Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.
Last month, I stumbled upon an interesting article in–of all places–Time magazine. (Grrrr.) Written by John Cloud, “Synthetic Authenticity” riffed on the latest book by renowned business consultants Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, who run an Aurora, Ohio, consulting firm called Strategic Horizons. (According to Cloud, they enjoy “an almost cultlike following in the business world because of their ability to accurately predict consumer sentiments.” Go figure.) In “Authenticity,” as Cloud explains, Pine and Gilmore “argue that the virtualization of life (friends aren’t friends unless you “confirm” them on Facebook; reporters are now all bloggers, and vice versa) has led to a deep consumer yearning for the authentic.”
This sounded about right to me. It’s no mystery that people purchase a product nowadays not only because it’s low in cost or high in quality, but because it somehow reflects who they are. (iPhone, anyone?) And it’s clear that such consumers are attracted to brands that achieve an aura, however contrived, of authenticity–Starbucks, Apple, Volkswagen. That said, my first thought upon reading Cloud’s article wasn’t about business. It was (predictably) about politics.
Politicians, of course, are fake. Everyone knows that. But more and more it seems that what they’re required to fake is being real. John Edwards represents “Real Change.” Mike Huckabee is an “authentic conservative.” And John McCain rides his “Straight Talk Express.” (George Allen, on the other hand, was too real.) Wondering how our increasing desire for authenticity has influenced the 2008 presidential race–which seems likely to end with a win for one of two candidates, McCain or Barack Obama, who have labored mightily to sell themselves as authentic–I gave Pine and Gilmore a call. Excerpts from our chat:
How have you seen the “authenticity” concept play out this cycle, and how has it been different than previous cycles? Gilmore: This is the first cycle where authenticity is really in the fore, both in how people view the candidates and how pundits describe the race. You can have hardly any article out there today that doesn’t talk about the level of perceived authenticity of this or another candidate. I daresay that in the end, whoever wins is going to be the one whom more voters perceive as authentic.
Pine: I’ve joked in the past that it seems like every single debate, as soon as they go to the talking heads–and David Gergen stands out most in my mind–the very first soundbite is evaluating them based on authenticity. “I think Mike Huckabee came off as the most real.” “I think Hillary came off as most authentic.” It’s always the first soundbite. But is that really different than previous cycles? And if so, what accounts for the increasing emphasis on authenticity? Gilmore: Certainly it’s the first time that it’s been vocalized to the extent it has. The perception of phon-aticians…
Pine: Did you just say phon-aticians?
[Laughter]
Gilmore: There you go. The perception of politicians being phony has always been there. But now it’s being vocalized in a way that parallels what’s happening with economic offerings. Consumers want to buy what they perceive to be real. Similarly, in any political offering, voters want to buy what they perceive to be real. There’s a correlation here.
What are the cultural reasons for this increasing emphasis on authenticity? Gilmore: There are a bunch of factors contributing to that desire. First of all, there’s the emergence of the experience economy–in an increasingly “unreal” world, people are vacationing at Atlantis and going to American Girl Place and having the Geek Squad repair their computer. That causes a desire for authenticity. Then there’s the automation of services. That’s the second driver. You call a company and hope to reach a “real person.” Life is becoming more and more mediated. Third, the rise of Boomers and the rise of postmodernism also contribute–people believe there is something different or unique about our time. And finally it’s the failures of our social institutions. It’s there–along with not-for-profits, businesses and religious and educational institutions–that we identify the phoniness of politicians and government as contributing our desire for authenticity. People today don’t just want cost or quality, they want real. It’s only natural for that desire to extend to our politicians.
They’re searching, in other words, for people who contrast what they’re bombarded with every day. Gilmore: Right. In a phony, contrived, mediated world, you have to stand out. And you stand out by rendering yourself authentic.
But isn’t “authenticity,” as you define it, just another contrivance? For businesses, it’s not necessarily being authentic that matters, right? It’s conveying authenticity. I’m interested in hearing how you evaluate the presidential candidates as brands. Gilmore: Most of the candidates who came off as inauthentic were eliminated early on. I did an exercise awhile ago where I decided to go find the number one most-viewed video of each candidate on YouTube. My hypothesis was that the most-viewed video might not reach an overwhelming percentage of the population, but it will be indicative of a sentiment that’s more pervasive. It will encapsulate what the populace really thinks of each candidate. So John Edwards’ most-watched video. Can you guess? The one where he’s fluffing his hair. Pine: Exactly. To the tune of “She’s So Pretty.”
Gilmore: Now, it may have had only 500,000 views, but it’s iconic of what the general population thinks of him. Boom, gone–fake. In doing the exercise, I came up with this construct: earlier in the primary season, the Democrats seemed to be proclaiming their own authenticity–“Real Change,” the “real” this or that. Whereas the Republicans seemed to be pointing fingers at each other and calling each other fake. The Romney folks posted videos like, “The Real Rudy?” And Giuliani responded with “The Real Mitt?” McCain sort of stayed away from that. As we write in our book, if you’re authentic you don’t have to say you’re authentic. Pointing fingers at somebody else and saying they’re fake is the same as saying you’re real, and that backfires.
The same thing happened to Edwards, who made “Real Change” his slogan at one point. Thou doth protest too much. Gilmore: Exactly.
Let’s talk about another casualty of the primary process: Mitt Romney. He was unquestionably the savviest businessman of the bunch, and yet some would say that the way he was branded, in terms of conveying authenticity, was completely incompetent. Do you agree? Pine: His basic problem was the perceived flip-flops. He said one thing to get elected governor of the very liberal state of Massachusetts, but he was saying very different things to get elected in the more conservative party.
Gilmore: When we’re talking to businesses about authenticity, we tell them that they have to understand their heritage. Well, his heritage was one that was very difficult for a large portion of the Republican party to swallow–or to believe was credible.
How should Romney have handled his heritage? Was there any way he could’ve packaged himself to seem authentic? Or was it a fatal flaw? Pine: There are ways. Ronald Reagan, for example, signed the first abortion bill in California. And when he was running for president, one of the things he did was talk about how much he regretted it. You could see the emotion in doing that.
Gilmore: But in 1976, Reagan had the passage of a dozen years since he’d done that. If in four or eight years Romney had run, with four or eight years of being decidedly pro-life under his belt, he would’ve seemed more authentic.
Pine: It gets back to one of the points we make about economic offerings: don’t say you’re authentic, but render yourself authentic. That rendering–particularly if you’re trying to change perceptions of yourself–does take a number of years.
Gilmore: In terms of authenticity, I find so interesting Romney’s faith speech versus Obama’s. Obama’s was grounded in a reaction to an actual event–the media uncovering this venom from his pastor. If Romney would’ve had to react to some footage that had gotten out of a senior Mormon muckety-muck going off the rails, then his speech would’ve been grounded in, “Hey, I disavow all of this.”
But instead it looked like an unprompted political calculation? Gilmore: Right. Here’s the thing: anybody who self-proclaims authenticity in any sphere–politics, business, wherever–is dubious. His speech was self-induced. Obama laid back. He responded to an actual event. That was grounded in reality.
Let’s talk about Obama a bit. I’m fascinated by the ways that Obama has established his brand identity. As graphic designer Michael Bierut told me in February, “he’s the first candidate, actually, who’s had a coherent, top-to-bottom, 360-degree system at work.” Is Obama’s brand qualitatively different than previous candidates’? And how does it contribute or not contribute to his perceived authenticity? Gilmore: We identify five different genres of authenticity that can be appealed to, one of which is referential. Meaning he’s Martin Luther King meets Robert Kennedy. He’s harkening back to what could have been. That’s his appeal. He’s the embodiment of what could’ve been. It’s not grounded on anything he’s done. That desire for “real” is about the people, not him–which is why he might pull it off.
Does he convey authenticity well? Gilmore: Oozes it.
Pine: One of the reasons is that our definition of authenticity is “conformance to self-image.”
Gilmore: Purchasing on the basis of conformity to self-image.
Pine: With Obama, there’s a certain lack of thereness there that allows for people to project themselves on to him. In business terms, it’s when you look at an offering and you see that it matches who you are. There’s this sympathetic vibration between the two that says, “Yeah, that’s me.” Or, “That’s about me.” Or, “That’s what I want to be.” When you see that match or feel that match, then you’re going to perceive it as authentic. And I think that’s the case for many people with Obama.
That’s fascinating. In other words, Obama represents who his supporters are or who they want to be–post-racial, post-partisan, young, new, whatever. There’s a kind of mirror effect there: they look at Obama and see themselves. And that makes Obama seem authentic. Gilmore: Virginia Postrel, the former editor of Reason magazine, has a wonderful book called “The Substance of Style”–an interesting title, because you could almost say that it “themes” Obama. She writes in the book that people buy today based on saying, “I like that. I am like that.” That’s this conforming to self-image. What about Hillary Clinton? Most people wouldn’t say that conveying authenticity is one of her strong suits. Gilmore: No. But what saved her campaign? Tears. In fact, one’s opinion of Hillary entirely corresponds to whether you think the tears were real or fake. If you think they were real, you tend to be for her. And vice versa. Other than the tears, though, how do you think Clinton has done at conveying authenticity? It doesn’t seem to be one of her campaign’s programmatic points of emphasis. Gilmore: Mixed bag. I think she did better earlier in the Democratic primary season when she had the whole crowd out there. She could sort of stand detached from them all and be above it all. She could be statesmanlike. Because she has acted as a senator in a very constructive way, and that seems “real” for her.
One of my theories is that a big difference between Obama and Clinton is their levels of self-awareness–recognizing how other people view them and reacting according. Obama seems very self-aware… Pine: Amazingly.
… and Hillary doesn’t. Gilmore: Obama is self-aware, but also evidently has a team that he’s able to manage in a way that contributes to that perception of consistency of self. Even if Hillary has a consistent perception of self, she has a loose-cannon husband and a fractured team that hates each other. That makes it very difficult to export that perception of self to the masses.
When you see those tensions and contradictions in public it undermines her authenticity because she doesn’t seem like a person just being herself. Gilmore: It makes the whole thing seems contrived.
Transitioning to McCain. Most people agree that “authenticity” is the foundation of his political persona. Pine: Right. Talk about branding. For ten years he’s ridden around in the Straight Talk Express. He was way ahead of his time with that. But pundits have written a lot about how McCain’s efforts to appeal to the Republican establishment undermined the brand that he established. Was that true? Has he regained it? Gilmore: I think he did enough of it to get enough of those people on board. But there mere fact that he was able to have no money and have his poll numbers go as low as they did is proof positive of his “authenticity.”
Pine: He has biographical authenticity. It’s back to heritage. McCain’s mindset of being in Vietnam, of being a POW and surviving that and then using it to drive the rest of his life. People say, “This is a real guy.”
How hard is that perception to dislodge once you establish it as strongly as he has? Various stories have come out about his close ties to lobbyists–things that could potentially undermine his “authenticity”–but the perception doesn’t seem to have changed. Gilmore: It’s like the Teflon Reagan. Five years as a prisoner of war let’s you take a little bit of that. Look at the current tour that he’s on–going back to notable places in his life. Guarantee they’re videotaping all that stuff. It’s going to show up in commercials and at the convention. That is his strong suit.
But doesn’t it mean that in some ways McCain is more “style over substance” than Obama? Obama has very specific policy proposals. Gilmore: It boils down to this. Biography and heritage is his inherent authentic advantage and platform. But it’s a multiplicity of things that make guys win. He needs to introduce policies that will unite the Republican party. And that’s why he’s been surrounding himself with guys like Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm who are credentialed with the policy wonks in the party.
They almost act as satellite brands–bestowing an aura of “conservative” authenticity on McCain even if he hasn’t exactly “earned” it himself yet. Gilmore: Right.
Final calculation here. Obama and McCain in the general election. We’ve agree that both of these candidates make authenticity one of their central selling points. What are the differences between their brands of authenticity and how do you think that will influence the general election? Gilmore: McCain is grounded on legacy and heritage. Obama is ground on originality. He is the Apple. Apple is based on originality of design.
Pine: You tend not to think something is authentic unless it’s older than you are. Unless it has that patina of authenticity that comes with age. Obviously, McCain can be that for most all voters. The best way to get around that is with original authenticity–being something new, something bold, something no one’s seen before.
Gilmore: Americans view Europe as authentic because it’s older than us. Kids view Disneyland as authentic because it’s older than them. On the one hand, you can be older than anybody. But on the other, you can be newer than anybody, too. To continue conveying authenticity, Obama has to show how he’s unlike any candidate we’ve ever seen before.
