Neil recorded our Skype conversation and placed it on his website, so I do encourage you to give a listen to this The Authentic Business Podcast. Once I stopped treating it as an interview and engaged in a real conversation, it became a pretty good discussion!

When it comes to using print — or any other — media to help generate demand for one’s offering, the polarity of [anniversary <—> announcement] may define the boundaries within which phoniness is born.  When one creates and places any advertisement that promotes something other than pure anniversary or pure announcement, phoniness is born.  It might be cleverly masked (fake-real) or adeptly acknowledged (real-fake), but a certain inauthenticity still underlies the act.
 

Kellogg has indeed done a marvelous job of rendering these ads authentic. By re-printing entire old newspaper pages, and not just re-running old Kellogg ads, the company creates a more real feel.   By tacking on the tagline, “For more than 100 years Kellogg’s Corn Flakes has been a great way to start the day,” and by yellowing these reprinted pages, Kellogg is acknowledging that these ads are not like its normal ads, past or present.
 

The real-real alternative would be to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Corn Flakes as pure history.  This would be the case if Kellogg were to re-run old newspaper pages in which its ads had appeared 100 years ago (as part of the page), sans the new tagline and sans the faux yellowing.

It reprints a yellowed copy of the front page of the Times from exactly 100 years ago from that date, then includes its own antiqued ad at the bottom, saying “For more than 100 years Kellogg’s Corn Flakes has been a great way to start the day.”

As Scott McMurray points out at Business History Matters, “One of the most effective ways clients put their history to use is to put it in context.”

That’s exactly what Kellogg is doing here.

To fully realize the key to polarity, think of it as the simultaneous holding of two contradictory aspects defining the essence of an offering. The iconic example (see pp. 223-4) remains the Geek Squad, who render themselves cool geeks.

Turns out there’s a word for that! With thanks to Word Spy, it is paradessence:  “n. In a product, an intrinsic property that promises to simultaneously satisfy two opposing consumer desires. [Blend of paradoxical and essence.]”

Find the paradessence of your offerings.

While traveling in Europe a few weeks ago I read this piece in the Financial Times by Rhymer Rigby, “From cornfields to Hollywood“. It discussed how many industrial brands, including Chevron, Caterpillar, and especially John Deere, were having great success licensing clothing and other goods for sale to consumers. Citing Rita Clifton, the chairman of Interbrand, Rigby relates that “in a retail market obsessed with ‘authenticity’, these brands have it in spades.”I especially liked the story he related of how one “man was so impressed with the service he received with his Cat boots [from Caterpillar] that he bought a huge piece of earthmoving equipment.” Now that’s leverage! It reminded me of one our favorite examples of a B2B placemaking experience (highlighted in Chapter 8), the Case Tomahawk Experience Center, where Case brings prospective clients and lets them “play” with its construction equipment in order to generate demand for them.

Jim and I often wondered why Case, or Caterpillar, or especially (since it actually makes and sells consumer goods too) John Deere didn’t create a consumer experience long these same lines. So many people — dads and their sons especially — would gladly pay to drive construction equipment around for the day! Think of it as the male equivalent to American Girl Places. Not only could it be a money-making venture by itself, it would serve to generate demand for the company’s core offerings — far better than a pair of boots ever could — while rendering it more authentic.

Well, we did finally find a company that’s doing it (without the corporate backing):  in Steamboat Springs, CO. It bills itself as “The 1st Heavy Equipment Play Arena”, and looks to be a blast. In fact, we like it so much that at this year’s thinkAbout event Jim and I included it in our Top Ten list of experiences for the participants to take in (culminating in our 2009 EXPY award winner, the United States Army.

Now if the above industrial companies, and more out there, would only realize that such places would make for great authenticity-rendering, demand-generating, placemaking experiences.

In it, Lenderman recounts his trips through the “BRIC” countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, constantly providing lessons on how marketing should be done today, even for us in the fully developed world. From Brazil — where all outdoor advertising has been banned in São Paulo — we learn that “in order to authentically and effectively establish this relationship between a brand and a consumer, the consumer must be convinced that the brand or company in question is a force of good. By doing good, brands look good. And if they look good — even if it is perception more than reality — their consumers will notice” (p. 180).

From Russia we learn how “In emerging markets, people are looking for aspirations, cachet, affluence, and lifestyle” (p. 50). From India we learn how “Bollywood and the mobile revolution gripping India” — and here Lenderman refers not to the mobile phone but mobile theatrical experiences companies use to sell their offerings all over the huge, populous country — “present remarkable opportunities for brands to assimilate and appropriate storytelling and technology in order to produce unrivaled brand experiences” (p. 87).

And from China, that land of fakes, we learn — surprise! surprise! — that “in a consumer society that deeply values honesty, transparency, social networking, and personal relationships, the practice of inauthentic marketing and fake branding negatively influences the way consumers view the brands. . . . Simply put, if brands are no longer perceived as authentic, their marketing will no longer be welcomed by the discerning and emergent consumer” (p. 142).

All brand managers — and anyone else who (like us) are looking to overthrow the old ways of marketing by turning to authenticity-rendering placemaking — should read this book and apply these lessons, plus much more Lenderman shows us about the brand new world we live in today. The book fulfills the promise laid out in his introduction in a startling paragraph, containing a proposition to which all marketers should ascend:

“[M]arketers must become bolder and more inclusive. Our insights must be more empathetic; our tactics should be more innovative. Brands will need to unequivocally become virtuous forces in the marketplace. Those that can’t offer up a clear and meaningful benefit to the marketplace will be rejected. Marketing in the future will be personal. I don’t mean targeted. I don’t mean customized. I mean personal. Marketing will be something that is shared between people rather than directed at them. And it will be a force for the global good, an industry that no longer annoys, but inspires.”

Its tagline is “Savor a World of Authentic Cuisine” — but note how that isn’t an Axiom violation, for it does not claim the magazine itself is authentic, just that the cuisine it covers is. Similarly, in perusing the advertising, you find much to commend in authenticity rendering, without (at least in the issue I revisited) a single violator, from Häagen-Dazs’ ad “Introducing the poetically simple ice cream” called five (”Six ingredients counting the spoon.”) to U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish (”The Whole Grain Fish.” — note those periods!), and from Belize (”Mother Nature’s Best Kept Secret”) to Woodbridge wine by Robert Mondavi (”His name is on the bottle. His story is in it.”)

And there’s even an ad right up front from Kerrygold (”Tradition. Heritage. Culture. There are some ingredients you just can’t put on a label.” But you sure can put those authenticity-rendering periods in the ad copy!). That was one of the brands that Alicia Clegg highlighted in the Business Week article I mentioned in my recent post “Appoint a Corporate Historian” — you should give her piece a read for some perspective on the company.

Do also get a subscription to Saveur to learn more about how it’s done, even if, like me, you’re not a foodie.

The name Santamus combines the area’s famous (albeit part-time) resident with the Finnish word isommus, a giant gold nugget, and that is the shape of the place, built out of local logs. The proprietor of the place (open only for businesses and private parties), Matti Korva, told me that “while the outside is designed to conceal a piece of authentic Lapland nature, what happens on the inside is designed to reveal a person’s own source of talent, innovation, and creativity - their own inner gold nugget.”  To do so he created a beautiful outdoor Lappish landscape inside the outer gold nugget to engage all five senses, with real trees, a flowing brook (with its own gold nuggets), a pond laden with fish, and a burning fire pit from which dinner is cooked.

The bearded Korva is a renowned composer and musician who often ends dinner by playing the Finnish national string instrument, the kantele. Through his playing he desires for guests to listen “to their true inner mind and character, and allow them to think about their lives, understanding what they feel is truly important and what they want to do with rest of their lives.”

In seeking out their inner source, guests may also enjoy a peat foot bath, or perhaps a sauna, and relax by the fire - until toward the end of the evening a giant dessert boat appears through the mist, as if by magic. Every evening is rounded off by a personal handshake and goodbye from the proprietor.

And every evening sees all five genres of authenticity rendered effectively. And not just generic genres, but particular methods for appealing to each one that Jim and I outline in Chapter 4.

Most obviously Santamus appeals to referential authenticity by simulating a world, that of outdoors Lapland within its nugget-shaped building. And because it does such a fine job of representing the nearby landscape, it also taps into natural authenticity, but again not generically. The specific method applied here we call reeking of rusticity, for the homespun character of the place shines through in every nook, cranny, and corner, and even in the age-old Finnish songs sung by Korva and played on his traditional kantele. The appeal extends to original authenticity through the specific method of reviving the past, including here the Finnish past, real or imagined, of the kantale and the Klaus.

Moreover, Korva appeals to exceptional authenticity through the method of customizing for uniqueness, and thereby treating every one who comes through the door as special by personally greeting all guests on arrival and saying goodbye to them on departure, and letting them find their unique gold nugget in between. And, finally, he evokes influential authenticity in enabling each guest to find his own inner gold nugget, his figurative isommus, via making business art. For not only the music - which all guests often join in singing - but the cooking, the presentation of dessert, the foot baths, the sauna and especially the personal and business interactions have all been elevated to an art form by Korva and his associates.

All businesses should realize that appealing to authenticity generally involves not a laser-like focus on one method, nor even one genre, but the distinctive combination of methods that will provide you with a unique appeal, virtually impossible for any competitor to copy in totality.

Meanwhile, the unresponsive and axiom-violating National Christmas Tree Association (which really ought to be called the Natural Christmas Tree Association, for they do not let faux Christmas tree manufacturers join the association, only growers and retailers of “natural” trees) continues to proclaim its own grown trees as alone authentic — you know, the ones planted in rows, trimmed into perfect shape, and often painted green before shipping . . .those real trees! And it continues to see industry sales decline by double-digit percentages each and every year. Go visit the NCTA’s website at www.christmastree.org/home.cfm and see just how much energy the organization and (therefore) its members put into calling faux trees fake — including offering the online game, “Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees.” This all equates to saying their “natural” trees are the only real option. But in substituting “Christmas tree-like objects,” consumers are obviously proving this wrong. It’s consumers after all, not providers, who get to define what’s real and what’s fake.

Rather than continue to view natural trees alone as real — and continue to see sales of such plummet — the NCTA would be better served to embrace all forms of Christmas trees as real. In doing so, the organization would truly be what it says it is, the National Christmas Tree Association. And rather than continue in vain to portray non-natural trees as fake — an objective at which it is clearly failing — perhaps a new objective could be embraced by the association: Maximizing the number of Christmas trees on display per home — and encouraging at least one of the trees to be a naturally grown one. In pursuing this goal, perhaps the tree-growers might finally see a rise in sales volume.

Over ten years ago, I attended an off-site meeting with a small team (from my client Whirlpool) held in the home of a local “home enthusiast” consultant. I’ll never forget how she had placed a Christmas tree in each and every room of her home — the most memorable of which was a natural tree entirely decorated with plastic McDonald’s happy meal toys. (The juxtaposition on real pine needles and fake plastic ornaments rendered the tree most authentic!) The NCTA should be trying to encourage more of this multi-tree behavior, resulting in more natural and artificial trees — and tree-like objects! — being sold. After all, most families have more than one television in their homes, and many have more than one computer. Why not Christmas trees?

To view the market as limited in size, requiring real Paul to rob from fake Peter, is myopic — even Scrooge-like — and certainly not in keeping with the spirit of Christmas. To see and seize the opportunity to grow the market is a lesson for us all.

Every once in a while, a single newspaper issue reminds me of all the fun we had tracking and accumulating a sampling of  the fake happenings that occur in everyday life. The New York Times of October 18 supplied one such issue. That Sunday paper marked the first appearance of this year’s full-page ads for faux Christmas trees (for www.TreeClassics.com and www.FourSeasonClassics.com). The Irishman Paul Hewson, a.k.a Bono, wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Rebranding America”, in which he distinguished between “the real President Obama” and “a fantasy version of the president” and explained “why I think  the virtual Obama is the real Obama.” He did, seriously. Elsewhere there was an article about “Battling Faux Disabilities and Fake Permits”. At least the article was entitled that in hardcopy print — yet another neologism.  (While we’re at it: Why do newspapers so often have us battling faux headlines by changing titles when placing articles online?) But the article to top it all off was this gem: “Body Mistaken for a Halloween Display”. Yes, for five days a dead body sat in patio furniture on a balcony in Marina del Rey, California, thought to be a house decoration. “He looked fake,” said one neighbor.

Another unreal day indeed.