For the longest time, brand authenticity was something reserved for niche businesses and industry disruptors trying to enter competitive markets.
Today, however, it’s a non-negotiable aspect of a successful business strategy and a crucial prerequisite for getting consumers to choose your offer among a sea of alternative solutions.
Admittedly, positioning your organization as an authentic entity isn’t an easy feat. It’s not impossible. But it does necessitate a strategic approach to ensure your target audience perceives you as a relatable and integrity-led brand.
In this guide, we’ll cover some of the most effective ways for brands to communicate authenticity—particularly when operating in skeptical marketplaces. But first, let’s take a closer look at why authenticity matters in the first place.
Source: depositphotos.com
The Impact of Brand Authenticity on Business Results
If you look at the research on the importance of brand authenticity, you’ll see that this seemingly simple differentiator impacts multiple KPIs.
For starters, research suggests that consumers want and expect brands to be authentic.
Stackla discovered that as many as 86% of consumers decide what brands to buy and support based on how authentic they seem. But there’s more to the issue.
A 2023 survey conducted by ESW found that:
- 59% of people look for evidence that a brand is true to its core values when making shopping decisions.
- 70% will exclusively shop with brands and retailers they perceive as authentic.
- 64% would switch to a competitor brand/product due to a lack of authenticity.
- 64% of people spend more with authentic brands. And, most importantly;
- 51% stay loyal to authentic brands — even when prices increase.
In other words, positioning your organization as authentic pays off, not just in terms of increased revenue, but also in loyalty.
Why Are Consumers Being Skeptical in 2025?
The data above clearly demonstrates the importance of positioning your company as an authentic entity, true to its ideals. But here’s the deal. Consumers, nowadays, don’t necessarily take brand claims at face value.
With the global consumer sentiment strongly leaning toward skepticism—particularly in markets that had always been low-trust—convincing prospects to buy into your brand’s authenticity claims can be quite a challenge.
But why are consumers being skeptical in the first place? The truth is that several factors contribute to this type of sentiment.
First and foremost, in 2025, the majority of people are dealing with mounting financial pressure. According to research from McKinsey, rising prices remain the number-one cause for concern among consumers. In fact, the financial pressure is so significant that 79% of people are actively trading down in an attempt to extract more value from their purchases.
Then, of course, there’s the question of past experiences. To the vast majority of people(74%, to be exact), product quality is a primary factor in making purchase decisions and determining their brand loyalty. So, if they’ve burned themselves in the past, they’re quite likely not to believe brand claims regarding the quality of their solutions.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the trustworthiness of most businesses isn’t what it used to be. Despite being one of the most credible types of organizations in 2025, there has been a drop in how much faith people are willing to place in for-profit organizations.
How to Communicate Authenticity
Despite being significant, the causes of skepticism mentioned above don’t have to be insurmountable obstacles in your quest for brand authenticity. Instead, they’re just valuable indicators of where you should focus your resources when trying to convince your target audience to have faith in your business.
Overall, there are three effective categories of authenticity-building tactics.
What’s great is that you can implement any of these strategies by themselves. Better yet, you can combine them for maximum impact and a lasting brand reputation guaranteed to win over your ideal customers.
Via Trust and Authority
When trying to position your company as an authentic entity, you must start with trust.
After all, how can you expect your target audience to take your claims at face value if they don’t perceive your business as credible in the first place?
Fortunately, there are numerous effective strategies for building brand trust and authority. Furthermore, you can combine multiple credibility-boosting techniques to earn a reputation of being an honest and purposeful brand.
As a rule, the most effective way to establish authenticity through trust and authority is to focus on organizational competence. Instead of just making claims that promise to resolve your target audience’s pain points, try to support these promises with real-world evidence of your past success.
Social proof is always a marvelous method for elevating brand authority. Nevertheless, you can also explore additional formats that can testify to your brand’s (and team’s) expertise.
For instance, deep dives into your process of resolving customer pain points — such as case studies or educational resources — are also great for building trust and creating a setting in which your prospects are likely to perceive the entirety of your brand’s presence as authentic.
Check out how Workiva accomplishes this. Instead of stopping at claiming that it can help businesses with intelligence reporting in a way that’s transparent, performance-oriented, and trustworthy, the business employs multiple trust-boosting tactics to help web visitors arrive at that same conclusion. These include in-depth customer stories, commissioned studies from credible entities like Forrester, and third-party award certificates from organizations like G2, all of which enable Workiva to position itself as trustworthy and authentic in a low-trust, skepticism-filled market.
Source: workiva.com
In addition to using trust-enhancing content throughout your digital presence, demonstrating your commitment to transparency is another effective method to show your target audience they can count on your business to practice what it preaches.
For example, if any of your claims or value propositions are verifiable, you can use that opportunity to build brand trust and demonstrate your organization’s genuineness. Check out Performance Lab. This brand understands the importance of ingredient quality and dosage effectiveness to its target audience. So, it doesn’t just invite prospects to learn more about what goes into each supplement. Moreover, it emphasizes its Clean Label Project certification, insights into any formula updates, and advertises its B-Corp status in an attempt to maximize transparency, credibility, and establish its integrity.
Source: performancelab.com
Via Customer Care
Even though establishing your brand’s trustworthiness and industry-relevant authority is a great first step toward communicating authenticity, it’s not really enough to position your company as truthful and genuine.
Instead, the best way to earn the reputation of being relatable, honest, and empathetic is to demonstrate your commitment to customer care — particularly in skeptical marketplaces.
Ultimately, focusing your branding strategy on customer-centricity is not only about showing your target audience they can count on your business to fulfill its promises and stay true to its values. It’s just as big a part of earning business in the first place.
According to research, customer care plays a significant role in convincing consumers to choose a particular brand. But even more importantly, it directly determines people’s loyalty.
In fact, a recent survey conducted by Emplifi discovered that 70% of consumers would leave a brand after just two instances of poor CX.
So, if you’re looking for tactics to show your prospects your promises are genuine, emphasize your commitment to next-level customer care.
The great news is that you can achieve this goal in several different (yet equally effective) ways.
For instance, producing high-quality content with unique educational value demonstrates your brand’s benevolence and willingness to put customer value before profits.
Check out, for example, how Brain Ritual implements this tactic on its company blog. Here, the brand shares tips on resolving migraines (even without medication) despite selling a product with that exact purpose. At first glance, this seems like a missed opportunity to make a sale. Nevertheless, this selfless willingness to help and support prospects does a splendid job of communicating brand authenticity and user-centricity, which are contributing factors for readers wanting to buy from Brain Ritual in the future.
Source: brainritual.com
Another great way to communicate authenticity and commitment to customer satisfaction is to make your pre- and post-purchase support easily accessible to potential customers.
Something as simple as highlighting easy ways for prospects to get in touch — which is what Golf Cart Tire Supply does with the phone number in the top right and live chat option in the bottom right corner of this collections page — can be more than enough to communicate your genuine commitment to providing an enjoyable customer experience to your customers.
Source: golfcarttiresupply.com
Via Brand Identity
Finally, brand authenticity is not only about staying true to your promises and going above and beyond to help your customers. It’s just as much about the narratives you infuse into your branding strategy.
Ultimately, how your audience perceives your business hugely depends on what brand characteristics you choose to emphasize.
Focus on the right differentiators and you’re guaranteed to not only engage your target audience but also make them want to support your business. Miss the mark, however, and the effect is more likely to be alienation.
This suggests that effectively communicating authenticity via brand identity must start with in-depth audience research.
For starters, find out what your ideal customers expect from your business, and not just in terms of what pain points they need you to solve. Look into the deeper motivators that drive their purchase behavior.
For example, 82% of shoppers choose brands whose values align with their own. Additionally, 70% of US consumers feel that it’s important for brands to take a stand on political and social issues.
Therefore, emphasizing your organizational purpose and values can be an effective method to communicate authenticity.
Thousand Fell, for instance, points out that it designs sneakers for the future, with no compromise for the planet — a message that perfectly aligns with its target audience’s wants.
Source: thousandfell.com
Alternatively, you can also call your target audience’s attention to your brand’s unique identity.
This strategy can work exceptionally well in skeptical marketplaces or when targeting consumers looking for innovation, because it allows you to differentiate your organization from your competitors while still retaining a strong focus on authenticity, trustworthiness, and user-centricity.
For example, Icecartel operates in a very specific subsection of the jewelry industry where its audience wants not only quality and design but also pieces that fit into a specific lifestyle or context. So, to ensure it comes off as a solid choice in such a setting, IceCartel pays special attention to its copy and visuals. And it even adopts a certain communication style specific to the hip-hop subculture to show potential customers it can genuinely provide them with jewelry pieces that truly meet their wants and needs.
Source: icecartel.com
Final Thoughts
Breaking into competitive or low-trust markets — and doing it in a way that has genuine long-term success potential — can be quite a challenging task. However, by focusing on authenticity, you can make a name for yourself, no matter the challenges.
To do it in a way that’s effective and that supports your conversion goals, your best bet is to focus on strategies that communicate integrity via credibility, customer-centricity, or brand image. That way, you’ll ensure your target audience understands the message you’re sending and make it easy for them to discover you as a logical solution to their pain points. That way, you’ll automatically make them more receptive to your messaging and more likely to give your products a chance.
