How to NOT Be Authentic | 5 Ways to Ruin Your Brand Film
Everyone wants to have an authentic brand. Why? Customers can sniff out a fraud in an instant. They hate fake and will gladly spend their money (even more money) with companies who seem real, genuine, authentic. Basically, your longevity depends on being authentic.
One way customers evaluate authenticity is through your video content. So, instead of telling you how to create an authentic brand film - I’m going to explain how NOT to be authentic. In fact, I’m giving you five ways to guarantee it will suck. Pay attention. Are you using any of these strategies now? These are all ways I’ve seen brand films go wrong and I want to spare you from being labeled “inauthentic.”
1. Use a Teleprompter with an Expensive Script
A teleprompter is the absolute best way to guarantee your exact marketing language will be communicated flawlessly. Especially if the person using the teleprompter has absolutely zero practice using one.
This basically ensures the representative will completely set their personality off to the side and essentially be your brand representative. It's kind of like having your very own brand automaton — they’re only focused on saying the words in the order that you've put them in. Sounds good, right? And it requires basically zero emotional inflection on their part. They might not even structure the sentences totally properly, but you're sure they're going to get the words correctly.
How do you create an inauthentic script for the teleprompter? Write it, then make sure you get about 20 different people to approve it. You have to ensure the script is the most expensive one t possible, right? Because then you will know for sure it will be meaningful to the company. That’s who the brand film is for anyway, right?
During the revision process, make sure you remove any sort of humanity from the script. All that remains are corporatized, jargony word - specifically things like “optimize, systematize, solution oriented.” Those are optimal for creating an inauthentic film.
2. Invite an Audience for the Interview
The second way to remove any authenticity is to make sure the person on camera has no personality. You don’t want to see the real them. It’s too dangerous. You need to make sure they act as a controlled, representative of the brand.
So, how can you make sure you squeeze out all their personality and just leave a robot? Invite all of the stakeholders to the interview. Make sure there’s a big audience carefully staring down the person on camera. This ensures they never get comfortable on camera. They can’t relax.
Having a lot of eyes on that person guarantees that they're going to be very mindful of every word they say and gesture they make. It guarantees you will retain ultimate control of the language.
3. Build a Question List and Stick with It
Write out the questions you want to ask ahead of time. Do NOT deviate from your question list. Your questions are your way of controlling the brand narrative and language.
If you deviate from the questions, you risk having an actual conversation with the person you're interviewing. Yikes. That’s getting too close to authenticity. Instead, send your entire question list to the person being interviewed ahead of time. This guarantees they’re prepared and won’t go off script.
4. Type Up the Answers
Ask the interviewee to come prepared with all their answers. Make sure they don’t just think about them, but actually write down all their answers. Remind them to rehearse their answers the night before. On the day of the interview, they must bring typed out answers to refer to (just in case they forget a word of their answers). Let them know it’s okay to look down at the answers to make sure they deliver them word-for-word. The whole process keeps them from getting too comfortable and sharing any real emotions.
Better yet, put their answers on notecards. You could even create cue cards and ask someone in the audience to keep the interviewee on track with the script. More control is always better for creating the most inauthentic film possible.
5. Feed Your Interviewee Lines
Make sure you have someone present (a copywriter, marketing director, or marketing manager) to feed lines to the person being interviewed so they use the precise approved brand language. You can’t leave this up to chance. You need to make sure they communicate your value proposition exactly as it appears in your marketing manual.
This is especially important for customer testimonials. Never let the customers speak their own language. You have to feed them your brand marketing language. If they use their own language, there's not a consistent message across your marketing materials. You’ve lost control. So you have to make sure to feed them the lines word-for-word. So if they said something that sounds close, but it's not exact - give them the actual line and just have them say it back to you. It doesn't matter if no emotion is in their voice. Again, what matters most is communicating the exact words properly.
Authenticity is the Key to Capturing Attention
All joking aside, I’ve seen all these tactics ruin brand films. They’re examples of how companies desperately try to control their message while sacrificing authenticity. They’re too scared of trusting another person to communicate their message through their individual words and personality.
If you’re thinking from that perspective, you’re focusing on the wrong things. When you personally encounter marketing materials from other brands, you’re making an instant judgment of whether or not it’s authentic.
Authenticity is the key to a successful message. It unlocks our attention. If you even start to sense that something is fake or manufactured, you escape. You don’t want to be deceived, so you won’t give it another moment of your attention. You recognize the lie.
The biggest threat to the success of your content is inauthenticity.
Don’t worry about getting all the words exactly right in your brand film. Inauthenticity is far more dangerous. Once the audience feels something is fake or forced, they feel manipulated. They see you as a liar and and that’s a sure way to destroy your brand equity.
Inauthentic brands aren't trustworthy. You can’t lead anyone down the path of “know, like, and trust” if they can’t trust you.
Marketing is all about relationship building. Think about the people you enjoy spending time with. Are they authentic? Of course they are -- no one ever likes being associated with “fake people.” In the same way, create a brand your customers want to be around. Bring humanity back into business by embracing authenticity.
To be more authentic in your brand films and marketing materials, simply reverse the 5 ways to be inauthentic. Trust your people and let their personality shine through.