ICE

A man much wiser than I once wrote “this above all: to thine own self be true”.

Working with organisations right across the spectrum in co-creating ways to identify, connect with and engage, and ultimately move audiences with communications and experiences – it’s increasingly clear that what clients and end-users alike value above all else is truth. Truth about a brand’s values, truth about a user experience, truth about the world we live and operate in.

Increasingly in the world of marketing and communications, this truth is being referred to as authenticity. Primarily a term coined in this context by Gilmore and Pine in their business blockbuster “Authenticity: What Customers Want”, this refers to embracing the range of truths about an organisation’s people, expertise, brand, offers, and above all values, that really make them what and who they are.

The theory goes that through embracing authenticity, organisations, brands, and movements will inspire people as a result of projecting the reality of who they are, rather than whom they’d like to be perceived as. This, so the theory (and increasingly the reality to be fair) goes, will result in loyal customers and ever increasing growth.

It’s what I – and many others of my age who grew up listening to music in the 1990s – would refer to as “keeping it real” (a term never more brilliantly challenged, embraced and illustrated than here.)

At ICE, we feel very fortunate to be working and partnering with organisations that share our values of innovation, empowerment, and change. It feels great to be able to be true to ourselves and incredibly heartening to work with others increasingly doing the same.

But “the truth” can be more complicated than you first might think. It is, as many philosophers will attest, an inherently subjective concept. Each individual has his or her own truth, each organisation their own, and each brand its own. The key is to encapsulate and articulate it in such a way that makes it real and meaningful to those with whom they have a relationship: namely friends and loved ones, clients, and ultimately customers.

But in complicated times, and with many conflicting priorities, it can be challenging for organisations to look within themselves as a whole, and towards themselves from outside – to really drill down to the values and drivers that make them get out of bed in the morning, excite them in their work, deliver great value to partners and customers, and set them apart from the noise in their particular marketplaces.

This is where we at ICE are making massive strides in helping our clients to articulate what makes them who they are. Through co-creating visions and solutions with teams and customers, we’re increasingly challenging old thinking and perceived conventional wisdom to create communications and solutions that really encapsulate values and engage with customers and end-users (i.e. people!).

From simple brand identity, to web development to the creation of full end-to-end marketing and communications strategies, we know that communications work best when they originate from a trusted source. The best way to be trusted is to be truthful, or where that’s too difficult a concept to grasp, at least to be “real”.

Call it authenticity, call it truth, call it keeping it real – the crux of the matter is, if you don’t know yourself, neither will the people you’re looking to engage with.

We don’t tell tall tales or make up stories about our clients. We empower them to speak their own truth, as people, to other people through innovation, passion, and vision.

That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning. That’s our truth.

Ben Capper – Principal Marketing Practitioner

ben.capper@icecreates.com

@bencapper