You are The Voice of brand authenticity

Reality TV has given us many principles to live by over the years, as well as numerous sayings and taglines.

For that, and many hours of entertainment, I’m sure we are all thankful.

Just when we all assumed that there was no format left to exploit, along comes The Voice Australia. Once again Australian viewers slip down the emotional rabbit hole of watching hopefuls achieve their dreams against all odds.

In the early stages of the competition, when potential stars were being weeded out, the judges had to make a call on which contestant would go through and which one would be abandoned and thrown back into anonymity.

A phrase used by the judges over and over when breaking the happy and sad news was, “I believed in [insert name]” or that they were “authentic”.

That often didn’t mean they were the best performer, but that their representation of their “brand” was the most compelling.

There is a powerful business truth in this assessment. We don’t succeed because we are the best, although we have to have a measure of competence [insert market demand or engagement] to be part of the selection process.

When our brands are competing in a big, noisy, crowded market, there has to be an outstanding quality that makes people choose us and our products over our competitors.

Most of the initial interactions consumers have with our products and brands is online, either via a website, blogs, social media or a combination of all three.

So, ask yourself, how do you and your product represent?