Every Generation Thinks It Invented Authenticity.
Real. Raw. Unfiltered. Brands have been selling "authentic" since before your grandparents were born. It might be the oldest trick in advertising.
The Editors, etc. · 5 min read · Insights & Observations
Somewhere right now, a brand is briefing its agency on authenticity. On being real. On cutting through the noise with something genuine. On connecting with consumers who are tired of being sold to.
That brief has been written, in different fonts, since 1955.
Volkswagen did authentic in the 1960s — the honest car for honest people who didn't need a chrome grille to feel significant. Levi's did authentic in the 70s and 80s — the working man's jean, back when that meant something. Nike did authentic in the 90s — just do it, no excuses, no performance, pure intention. Every decade repackages the same hunger and sells it back to the generation that thinks it's the first to have felt it.
"Authenticity has been the most successfully marketed inauthenticity in the history of commerce."
The hunger is real. People genuinely want to buy things that feel true, that feel made with intention, that feel like they come from somewhere. That desire is one of the most consistent forces in consumer behaviour across a century of data.
The brands that actually achieve authenticity never briefed for it. They briefed for honesty about who they were. The authentic feeling was a by-product, not the objective.
The problem is what happens when every brand chases the same truth at the same time. Authenticity at scale is a contradiction in terms. The moment a feeling becomes a strategy it stops being a feeling.
The question worth asking in 2026 is not how to be authentic. It is what your brand actually believes — uncomfortably, specifically, in a way that will exclude some people. That specificity is the thing. Everything else is costume.