Twenty‐five productive years have passed since the late Barbara Stern called for marketing scholars to take the topic of brand authenticity into consideration. Brand authenticity is now believed to be a core asset in mainstream marketing, yet confusion surrounds the nature and usage of the term. Using the Antecedents, Decisions and Outcomes format initially developed by Justin Paul and Gabriel Benito as an organizing framework, this article seeks to consolidate an area of thought characterized by multiplicity and excess of disparate meanings. Based on the extensive coverage of studies published over a period of 25 years between 1994 and 2019, extant literature on brand authenticity is reviewed. Three primary streams of research are identified: (1) characteristics that distinguish the ‘real thing’ from the fake, (2) the legitimizing function of authenticity and (3) emotional and moral aspects of authentication. Despite substantive contributions over the last 25 years, many areas of brand authenticity remain underexplored. By synthesizing extant literature, the aim of this study is to identify gaps in knowledge about brand authenticity and to prepare for a future research agenda guided by intersectionality.
Representation is key in the politics of mass-mediated consumer society. Although previous research has noted that representation in advertising generates greater societal visibility for people with disabilities, focus has largely been on negative unintended consequences from a psychological or socio-cultural perspective. The purpose of this study is to explore the complexities involved in the making of a collective psyche related to disability, pointing instead to how the psychic and the social are mutually constitutive. By focusing on market-mediated representation in the form of advertising campaigns, we highlight both potentials and pitfalls of social transformation such as reducing stigma. We use, as revelatory cases, two relatively recent campaigns that sought to include people with disabilities on the Swedish market. We build upon Abraham and Torok’s psychoanalytic theorizing to offer a novel approach of studying market inclusion in the context of disability representation. By delineating the “social crypt,” we elucidate two processes by which stigmatized narratives enter the public consciousness: incorporation (i.e., a process by which stigma is reproduced in the collective unconscious) and introjection (i.e., a form of gradual awareness leading to destigmatization). We find that the inclusion of disability in advertising can potentially work to reduce stigma, but also to inadvertently serve as a subtler form of market exclusion by intensifying the cultural semiotics of capitalized ableism.
Purpose Authenticity has emerged as a prevailing purchase criterion that seems to include both real and stylised versions of the truth. The purpose of this paper is to address the negotiation of authenticity by examining the means by which costume designers draw on cues such as historical correctness and imagination to authenticate re-enactments of historical epochs in cinematic artwork. Design/methodology/approach To understand and analyse how different epochs were re-enacted required interviewing costume designers who have brought reimagined epochs into being. The questions were aimed towards acknowledging the socio-cultural circulation of images that practitioners draw from in order to project authenticity. This study was conducted during a seven-week internship at a costume store called Independent Costume in Stockholm as part of a doctoral course in cultural production. Findings Authenticity could be found in citations that neither had nor resembled something with an indexical link to the original referent as long as the audience could make a connection to the historical epoch sought to re-enact. As such, it would seem that imagination and historical correctness interplay in impressions of authenticity. Findings suggest that performances of authentication are influenced by socially instituted discursive practices (i.e. jargons) and collective imagination. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature on social and performative aspects of authentication as well as its implications for brands in the arts and culture sector.
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