Welcome back to Marketoonist, the cartoon I’ve been hand-drawing to poke fun at marketing and business nearly every week since 2002. Was this email forwarded to you? Please subscribe here.

Manufacturing Authenticity

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I stumbled across this observation from a product marketer named James Christopher:

“When everyone speaks the language of authenticity, no one sounds authentic anymore…

“We’ve created a world where the only truly authentic thing is our collective exhaustion with fake authenticity.”

Against the backdrop of so many brands pushing “authenticity” as a messaging priority, it’s no wonder that consumers are experiencing authenticity fatigue.

In March, new Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez took this sentiment even further in a Fireside Chat with Barclays with this comment:

“Today, brands are, by default, suspicious. Messages of brands coming from corporations are suspicious messages.”

As CEO of the largest brand builders in the world with over 400 brands, that’s quite a statement!

Fernando went on to announce a major re-think of their marketing strategy, pivoting heavily to influencer marketing. Unilever plans to increase social spend from 30% to 50% of their ad budget and work with 20x more influencers.

It will be interesting to see how this “influencer-first” bet plays out for Unilever. Outsourcing brand trust to third parties carries risk. And “influencer fatigue” is every bit as real as “authenticity fatigue.”

Ultimately brands can’t fix an authenticity gap in ways that lack authenticity.

Keynote Speaking

This week I’m speaking at the Building Business Capability conference in Phoenix, as well as a private company event in Pebble Beach. I hope to see some of you there!

Please let me know if you’d like to talk about any events you’re planning (or know of) that you think could be a good fit.

For an idea of my approach to keynotes, here’s a full 45-minute keynote from one of my favorite events last year — the Gartner CMO Symposium in Denver.

Cartoon From The Archives

Here’s a related cartoon I drew on a similar dynamic in 2018:

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Thank you for all of your support (and cartoon material)!

-Tom

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About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.