My good friend Joe Pine, lead author of the enduring best seller The Experience Economy is about to introduce us to a new book that I believe has an excellent chance of becoming another best seller. The last I talked with Joe the working title was Authenticity. It is due for publication in the fall.
Authenticity is an affect not well appreciated by the marketing community, especially among the huckster tribes of the Madison Avenue culture. Yet, its connection to marketing success has never been greater because of explosive growth in the older consumer population, who don’t have time for cotton candy marketing pitches that may wow younger inexperienced consumers and the revelatory power of the Internet. Older consumers want substance. They want reality, as witnessed by the phenomenal success of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign that has dispenses with picture-perfect models under 30 in its ads.
Sure, there still are a lot of older people who are defensive about their age and do everything possible under the pretension that aging is not happening to them. I remember once asking a woman, “When do you think middle age starts?” She replied, “Well it doesn’t start if you don’t let it.”
The happiest old people I know are those who are not sad about being old. Jungian scholar Helen Luke wrote lovingly of old age, as an elderly author, in her lovely paean to the later years that she entitled simply Old Age.
Luke differentiates people who have simply aged from the luckier ones who
have grown old. She says that in the sense of Nobel laureate Henri
Bergson’s immortal words, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to
mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” What great glory is there than being more today than you were yesterday and more tomorrow than you are today. That's what Luke drives at when she talks about growing old.
Luke sees nothing about old age to be sad about. She says with solid conviction “Surely laughter of a certain kind springs from the heart of those who have truly grown old. It is the laughter of pure delight in beauty – beauty of which the golden butterfly is the perfect symbol – a fleeting, ephemeral thing, passing on the wind, eternally reborn from the earthbound worm, the fragile yet omnipotent beauty of the present moment.”
How believable are the words of an elderly person singing such praises to old age as Helen Luke does in a society where entire industries exist to promote anti-aging products, services and ideas? You may not have yet noticed, but in another tradition-bashing marketing decision Dove recently launched its “Pro-aging” line of personal products. Helen Luke understands what old age is about. Few marketers do.
Until you understand what Luke is saying and understand why what she says is true, you are less than fully prepared to achieve full effectiveness in second half markets.
Over the next few posts I will write more about the older mind and why it demands authenticity from those seeking entry to it. Of course, we can take the Woody Allen perspective allegedly reflected in his words on sincerity: Sincerity is the most important thing in life; if you can fake that you’ve got it made.”
Very interesting commentary on marketing, but please give credit to the remarkable George Burns for the quote: The secret to acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
Of course, he may have modified it from the nearly identical quote attributed to Jean Giraudoux about the secret of success. French writer Giraudoux (1882-1944) is perhaps best known for "The Madwoman of Chaillot."
And if we could check back another century or so, we'd probably find some other wit who could lay claim to a version of the quote, too.
I prefer authenticity, but I live in Los Angeles and can attest that in some circles faking sincerity is indeed an art!
Posted by: Cynthia Friedlob, The Thoughtful Consumer | May 28, 2007 at 01:10 AM