At the recent ABA Bank Marketing Conference, I was impressed to see that ABA had recruited author Joseph Pine to be the opening keynote presenter. He’s written a few books that are important for bankers to read and understand, not the least of which is The Experience Economy. Joe did a good job of explaining his perspective: that America has evolved from a commodity economy to a goods economy to a service economy, and now to an experience economy. We’re no longer providing services, we’re staging experiences.
In his discussion, Joe talked a lot about authenticity. Owning your market requires understanding your brand strengths in addition to market opportunities, and a big part of tapping into your brand strengths relies on your ability to be authentic. I believe authenticity is something that’s really lacking in bank and credit union brands these days.
Joe laid out three important and easy-to-understand points I wanted to share with you:
1. If you are authentic, you don’t have to say you’re authentic
2. If you say you’re authentic, you better be authentic
3. It’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you’re authentic
I thought these were great points and simple tests to see if your bank or credit union is truly authentic. I’ll add a couple of my own tips for authenticity to the discussion for you to ponder:
–Just be yourself. You can’t be what everyone else wants you to be.
AND
–Realize you’re not for everyone. As soon as you start being distinct enough that you TURN OFF people who are not right for you, the better.
ownyourmarket.wordpress.com 
THIS COMMENT POSTED ON BEHALF OF JEFFRY PILCHER (The Financial Brand: http://thefinancialbrand.com/)
Maybe all these brand consultants think it’s super-obvious to everyone what “authentic” means, but it isn’t — certainly not to those who don’t have an “authentic” brand already.
Here’s my 4th grade definition:
+ Don’t try to fool anyone.
+ Say what you mean.
+ Mean what you say.
+ Do what you say.
In consultant-speak, you create authenticity when your Brand Promises align with the experience you deliver. If your marketing, messaging and brand identity are saying one thing, and your actual experience is something different, you have a credibility problem (also known as a brand gap).
FROM JEFF STEPHENS (jeff@creative-brand.com)
Jeffry, you make a good point about defining authenticity. And in defense of the author, he very well may have defined authenticity in his presentation or book without me having noted it effectively…and obviously without me quoting me in this post.
I agree with your definition. To add to your four points, I think it’s important to add “just be who you are.” In my experience, most banks and credit unions would say “yeah, we know who we are and we’re authentic.” But also in my experience, they either a) don’t really know who they are, and/or b) are afraid to be who they really are–authentic–because they’re worried it won’t appeal to everyone.