One of the most pervasive features of our society is how much it lacks authenticity. This is especially prevalent in the business world. How things got to be that way is a discussion for another time. For now, let’s think about what this means to those who aspire to stand out in an overcrowded, over-communicated commercial landscape.

We are all in the business of shaping each other’s perceptions based on verbal utterances and visual cues, many of which are expressed with little to no regard for the real and utter truth. In turn, our actions are the product of deliberation, and born of our own individual understanding of the world based on the input we receive which is, while possibly well-intentioned, largely false in nature.

We are all so used to dealing with things in this manner, that we approach most situations with a high degree of skepticism as to how “real” things are. For instance, we don’t look at diamonds the same way anymore because we’ve figured out how to make diamonds in an artificial way. What’s wrong with a diamond that didn’t grow “organically” is not what it looks like, but how it was made.

The same can be said about certain genres of music. To the purist, “real” music is made by people actually playing instruments and using their voice to present musical ideas, live or recorded, without any digital “fixing” happening between the original source and the ears of the listener.

With all the effort we espouse trying to position ourselves as something we’re not, our understanding of the world is based on things that are made up, or in other words, not real.

We’ve come to accept these types of situations as “reality.” Even so, it’s easy to see and feel the difference between something that is made up and something that is not.

In short, “keeping it real” may just be one of the most difficult things to do in life.

But in this world, where contrivances abound, one of the most effective ways to separate your brand from all others is by steeping it in authenticity.

Make no mistake. This is extremely hard work, because it involves gaining a deep understanding of what’s going on in the world, and more specifically, what’s going on around your brand and the business environment in which it lives, and then simply be real.

In his book, Blue Like Jazz, author Donald Miller points out that, “If there ever lived a guy who didn’t want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.”

By the same token, if there ever was a brand that didn’t try to be anything besides what it really is, that brand would be unique and everybody would sit up and take notice.

Regular readers of The Seed may have noticed a few things over time. One is a poignant quote at the top of the right hand column that in some way encapsulates the overall point of the main body of text. Another is an image that supports what’s being said and adds to the depth of the message. You may also notice that it isn’t often we talk about The Seed in The Seed. We talk about marketing. We talk about advertising. We talk about branding.

In most cases, these conversations are about people and what makes them tick. Because when it comes to making marketing messages, it is the people who receive them that matter the most.

Also in the right hand column, you’ll notice that we recommend a different book every month. This month’s book is exceptional. Written by French-born anthropologist and marketing expert, Clotaire Rapaille, it is filled with razor sharp insights as to how one might go about discovering the true nature of the emotional connections between people and “things”. Cars, toilet paper and restaurants are among the many things with which we as humans (or more specifically, Americans) have deep emotional ties.

Rapaille’s work began in psychoanalysis, dealing with autistic children. Then one day an associate came to him with a new prospect. But it wasn’t an autistic child. It wasn’t even a person. It was a company named Nestlé. (Maybe you’ve heard of them.)

In his book, Rapaille tells the story of how he was able to help Nestlé sell coffee to a culture that is well known for their love affair with tea. It’s a striking story that will leave most business people in awe. To tell the whole story here would spoil it. But here’s the kicker.

Nestle did not, nor could they possibly ever, devise a marketing and advertising strategy to increase coffee sales in Japan by any respectable percentage over the course of a fiscal year. But they were about to try. That is, until they hired Rapaille whose recommended strategy did not include getting people to switch from tea to coffee. It didn’t even include coffee. At first, they thought he was nuts. But they did what he recommended.

Today, coffee sales in Japan have increased from nearly none in 1970 to around half a billion pounds per year. Why? The answers to this and many other million dollar marketing questions are in this month’s Book of the Month.

Understanding the “why’s” of human nature is essential in gaining a foothold in any market. For some, this book will cause you to see your world in a whole new light. If you read no other book on marketing in the upcoming year, read this one.

You won’t be sorry.

“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. It…makes you think that after all, your favorite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded… Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it.”

In what is revered as a half-forgotten Victorian masterpiece, Walter Bagehot, (British economist, social scientist, and the journalist who wrote The English Constitution) put these words in black and white. (Physics and Politics, 1872)

In spite of Bagehot’s observations of humanity’s natural resistance to change, social change is a phenomenon that happens all around us. Still, the ability to create change seems reserved for a select few. But it is not. Creating change is for anyone who believes in the power of observation.

Carefully researched analysis has shown that the manner in which a social system adopts an innovation or new idea is an undeniable phenomenon that occurs automatically under certain social conditions. Author Malcom Gladwell calls this phenomenon The Tipping Point.

It’s a simple fact that humans resist change, that is, until they can personally justify their reasons for altering their daily routine to accommodate the adoption of a new idea or behavior.

This sheds bright light on the problem of increasing sales through customer acquisition. Your innovation, regardless of its simplicity or complexity (while clearly understood and embraced by you and your team) is foreign to others. Hence, the majority of your market will resist the idea. That is, until enough members of your market (a social system) understand and embrace your innovation. Once this “core” is in place, growth becomes imminent and automatic.

We often look to the powers of mass media to send a message to the masses. In doing so, we forget that people trust, more than anything else, other people.

Before you go looking to exhaust your media budget on mass media in an attempt to get people to try your innovation on for size, remember those members of your market (roughly 10%) who are already influencing the other 90% in terms of which ideas and behaviors they adopt and those they do not. Focus on building relationships with people who can easily understand your innovation and are able to articulate the clear benefits of its use in their daily lives. Then leverage what you learn from those who are quick to adopt and use their insights to communicate the benefits of your offering to the masses.

Analysis suggests that the spread of an innovation hinges on a surprisingly small point: namely, whether or not opinion leaders vouch for it. Once you have them on board, everyone else begins to want what they have because they can see how it positively affects the lives of others.

It’s that simple.