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Manufacturing "Authenticity"
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 at 10:09 AM by Jason Barker
Fast company has an interesting article on corporate efforts to manufacture "authenticity." Of particular note is a section on the essentials of authenticity:
Authenticity constantly requires reinforcement, and it can come from a number of sources: craftsmanship, timeliness, relevance. But it is a brand's values--the emotional connection it makes--that truly define its realism. And there are four primary strands that draw out that connection.
- A sense of place. "Authenticity comes from a place we can connect with," says Steve McCallion, creative director of Ziba, a Portland, Oregon--based design consultancy. "A place with a story." The Champagne region of France, for instance, helps give Veuve Clicquot (OTC:LVMUY) special cachet. And yet, our notion of place does not need to be literal. On the contrary, it can sometimes prove considerably elastic. Häagen-Dazs, the Nordic-sounding ice cream, originated in that quaint Scandinavian village known as the Bronx, New York. The brand's name, concocted from two nonsensical words, is a perfect fake--so well chosen, and so evocative, that it resonates as real to folks who love the product
- A strong point of view. Authenticity also emerges from "people with a deep passion for what they are doing," says McCallion. So Martha Stewart is perceived to be authentic in large part because her ambitious recipes for Perfect White Cake and Chocolate-Strawberry Heart-Shaped Ice-Cream Sandwiches stand in the face of a world where food is mass-produced and preparation for the average dinner is measured by the number of minutes it takes to microwave the thing
- Serving a larger purpose. Consumers quite rightly believe, until they're shown otherwise, that every brand is governed by an ulterior motive: to sell something. But if a brand can convincingly argue that its profit-making is only a by-product of a larger purpose, authenticity sets in. "Just as there are purpose-driven lives," says Character's Hardison, "there are purpose-driven brands." (Think Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) here, or even, in a way, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).) The counterpart is also true: "When a brand changes its story to better capture its customers' dollars, it's basically a poser," Hardison says, "and people sense that right away."
- Integrity. Authenticity comes to a brand that is what it says it is. In other words, "the story that the brand tells through its actions aligns with the story it tells through its communications," Hardison says. "Only then will customers sense that the brand's story is true." When McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) launched its "We love to see you smile" campaign in 2000, commentators like Advertising Age's Bob Garfield hooted in derision, arguing that filthy restrooms and grumpy counter clerks rendered the ads "preposterously false." A year later, published reports revealed that rude employees were costing Mickey D's millions of dollars in lost sales. And when bloggers exposed a flog (read: "fake blog") that masqueraded as a travel journal written by a couple who were compensated for their gushing posts about Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), the deception elicited a torrent of rebuke.
Pay special attention to this statement in the first bulleted point: "Our notion of place does not need to be literal. On the contrary, it can sometimes prove considerably elastic." In other words, you can establish so-called authenticity by creating the experience of a place that does not exist. This same approach to authenticity can be found in the other points: less important than true authenticity - which, of course, is seldom developed with mass profit in mind - is the perception of authenticity. This can be clearly seen in the examples of corporate efforts to achieve the appearance of authenticity.
This problem can be seen in many churches - and even religious education - where appearance trumps substance. Thus, churches attempt to recreate social settings they've seen in popular entertainment: coffee bars that look and "feel" like the ones in which close circles of friends congregate in any of a dozen TV shows, or even - to use my sister-in-law's church as an example - churches that make the main corridor through the church facility resemble a small-town main street, with vintage-looking lamposts and storefront facades for the nursery and classrooms (as well as the coffee house, movie theater and other features).
We can particularly see this problem when we look at religious education, as I did in an earlier post talking about the current phenomenon of Biblezines:
Interpreters and instructors must avoid the danger of trying to “fit” the biblical texts into adolescent interests. As an example of this danger, the Teen Devotional Bible describes the depiction in Genesis of the fracturing of human language at the Tower of Babel as “the result of a bunch of folks way back when who thought they were way too cool,” and similarly summarizes the Song of Songs as a dialogue between “Solomon and his love-muffin.” In another example, Revolve, a tabloid-styled Bible targeted to early adolescent girls, describes the role of Christ in the life of a Christian by comparing it to makeup: “You need a good, balanced foundation for the rest of your makeup, kinda how like Jesus is the strong foundation in our lives.” Rendering modern culture preeminent, and then adapting the biblical text to fit that culture - not to mention a consumer culture - ultimately trivializes the Bible; furthermore, many adolescents - particularly those who are not already active in the Evangelical Protestant circles which publish and promote these Bibles - will find such adaptations to be condescending and unsuccessful in meeting their needs.
I believe the last sentence summarizes the problem with these niche Bibles: they trivialize the Bible, and they are ultimately ineffective in their intended purpose. The most significant problem is that these niche study Bibles are in fact seldom truly study Bibles: they are simply the biblical text surrounded by - and too frequently, suffocated by - silly pop culture references and self-help snippets. These so-called study Bibles therefore fail, in the words of Phyllis Tickle in The New Yorker article, to "separate out the culturally transient and trashy from the eternal," and thus violate “something close to moral or spiritual barriers.”
Furthermore, even if these study Bibles were not too often simply culture-dictated fluff, they are often ineffective in their intended purpose: to repeat Mark Oppenheimer's claim from my thesis, non-Evangelical Protestants will find the Biblezines to be condescending and irrelevant. Since the stated purpose of the Biblezines is to attract individuals who do not currently read the Bible (see, for example, The New Yorker's description of the product proposal for Revolve), this is yet another significant failure of these products.
Churches should certainly provide social groups, and there is nothing inherently wrong with a cafe or other such resources somewhere in a church's larger facilities, but the problem is that too often churches that incorporate such things are more concerned with the appearance of authenticity and manufacturing "experiences" than they are with what Christianity has traditionally held to be authentic: relationship with God, and spiritually-beneficial relationships with the people in His Church. In an article published in The Word some time ago (I cannot remember the exact issue), Andrew Nova writes, "Since the Church is from God and is in God, then authenticity can surely be found within Her. We just need to be willing to see the wisdom within Her and be willing to accept Christianity in its most pure and unadulterated form. No matter what the topic is, we can look to the Church for an answer." Nova's statement highlights the driving concern behind my approach to the Bible studies I create. I - like all Orthodox Christians - believe that the authentic life is one lived in communion with God and His Church; the only reliable path for the authentic life is therefore one lived worshipping God and adhering to the life and teachings of His Church. Orthodox Christian Bible studies are therefore rooted in the teachings of the Church, and focus always on God and Holy Scripture. These studies further always direct users to become increasingly active in the life of the Body of Christ.
The possibilities opened up by multimedia are very important - I spend a great deal of time on this blog discussing these possibilities - but to focus on entertainment and a "cool design" would be inauthentic: the medium must never become the message. These Bible studies are authentic only in so much as they are truly Orthodox in their approach and content, and the impetus they provide to greater involvement in worship and the life of the Church.
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