Does It Pay to Be Real? Understanding Authenticity in TV Advertising

Abstract

Marketing managers and creatives alike believe that authenticity is an essential element for effective advertising. However, no common understanding of authenticity in advertising exists, and empirical knowledge about its impact on consumer behavior is limited. In this study, the authors use a comprehensive literature review and qualitative studies to identify four dimensions of authenticity in an advertising context. By examining 323 television ads across 67 brands and four years, they investigate these dimensions' effects on the sales performance of advertised products. Because the impact of authenticity may depend on brand or product characteristics, the authors also analyze how these effects vary with brand size or across hedonic and utilitarian products. The results suggest that authenticity influences consumer behavior in a more nuanced manner than previously recognized. For instance, whereas an ad congruent with the brand's essence has a positive effect on sales in most cases, an overly honest advertising message can actually hurt performance; the latter is true especially for hedonic products, for which consumers rely more on subjective information when making purchase decisions.

Understanding Authenticity in Digital Cause-Related Advertising: Does Cause Involvement Moderate Intention to Purchase?

“…First, advertising authenticity is considered to be a significant driver of advertising. Yet, there is no common understanding of what ad authenticity involves (Morhart et al, 2015;Becker et al, 2019). Second, because authenticity can help consumers find how to attain personal goals (Michael and Beverland, 2010), it is crucial to understand how digital CRM advertising resonates with consumers and influences consumption behaviour.…”

“…An ad's context congruence also elicits favourable responses in terms of attitudes toward the ad (Choi and Rifon, 2002) and purchase intention (Jeong and King, 2010;Segev et al, 2014). Moreover, a much more recent investigation also revealed that congruence with the brand's essence has a positive effect on purchases (Becker et al, 2019). Taken together, these findings suggest that authenticity is a projection of consumers' beliefs, expectations and perspectives constructed from cues in the advertising, of which the perceived donation magnitude and ad-context congruence are critical elements in attributing authenticity and subsequent behaviours.…”

“…It is widely claimed that authenticity is a major driver of advertising success (Hallem et al, 2019;Becker et al, 2019). However, it is not clear what authenticity means in different contexts and situations.…”

“…It is therefore essential to understand how consumers evaluate and respond to digital CRM ads, especially since digital advertising has become ubiquitous, intrusive and highly competitive. Prior research has indicated that authenticity is crucial to all advertising and marketing success (Beverland and Farrelly, 2010;Hallem et al, 2019;Becker et al, 2019), yet there is no common understanding of what authenticity entails (Grayson and Martinec, 2004). Hence, understanding the authenticity evaluation of digital CRM advertising can provide the basis for its appeal to digital consumers.…”

Brand Coolness

“…"Authentic" was the word most frequently associated with cool brands in the focus group sessions. Authenticity comes in a variety of flavors (Newman and Smith 2016;Becker, Wiegand, and Reinartz 2019), and the flavor that our respondents mentioned -the brand behaving consistently and remaining true to its roots -has been called value authenticity (Biraglia, Brakus, and Newman 2019), moral authenticity (Beverland, Lindgreen, and Vink 2009), sincerity (Napoli et al 2014), and integrity (Morhart et al 2014). One respondent stated, "Cool brands don't try to be cool and they are just what they really are."…”