I’ve talked about it before, and will probably talk about it again. Authenticity. The third trend that Godin discusses in Meatball Sundae is “need for an authentic story as the number of sources increases.” How many times have you looked for information on a corporate website? I’ve visited my share, and they’re all filled with the same old corporate talk. Even when they are trying to have fun, it’s corporate. It reminds me of the 50 year old man wearing the backwards baseball cap calling me dude or man, or those guys with the fake mohawks (you know who you are). That’s fine if that’s who you are, but if you’re not, watch out. Big brother is watching… and so is big sister, and everyone else in the world for that matter.

Corporate websites are great if you want to hear what the company is saying about itself, but to get any kind of objectivity, you usually need to look elsewhere. It shouldn’t have to be that way. The internet is a big place, and there are tons of sites available to find the information that your looking for. Customers are going to visit the sites where they will get an honest, unfiltered answer. And why shouldn’t they? You don’t like being lied to and neither do your customers. Be honest with them, be authentic to your brand, and you’ll never have to worry about getting caught lying.

There are tons of stories about people saying one thing and doing another. We hear about them all the time, Godin discusses them in his book, so I’m not going to bother listing them out (maybe later). The bottom line is that if you say one thing and do another, you will get caught eventually, and the world will find out about it in minutes. And then you’ll be stuck sending out one of those fake apologies written by a PR person, and I will make fun of you.

Trend #4, “Extremely short attention spans due to clutter”, will be discussed later.

Notable quotes from this section:

• “Saying one thing and doing another fails, because you’ll get caught.
• “When consumers are making a decision that matters to them, they often rely on the truth as they receive it from the community, not on the story the marketer manufactured.”

As I said before, we live in a time where people are more media savvy than ever before, and no one is fooled by your phony prepared marketing statements. It seems that every day we hear yet another lame prepared PR statement from some knucklehead or another. I know these people are merely trying to do some damage control / avoid a lawsuit, but I personally can’t stand having my intelligence insulted. What ever happened to a heartfelt statement. Why does everything have to be prepared by an attorney first?

Here’s my list of favorites in no particular order, I hope you find them as entertaining as I have…

• Chris Brown - Wow a genuine apology… written by a PR exec
• Michael Vick - Close, but who really talks like this?
• Tiger Woods - As the guys at Marvel Comics say ‘nuff said
• Don Imus - He didn’t even look up from his paper!
• Kobe Bryant - His lawyer even speaks for him. I love the way he pulls his wife’s chair out for her. What a gentleman; not an act at all.
• Mark Sanford - I tried to stay away from politics, but found this one pretty funny.
• Mark McGwire - “I’m not here to talk about the past.” I’ve got to remember that one.
• Alex Rodriguez - though you could really pick anything that A-Rod has ever said.

Who talks like this in their daily lives? Most if not all of these are apologies of some sort, and the hallmark of a good apology is that it is authentic and heartfelt. How can your statement be authentic if it is coming from your attorney? Remember, the word of the day is “authenticity.” To be fair, it’s kind of unfair to single out any one celebrity since just about every single thing that anyone says in the media is written by some PR person or lawyer.

I know alot of marketers will disagree with me on this (especially in these most litigious times where everyone sues anyone for anything), but I think more companies should shoot from the hip and be more honest, open and authentic. Many people are tired of the politically correct phrases that advertisers, marketers, and celebrities use, which is why many of us go online to see what real people are saying (in this day in age though, sometimes it’s hard to determine who is a real person and who is a plant. Yes companies even try to fake authenticity in this way, but more on that later). Prepared statements are the old way of doing things. If you’re going to send a message my way, please leave your lawyer at the office.

What are your favorite prepared statements? Go ahead and link them in the comments, I’m always up for a good laugh. Also, what statements do you feel are actually good? I’d like to see those as well.