The Iliad and The Odyssey in the age of AI. When a myth is spun well, it sticks.
But every now and then, one gets disproven, and it feels... odd.
For me, it was the myth of the tuna fish sandwich.
I grew up spending my summers at our extended family cottage in Marshfield, Massachusetts. We’d hit the beach at the end of our short, sandy road and stay there all day. Around noon, my poor, tired mother would call us in for lunch. And then, of course, we had to wait 30 minutes before going back in the water. Because that was the rule.
At some point, someone had told my mother that if you swam after eating, you’d get horrible cramps and drown. No questions asked. That was the myth.
Years later, I was on a beach in Florida with friends—grown, full of chicken wings, and several drinks in—when I was dragged into the surf. And the entire time, my brain was screaming: You just ate. You’re going to cramp. You’re going to drown.
It was like Jaws, but the shark was twelve buffalo wings.
The sun was setting in that amber, cinematic way only Florida does. The breeze was salty, the water warm and inviting, and I could hear my mother’s voice in my head like a warning label. But I went in anyway. I jumped through the waves, laughed with friends, and had raucous fun. And oddly enough, I didn’t cramp. I didn’t drown.
Later that night, I looked it up: no major medical or safety organization makes any recommendation to wait before swimming after eating. It’s just a myth. A well-meaning one, maybe—but a myth nonetheless.
And now, working at ThoughtLab, I find myself surrounded by another kind of myth. Not the kind told to kids on beaches, but the ones grown-ups tell each other in boardrooms.
One of the most overhyped? The myth of perfection. Brands bending over backwards to look flawless, polished, and untouchable. That one needs to die—and maybe it already has.
But another myth still has its moment in the sun, and it might be even more dangerous:
The myth of authenticity.
It used to be that brands tried to look perfect. Slick campaigns. Polished messaging. Immaculate product shots. But somewhere along the way, perfection got traded for “authenticity.” Suddenly, every brand wanted to be raw, relatable, and real. We got behind-the-scenes bloopers, founders crying on LinkedIn, and brands misspelling captions “on purpose” to feel human.
And yet — none of it actually feels real.
Because here’s the paradox: the moment you try to be authentic, you’re already performing. Authenticity, by nature, resists artifice. But branding is artifice — even at its best. So when brands chase “authenticity,” what they often create is a kind of aesthetic vulnerability. It looks like truth, but it smells like strategy.
We’re living through a crisis of sincerity. People don’t distrust brands because they’re cynical. They distrust them because they’re tired. Tired of being manipulated by language pretending not to be marketing. Tired of brands mistaking transparency for trust. Tired of watching realness get reduced to a vibe.
The truth is, authenticity isn’t something you can manufacture. It’s not a strategy. It’s a byproduct — of coherence, of values, of time.
And that’s where this myth begins to crack.
Before we go further, it’s worth asking: what is authenticity, really?
At its core, authenticity is alignment between what you believe and how you behave. It’s internal consistency, expressed externally. It doesn’t mean you’re raw, unfiltered, or oversharing. It means you’re true to something—a purpose, a point of view, a set of values—and that truth shows up in everything you do. Authenticity is a consequence of coherence, not a shortcut to it.
And that brings us to the trap.
The Trap of Performed Authenticity
The word “authentic” has become branding catnip. Say it enough times and it starts to sound like a virtue. Be authentic. Show up authentically. Let’s build an authentic brand. But what most brands are actually doing isn’t authenticity — it’s theater.
Performed authenticity is a curated kind of messiness. It’s vulnerability in high resolution. It’s the shaky handheld video that took six takes. It’s the “unedited” founder story that was copyedited three times and A/B tested.
And people are catching on.
Because deep down, we know what actual authenticity feels like. It’s not slick. It’s not rehearsed. It’s not something a marketing team can schedule for Q3. When a brand tries to be authentic, it often lands in the uncanny valley — too polished to be real, too messy to be believable.
Worse, the performance creates pressure. If you build your brand on the expectation that you’ll always be real and raw and emotionally available, what happens when you're not? What happens when you're just a business trying to do business?
You don't just risk sounding off. You risk breaking trust.
And here’s the kicker: performed authenticity isn’t just ineffective — it’s exhausting. For the brand. For the team. And especially for the audience, who can sense the dissonance even if they can’t articulate it. They may not know why it feels hollow. They just know it does.
So the more brands try to appear authentic, the more they reveal the machinery behind the curtain. And once the curtain drops, it’s hard to win the crowd back.
And that’s the catch: trying to look authentic can actually undermine your ability to be meaningful. Because once authenticity becomes a performance, it stops being a bridge to the audience, and starts becoming a wall. The question then becomes: if authenticity alone isn’t enough, what is?
Authenticity ≠ Resonance
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: authenticity doesn’t guarantee connection. You can be totally authentic — raw, honest, transparent to a fault — and still fail to resonate.
Because resonance isn’t about how true something is. It’s about how much it matters to the people hearing it.
Some of the most powerful brands aren’t the most authentic — they’re the most relevant. They don’t share everything; they share the right things. They don’t perform vulnerability; they project clarity. They aren’t trying to be liked — they’re trying to be understood.
This is where so many brands get it wrong. They confuse honesty for strategy. They think if they just show enough behind-the-scenes chaos, or post enough “real talk” from the CEO, people will care. But resonance isn’t about exposure. It’s about alignment.
A brand resonates when its values, tone, visuals, and actions cohere. When what it says matches what it does. When the people it’s trying to reach see themselves reflected in it, not just emotionally, but aspirationally.
Think of Patagonia. It doesn’t work because it’s “authentic.” It works because it’s consistent. Coherent. Conviction-driven. It doesn’t try to be real. It is what it says it is — and it proves it, again and again.
And yes, we know — Patagonia gets mentioned a lot. We’re not getting paid, sponsored, or slipping into influencer mode here. We just respect the hell out of a company that walks its talk. They say what they mean, they mean what they say, and they follow through with clarity and conviction. In a branding world full of noise, that kind of signal matters.
Compare that to Pepsi’s infamous Kendall Jenner ad. The message may have been “authentic” to some internal brainstorming session. But it wasn’t relevant to the moment. It wasn’t resonant with its audience. It didn’t reflect the truth of the people it was trying to speak to. So it fell flat — not because it was fake, but because it was off-key.
In the end, authenticity without resonance is just a personal diary.
And brands aren't in the business of keeping journals.
So maybe the goal was never to be authentic in the first place. Maybe it was to be clear. Consistent. Credible. Not emotionally naked, but strategically aligned. Not chasing realness, but building trust. And that means shifting the aim away from authenticity, and toward something far more durable: coherence.
A Better Aim: Coherence, Not Authenticity
Authenticity is slippery. It's subjective. It shifts depending on who’s watching. But coherence — that’s solid ground.
Coherence means your brand makes sense. That your actions, words, tone, visuals, and values all point in the same direction. It doesn’t mean you have to bare your soul. It means you have to align your signals. And stay aligned over time.
A coherent brand doesn’t need to convince you it’s authentic. It just needs to be legible. It needs to behave in ways that feel consistent with what it says and stands for. And that consistency is what builds trust. Not the big, vulnerable campaign launch, but the dozens of small signals that accumulate across experiences.
Coherence reduces friction. It’s the reason some brands just feel easier to trust, to buy from, to talk about — not because they’re perfect, but because they’re predictable in the best way.
Coherence gives people something to hold onto. It’s what allows a brand to grow without losing its soul. It’s what turns voice into identity. And it’s what makes people feel like they’re not just being marketed to — they’re being understood.
Want to feel real? Don’t try to feel real. Just be clear. Be aligned. Be yourself, on purpose, and over time.
Because in the end, people don’t need your brand to be raw. They need it to be reliable. They don’t need a front-row seat to your behind-the-scenes chaos. They need to know what you stand for — and that you’ll keep standing for it.
That’s not about authenticity. That’s about mattering.
The Power of Mattering
Most brands are so busy trying to be seen, they forget to be felt.
Mattering isn’t about visibility — it’s about meaning. And in an era where everyone is performing, posting, and pleading for attention, the brands that actually break through are the ones that go deeper than presence. They occupy emotional space. They make people feel something personal.
To matter is to have weight. It’s to be part of someone’s identity, not just their feed.
And that kind of brand relationship doesn’t come from being “authentic.” It comes from being relevant in a way that’s relational. You don’t matter because of what you say about yourself. You matter because of what people believe about themselves in relation to you.
- Do you help them express who they are?
- Do you reinforce what they value?
- Do you earn their trust when it counts?
- Do you make them feel seen?
These are the real metrics of meaning.
Think of the brands people tattoo on their bodies. The ones they wear with pride, not just purchase. The ones they introduce into conversations like old friends. Those brands don’t matter because they nailed their tone of voice or posted a “real” founder video. They matter because they’ve become a part of how people see themselves.
I still remember the moment a friend told me she buys the same brand of notebooks, year after year, because they “just feel like me.” That’s not about product specs. That’s about identity. That’s mattering.
And it’s not just emotional. Mattering has economic consequences. Brands that matter don’t compete on price. They command loyalty. They create cultural gravity. They become hard to walk away from — not because they’re sticky, but because they’re significant.
Mattering is hard to measure — and impossible to fake. You can’t buy it with a new brand book or campaign slogan. You earn it the way you earn any relationship: through showing up, doing what you say, and giving people something to believe in.
So don’t just aim to look real. Aim to mean something. Aim to take up space in someone’s life in a way that feels personal, emotional, and irreplaceable.
Because when you matter, you don't have to chase authenticity — people project it onto you. They decide you’re authentic because you've shown them something they trust.
Summing Up: Stop Trying to Be Real. Start Trying to Matter.
We’ve been sold a myth — that if a brand just “acts authentic,” people will believe in it. But authenticity isn’t a performance. It’s a perception. You don’t get to decide if you’re seen as real — your audience does.
And they’re paying attention.
They’re watching not just what you say, but how you say it. How you act when no one’s watching. Whether your values hold up under pressure. Whether your story rings true not just in your campaigns, but in your customer support, your hiring practices, your partnerships, and your product.
Authenticity might get you attention. Coherence earns you trust. But mattering — that’s what earns you a place in someone’s life.
The most trusted brands aren’t chasing relevance in the moment — they’re building it across moments, until it becomes memory.
So stop trying to be authentic.
Start trying to be clear. Be consistent. Be useful. Be worth believing in.
Because in the end, it’s not about whether your brand feels real.
It’s about whether it feels right.
