Download Who are the Cultural Creatives?

The Authenticity Factor™
An important emergent phenomenon
reshaping green business
Integral Partnerships,LLC
The Authenticity Factor™
Personal Authenticity Concept:
• Real, genuine, honest, trustworthy, true, natural
• “What you see is what you get”
• “Walking your talk”
• “True to your own natural self”
• Being “real” and self-revealing in relationships
• Mutuality and trustworthiness in relationships
Inauthenticity Concept:
• Fake, hype, pretense, hypocritical, deceptive,
hiding, lying, shilling, artificial, false claims,
advertising come-ons, exploiting the unwary
Four Levels of Authenticity
1. Simple Honesty: Telling the truth
2. Personal Authenticity: Truth-telling +
Personally Self-revealing
3. Social Authenticity: Truth-telling +
Transparency + Fair Dealing with
Stakeholders + Showing Ecological
Processes of an Organization
4. Systemic Authenticity: System-wide
context creates truth-telling + accurate
feedback + process transparency +
wiser long-term views of whole system
The Growing Demand for Personal
Authenticity in America
• 1900-1950 - Existentialists: a few 100s
• 1950s-1990s - Civil Rights, Women’s, Peace
and Humanistic Psychology Movements
Popularized “Walking your talk” & “Living an
authentic life” from 100,000s to Millions
• 1995: 39% of US Adults: 76 Million Adults
• 1999: 47% of US Adults: 92 Million Adults
Europe is probably stronger than that!
3 Key Drivers of Authenticity
Trends Since the 1960s
• Personal Authenticity popularized by Civil
Rights Movement, Women’s Movement,
Peace Movement, Self-Help & Personal
Growth Psychology, Alternative Health Care
• Knowledge Economy as a System can’t
afford distortion and poor quality feedback.
It needs Social and Systemic Authenticity
• Planetary Ecology & Triple Bottom Line:
Changing cost structure + Survival of planet
+ Planetary issues. ALL of these are only
soluble with Systemic Authenticity
The Authenticity Factor™
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70-75% of Americans distrust Big
Business because of its inauthenticity
Business Authenticity is Commitment
to what’s real, and to the honest truth:
To find out what’s real and true
To act from what’s real and true
To take a public stand for it
To align organizational culture with it
Demand for Business Authenticity
is the Demand for Transparency:
• Investors burned by business fraud:
Dot.coms, Enron, WorldCom, etc., etc.
• Customers burned by advertising lying,
cheating, come-ons, bad products
• Stakeholders burned by corporate lying
• Voters burned by politicians lying
• Citizens burned by environmental
destruction + corporate lying
Authenticity and Transparency
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Cultural Creatives will judge how
good you and your product are by
your degree of transparency:
The way you show who you are
Who your employees are
Your sources for materials, products
Sustainable production processes
How you treat your customers
How you treat your stakeholders
Authenticity sets the context for
“What’s Real” vs. “What’s Fake”
• “What’s real?” is a new, emergent
factor in the Western World
• Cultural Creatives are the key:
• They raise the questions,
• They account for the trend
• They are the opinion leaders:
–Personal
–Social
The Cultural Creatives
•Based on 15 years of research
– 150,000 (cum.) people surveyed
– 500 focus groups
– 60 in-depth, 4-8 hour interviews
on life histories
THE CULTURAL CREATIVES
50 million in United States
= 26% of U.S. Adults
80-90 million in European Union
= 30-35% of E.U. Adults
THE CULTURAL CREATIVES
Total Disposable Income
(After Taxes)
= $1.2 Trillion
United States Population, Year 2000
THE CULTURAL CREATIVES
Driving customer force
of the LOHAS Industries*
*Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability
US LOHAS Sales2005 est $280B
Worldwide Sales2005 est $800B
THE CULTURAL CREATIVES
US LOHAS Industries in Year 2000:
1. Ecological Lifestyles
2. Sustainable Economy
3. Alternative Healthcare
4. Healthy Lifestyles
5. Personal Development
Total:
$81.2B
76.5B
30.7B
27.8B
10.6B
$226.8B
Source: Natural Business Communications
ValueGraphics
• Values and Lifestyles Segments
from Cultural differences
• NOT Psychographics or individual
differences
• Cultural Creatives: an emerging
subculture, with all psychological
types: smart/dumb, inward/outer,
good/bad, enlightened/regressive.
• As distinctive as French Canadians in
Quebec
ValueGraphics
• A Subculture has different:
—Values = “Most important priorities”
—Worldview = “How Life works.
What’s real. What Life is all about”
—Lifestyle = “What to buy. How to live”
The Culture Wars 50 Years Ago
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50% MODERNS
50%TRADITIONALS
Secular, materialist •
The big city
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Hip, up to date
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Style & efficiency •
Cary Grant
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LaurenBacall
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Conservative, pious
Small town, country
Square, out of date
Character, reliability
Jimmy Stewart
June Allyson
There are 3 Subcultures Today
• Traditionals
• Moderns
• Cultural Creatives
Total:
24.5%
49.4%
26.1%
100%
Three Preferred Cognitive Styles
• Traditionals: Fend off a bad, complex,
ill-understood world. Black-and-white,
good-and-evil, simple categories.
• Moderns: Tightly focused attention
on what succeeds. Ignore side effects.
No distractions. Linear analysis.
• Cultural Creatives: Synthesize, take in
from a wide range of sources. See the
whole system. Inner experience is valid.
Cultural Creatives’ Values
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Ecology, beyond environmentalism
Planetary awareness
Social Responsibility & Concerns
Authenticity
Relationships, Helping others
Personal Growth, Spirituality
Feminism
Demographics Are Almost
Useless—Values Go Deeper
• CCs a bit more upscale, overall —
wide range of income, educ, occup.
• Close to national averages on age,
race, ethnicity, region
• BUT 60% women overall
• Core group (opinion leaders) are
67% women, or 2:1 women:men
• “Where are all the good men?”
The Cultural Creatives Story
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It’s about floods of new information
world-wide over last 40 years:
Planetary environment/ecology
Health beyond catastrophic medicine
Organic food vs. environmental-poisons
Spiritual traditions from everywhere
Nuclear, infotech, biotech, nanotech - all
go from promise to threats
The Cultural Creatives’ Story
• It’s about women’s values and
concerns going public for the first
time in recorded history
• It’s about the role of the new social
movements and consciousness
movements in educating the Western
world over the past 40 years
Origins: ALL the new social
movements of past 40 years
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Civil Rights, Social Justice
Peace (1960 to 1990, and Now, again)
Women’s (to Eco-Fem, Fem-Spiritual)
Environmental, becoming Ecology
Planetary: Anti-globalization, Hunger
Personal growth & New spirituality
Alternative Health Care
Organic Food & ‘Natural Everything’
Cultural Creatives’ Lifestyles
• They drive the markets for:
– Natural and Organic Products / Foods
– Alternative / Holistic Health Care
– Eco-Travel
– Socially Responsible Investments
– Education and Workshops
– Arts and Culture
– Personalization of Home
– Psychotherapy and Counseling
Cultural Creatives’ Lifestyles
• They’re “Foodies”:
– Talk about food a lot, eat out a lot
– Innovate, experiment, buy equipment
– Enjoy cooking with friends
– Buy any and all organic/natural foods
– Healthy cuisine, but not self-denial
– Try functional foods
– Healthy + natural + gourmet + ethnic
Cultural Creatives’ Lifestyles
• Media Habits:
– Watch Half as Much TV (Don’t waste $$)
– Read Twice as Many Books
– Listen to More Radio
– Read More General Market AND
More Lifestyle Targeted Magazines
– Just Now Catching Up on Internet Use
– Very Critical of the News Media
Green Market Challenge:
The Demand for Authenticity
The LOHAS / Green Customer says:
“Show me the sources of your
materials, and your process and your
people, and who you are…
…and I’ll judge for myself whether
you are a good company to buy from,
or to have a relationship with.”
The Green Market Challenge
Every green and healthful product must
first solve the “what’s in it for me?”
problem BEFORE it saves the planet:
1. Solve a practical life problem for the
household and fit into its lifestyle
2. And also solve a sustainability problem
• …and that’s just your basic requirement
to play in this market.
• It doesn’t buy you any extra market
share.
The Green Market Challenge
To gain market share you must add
extra benefits beyond green:
• Better technical performance
• Health benefits
• Convenience
• Style
• Prestige
• Virtuous Company
The Green Market Challenge
To gain market share build up virtue
points as a company committed to
authenticity:
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Be transparent
Be green
Be socially responsible
Be customer friendly
Be employee friendly
Offer excellent service
In Marketing, Authenticity is all
about our CLAIMS for products
and services, and the personal
authenticity of the people
• It’s NOT about the products and
services themselves — except that
they’re not faked on the outside to
hide what’s underneath
• The claim can simply be “good value
for money”
In Marketing, Authenticity is all
about our CLAIMS for products
and services
• When a salesman says, “It’s the real
thing,” grab hold of your wallet.
– He’s diverting your attention to the
object or the service in front of
you, and away from his tricky or
exaggerated claims.
– He’s lying to get your money.
Authenticity Claims in Marketing:
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WYSIWYG = What you see is what you get:
Not faked: the surface shows what’s below
Made from a good/appropriate substance
with good/healthful properties, and no bad
side effects
The underlying stuff does the job:
materials, processes, parts, are cleanpure-unadulterated, has good properties
Well made: good parts, good design, good
manufacture, no defects
Performs as claimed
Authenticity Claims in Marketing
Claims about the claim itself: ‘It’s the Truth!’
• Shows Transparency & Evidence: Origins,
Sources, production process, quality controls,
How you treat your people and customers
• Shows Precautionary principle = No Harm
• More Evidence = Justify higher cost: It is wellmade, in short supply, rare, or one of a kind
• Expert Authentication = Origins, processes
• Celebrity Endorsement = prestige claim
• Customer Testimonials = “I’m satisfied”
All Obvious, Evidence-Bearing Truth-Tellers
The Big Green Marketing Problem
BAD MESSAGE—WRONG MESSENGER
1 Using Modernist Advertising
2 Using Modernist Direct Marketing
• Conventional ad agencies have no clue
about the values of your customers
—so they’re losing business for you
• But most green businesses don’t see
any alternatives for building wider
visibility!
• Solution: Go to small creative agencies
The Big Green Marketing Problem
BAD MESSAGE & WRONG MESSENGER
It Looks Fake, So It’s Rejected
by Cultural Creatives market
• CCs hate adman’s + direct marketer’s …
– Cultural assumptions, language,
imagery, inauthentic values
– Manipulative and coercive tactics
• CCs don’t trust it: Been there, done that
The Green Market Challenge:
Speak authentically to your customers
CCs lead the demand for authenticity
in marketing communications:
• Every message has to be honest
…AND fit their values and cultural
assumptions
• Modernist messages offend them!
• Face to face communications have to
be from authentic people
Show who you are
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Customers will judge both you and
your product by your authenticity and
transparency
The way you show who you are
Who your employees are
Your sources for materials, products
Sustainable production processes
How you treat your customers
How you treat your stakeholders
Bigger, Harder Inauthenticity
Problems of Today:
• Digital fakery of images is inherent in the art
• Easier to fake substances and appearances with
new materials
• Harder to judge appropriate substitutions of the
chemistry in products
• Medical advances/dangers are harder to judge
• Pollution and health problems are much greater
• Destruction of planet is vastly more dangerous
• Greenwashing is all too common, hard to detect
• Solution: Be the Consumer’s Friend and Educator
The Authenticity Factor™ may
disrupt your internal processes
• Demand for instant responsiveness
to new complaints and problems
• Need for very rapid development and
market testing of line extensions
• Need to involve consumers at all
phases of product development
process. Get their feedback early
The Authenticity Factor™ may
reshape everything you do in
customer relations and contacts
• Without authenticity, no advertising
message will be believed
• Authenticity demands:
– New marketing behavior to differentiate
your brand
– New criteria for product development
– New sales behavior
– New customer service experiences
From Customer Interface to
Customer Interaction Field
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Bring customers into every part of:
Product design & development
Options development (Honda vs GM)
Packaging and channel development
Message development
Breakdowns, complaints, problems
Customer feedback
Product evolution
What’s Inauthentic:
Transaction-Based Marketing + Hype
(Financiers + Admen want it, NOT customers)
• Maximize Profits from Every Transaction!
(Fits inauthentic Financiers)
• Generate lots of new contacts and
transactions!
(Fits Ad Agencies, PR firms, Media)
• Based on very short-term, cash-flow tactics
(Burning your furniture to heat your house)
What’s Inauthentic:
Transaction-Based Marketing + Hype
Why disliked by customers?
• Built-in bias toward:
– cheating,
– distorting the truth,
– short-life products,
– no mutual loyalty
• They’ve been burned in the past
What’s Authentic:
Relationship Marketing
(Sales Should Grow Out of the Relationship)
• Maximize Profits over the Lifetime of the
Relationship!
• Maximize Access to New Customers through
Good Word of Mouth!
– Depends on repeat purchases:
consumables, replacements, upgrades, etc.
– Depends on cheaper repeat sales:
Cost of new sale = 5 times the cost of repeat sale
What’s Authentic:
Relationship Marketing
(Sales Should Grow Out of the Relationship)
• Why preferred by customers?
– Good long-term value for money,
– Long-life products and services,
– Mutuality and Fair Dealing,
– Honesty and Trust,
– Loyalty to the Relationship
All are in everyone’s long-term best
interest, so it’s a sustainable pattern
Managing for Authenticity
• Declare a “soup to nuts” and “top to
bottom” organizational commitment
to authenticity.
• Align organizational culture and
management processes with
processes that emphasize internal
authenticity
Contact information:
Paul H. Ray and Dixon de Leña
Founding Partners
Integral Partnerships, LLC
1630 North Main St,#127
Walnut Creek, CA 94596 USA
925-906-5366 or 415-897-2894
[email protected]
[email protected]