What is ‘authentic marketing’? Is it engaging consumers through social media? Is it giving people an unadulterated behind-the-scenes-look at your products a la McDonalds?

Authentic is arguably the biggest trend in marketing today. Companies are trying to be more ‘real’ in their advertising, more ‘true’ to their image, and more ‘transparent’ in their dealings to their consumers.

For me, it all boils down to the entire purpose of marketing. The thing is, marketing isn’t ‘real’. The purpose of marketing is to showcase your brand in the best light so consumers see value in your product or service and are willing to pay the price for it. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it harder to believe a brand once they use the word ‘authentic’. It just makes me think they’re working harder to put the blinders on.

The gist I get from reading this article is that brand executives are pushing their marketing in a more casual, less corporate direction than before. This means being more active on social media, and more in-tune with what their customers want. To me, this is the entire purpose of marketing: know what your consumers want, and fine-tune your message so that it fits that image. ‘Authenticity’ just seems like another gimmick to me.

Reddit is a social media aggregator website that has exploded in popularity in recent years. It provides an easily accessible platform for users to post content that is upvoted or downvoted for ‘karma’ based on other users’ interest in the content. The more karma a post gets, the higher it appears on the front page of its subreddit, and the more attention it gets.

This user-generated content stream, as well as the increased attention Reddit has been receiving from major news outlets, has become extremely attractive to company marketers. It garners the brand a lot of goodwill, encourages existing consumers to increase their brand loyalty, and it’s an easy way to get your brand out without spending millions of dollars in advertising to do it.

As a regular Redditor myself, I don’t put much thought into my browsing. If I think it’s funny, it gets a chuckle and an upvote. If I find it interesting, I’ll click on the link. It’s not rocket science. There are a lot of things I don’t enjoy about Reddit, but in terms of fast, painless entertainment on the Internet it can’t be beat.

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of companies that seem to be universally approved of, like Costco and Taco Bell. I have a hard time believing that all of this goodwill is manufactured by these companies, but I don’t doubt that some of it has been planted on the site for marketing purposes. Is it ethical? Most people, like myself, don’t have their usual smokescreens up when browsing Reddit because we believe that it’s all been user-generated. It’s easier to get us to internalize brand messages than, say, through television or print ads. I can see why it’s so attractive, but it puts a bad taste in my mouth.