Brands are, by definition, constructions. They are designed identities, engineered narratives, calculated value propositions built to appeal to specific audiences. And yet, the most coveted quality in contemporary marketing is authenticity: the quality of being genuine, unmediated, real. The paradox is not subtle. A brand that successfully performs authenticity has produced something that is, by its own logic, inauthentic. And a brand that does not perform it at all will be invisible.

This tension has always existed. What is new is that consumers have become considerably more calibrated to detect the performance, and the consequences of being detected have become substantially more severe.

What authenticity actually means in this context

Morhart et al.'s integrative framework, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology (2015), identifies three dimensions through which consumers perceive brand authenticity: credibility, whether the brand delivers on its promises; integrity, whether the brand's actions align with its stated values; and symbolism, whether the brand represents something personally meaningful (Morhart et al., 2015). The framework is useful precisely because of what it excludes: objective reality. Perceived brand authenticity is not about whether a brand is "really" authentic in some philosophical sense. It is about whether it feels authentic to the people engaging with it.

That distinction matters. It means authenticity is not a property that brands either have or lack. It is a relationship between what a brand communicates and what its audience already believes, expects, and experiences. A brand can be entirely constructed and still be perceived as authentic, if the construction is consistent, credible, and symbolically aligned with the audience's own values. And a brand can invest genuinely in social causes and still be perceived as performative, if the investment is episodic, reactive, or structurally disconnected from how the brand actually operates.

The semiotics of fake realness

What complicates the picture further is that the visual and verbal language of authenticity has become a codified style. Södergren's review of 25 years of brand authenticity research (International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2021) describes this through what he calls the "authenticating act": brands cite the signs of authenticity, unfiltered aesthetics, casual tone, behind-the-scenes access, vulnerability, without necessarily embodying the values those signs originally signalled (Södergren, 2021).

The problem with sign systems is that they circulate. Once "raw" photography, messy content, and casual language become recognised markers of authenticity, any brand can adopt them regardless of whether the underlying commitment is real. A multinational corporation can use the same visual grammar as a grassroots startup. The signs become divorced from their referents. And audiences, who are now extremely fluent in reading these signs, can usually tell when the grammar is borrowed rather than native.

In 2025, 39% of corporations are scaling back external Pride engagement, up from just 9% the previous year. Major sponsors including Mastercard, Citi, and Pepsi have withdrawn from Pride events. This retreat is the logical outcome of performative commitment: brands that adopted progressive positioning as a market opportunity rather than an operational reality discovered, when the political cost rose, that they had no actual position to defend.

The case studies that clarified everything

Bud Light's 2023 crisis is the most instructive recent example, and not for the reason most marketing commentary focuses on. When Bud Light lost $27 billion in market value after sending a single promotional can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, it marked more than a corporate crisis: it signalled the end of consequence-free rainbow-washing. The brand's fatal error was not the partnership. It was the response: two weeks of silence followed by a CEO statement that addressed product quality and patriotism rather than the actual issue. By analysing the statement, it is evident that it did not address the focal issue at the centre of the backlash, nor did it give a clear explanation of the organisation's position. Bud Light could have defended the influencer, or it could have apologised to the stakeholders for a bad partnership choice. Instead it opted for a bolstering approach. The brand had no coherent position because it had never built one. The campaign was a marketing decision, not a values decision, and when the two came apart, there was nothing underneath.

Target's handling of its 2023 Pride collection followed the same logic. After conservative backlash escalated, the brand pulled products and left employees without guidance or protection. Consumers on both sides of the debate reached the same conclusion: this was never about values. Pepsi's 2017 Kendall Jenner ad, H&M's misleading sustainability scorecards, Starbucks' underprepared racial equity campaign: each of these failures has the same structural cause. The communication preceded the commitment rather than expressing it.

What research on true versus performative allyship demonstrates

Research published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research tested whether true versus performative brand allyship matters to consumers following the murder of George Floyd. True ally brands, those that expressed support through both words and deeds, performed better than performative ally brands and neutral brands. Two experiments showed that true ally brands are evaluated more positively, and this effect is mediated by self-esteem and self-brand connection. (Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2023)

The finding that staying silent outperforms performative allyship is significant. It suggests that the cost of transparent inauthenticity is now higher than the cost of saying nothing, which is a meaningful reversal from the era when brand purpose was primarily an opportunity rather than a liability.

The more useful frame: integrity rather than authenticity

Beverland's argument, from his foundational work on brand authenticity (2011), is that the most authentic brands are those that manage "the tension between commercial imperatives and espoused values" honestly, rather than pretending the tension does not exist (Beverland, 2011). This is why Patagonia works as an example: it is a for-profit company that sells expensive outdoor clothing to relatively affluent consumers. It does not pretend otherwise. What it does is back its environmental claims with structural commitments: donating 1% of sales to environmental causes, using verified sustainable materials, being transparent about its supply chain failures as well as its successes.

The goal is not to be authentic in some pure, unmediated sense. Brands cannot be that. The goal is to close the gap between what you say and what you do, and to be honest about the gaps that remain. That is not authenticity as a brand quality. It is accountability as an operational discipline. And in a media environment where any inconsistency between the two is surfaced within hours, accountability has become the only durable substitute for authenticity that brands can actually achieve.

The brands that are surviving the current period of consumer scepticism are not the ones that have found a more convincing way to perform authenticity. They are the ones that stopped performing it, and started building something consistent enough that the question of whether it is "real" becomes less interesting than the question of whether it holds.

References

• Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F., & Grohmann, B. (2015). Brand Authenticity: An Integrative Framework and Measurement Scale. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 200–218. Link
• Södergren, B. (2021). Brand Authenticity: 25 Years of Research. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 45(4), 451–475. Link
• Beverland, M. (2011). Brand Authenticity. In M. Uncles (Ed.), Perspectives on Brand Management. Tilde University Press. Link
• Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. (2023). Brands and Social Justice Movements: The Effects of True versus Performative Allyship on Brand Evaluation. Vol. 8(1). Link
• Iachizzi, M. (2025). Brewing Crises: Bud Light's Stakeholders' Loyalty and Crisis Communication Fizzle. SAGE Journals. Link
• Weaver, J. (2025). Pride Marketing Died in 2023. Here's How to Resurrect It in 2025. Link

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