Greg Voakes recently wrote a column in Business Insider on the ‘current’ trend of so called authenticity prevalent in the advertising world.
The irony of authenticity is that the last thing you ever need to do to achieve it is ask for it. It’s rather like the word ‘quality’. Academics have been trying to define that one for a long time.
Anyway, the thing I absolutely loved about Voakes article was his reference to an open letter from Johan Liedgren, ex Microsoft Director of Channel Policy and now an independent consultant.
If you haven’t read any of Liedgren’s other stuff, go seek it out.
His open letter is published as an image on Imgur.com and should make you laugh.
This is how to speak to your audience and have a pretty good chance of going viral all in one. Here’s the formula for doing this sort of thing yourself:
- Look at all the “holy cows” in your industry (the things often taken for granted)
- Question every one of them
- Find one that doesn’t rign true
- Get creative and tear it apart
Telling it like it is wins trust, and if you do it enough, customers may actually trust you enough to buy from you.