Brand authenticity and representation

Abstract

In recent years we have seen the effects of the pandemic bringing an increasing pressure to accommodate to the rising demand of brand awareness and brand authenticity. Questions circulating the topics around diversity, representation and inclusion have come to the forefront of spotlight and discussion. Therefore, the objective of the assignment is to contribute to a better understanding of what kind of impact brand authenticity and representation and inclusivity have to a brand. The goal is to find if specific aspects of representation and inclusivity can result in positive brand authenticity. The thesis question is: “How can representation and inclusivity be beneficial for brand authenticity?” To answer the thesis statement, we went through an extensive research phase where we assessed several academical articles in connection to brand authenticity, representation and inclusivity. This was done to gather an overview of the topics related to our elaborated thesis statement. The ADOframework is a conceptual framework that was initially developed by Justin Paul and Gabriel Benito (Paul & Benito, 2018), and used by Jonatan Södergren to examine the different dimensions and characteristics of brand authenticity. The theoretical framework is the basis for our theory, and we find a potential for the new dimension ‘representation and inclusivity’ to be included. To gather support around this we used a descriptive design with a quantitative approach through a survey to gather data from 111 respondents. The desired outcome of the survey was to measure the respondent’s perceptions of variables representation, uniqueness, brand activism and brand authenticity. The gathered data was analyzed through SAS JMP. The analysis tool helped us change the theoretical terms to measurable numerical values. We then performed a descriptive, factor, reliability, and regression analysis. The study indicated a positive correlation between the variable representation and brand authenticity and contributes to opening doors to future research on a topic with growing relevancy and importance.