@marketingmag
reverse direction. Someone makes
something cool, then others take the
truth and turn it into something fake.
Time and effort goes into building
something new, a brand that has
value and attaches it to a product or
service. Then, weirdly, the market
goes in the opposite direction – from
real to fake. The real thing has to
compete with fake versions of itself.
Sometimes it’s cheaper substitutes
of what’s hot or, worse, a knock-off
pretending to be the real thing.
It’s easy to see why unscrupulous
operators would create fakes. They
leverage the value created by others
without any of the brand investment
required to create it themselves.
They can either co-opt consumers
wanting a cheaper version, or even
trick them by passing their product
off as real.
The marketing of the ‘fake’ has a
long and fascinating history. It comes
in many shapes and forms, and it’s
not a new problem. In the 1980s it
was fake Reeboks. As long as they
looked real many consumers were
happy to play along. In the ’90s it was
haute couture handbags at a local
market, for a few hundred dollars
instead of thousands for the real
thing. In the early web era things got
a little more treacherous as we went
beyond fake fashion and into fake
medicine buying pharmaceuticals
online. Things got real!
And today what do we have?
Mostly, fake people. Fake was
once limited to manufacturing
output – which makes sense in the
factory era. Now, in a digital era,
where everything is meta, people
are getting their fake on. The early
web was a bastion of hope where,
all of a sudden, we could facttechnology democratises, fake isn’t
new, it just scales much better than
ever before.
Now we are entering the era of
Deep Fakes. A world where the last
forms of provable truths evaporate in
front of our eyes – video so realistic
we can’t tell whether the global
leader actually said that at a news
conference, or whether that celebrity
really did make a pornograpahic
video. And the scariest part? It’s
all possible via open source
software where a few random
pictures and a voice sample of
almost anyone can be concocted to
create deep fakes that could be life
changing for the victims.
Last, let’s consider something
a little crazy. What happens when
we can make robots that are
indistinguishable from humans?
Robots with soft-exo bodies, natural
sounding voices and smooth
movements. Once that becomes
possible – and it will – it’s only a
matter of time before we have a
world in which fake humans leave
the screen and enter the street. This
brings me to the most valuable asset
any brand will have in the future. The
ability to be known for truth. True
content, true people, true ingredients
and no corporate chicanery. Instead
they will offer the ability to be a
proven fortress of truth in all that
they make and represent.
It may seem like an impossible
task, given the eventualities
proposed. But technology is
always a double-edged sword;
almost everything it creates can be
juxtaposed. What we need to create
now is a brand differentiated by
truth, and maybe even the tools to
help others do it too.check anything and everything. ‘Is
that true?’ It seemed like we were
entering an era where only the
authentic could survive. How could
anyone ever lie again if the truth
were just a few clicks away? But
what we failed to foresee was the
ingenuity of humans who choose to
deceive. One by one people started
putting on their digital disguises.
Enter Fake Lives: a world where
the fi ve minutes of bliss in anyone’s
24-hour day became the billboard
of their life. A few minutes gaming
the lighting and the angle of a
photograph in a restaurant, on
a beach or at any fancy locale
showed a wonderful life. Passing
it off as social sharing – people
dived deep into brand or, should I
say, ego building.
Enter Fake News: a world in
which people with an agenda
can create whatever narrative
they please as few people on the
receiving end of questionable
content worry to check out if it is
true. What was once fact becomes
opinion and the truth gets lost
in the extreme battles between
left and right. None of this comes
as a surprise. Like most thingsLike
most things
technology
democratises,
fake isn’t new,
it just scales
much better
than ever
before.
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THE TRUTH ISSUE