Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

10 The authentic brand wheel

An ontology of the riparian brand and authentic public relations

Authenticity and branding

One of the over-arching aims of this book has been to explore the complexities of the notion of authenticity and to try to conceptualise what this means for public relations professionals and brand managers whose work involves presenting brands in a way which is believable for a broad range of stakeholders. According to Schallehn et al (2014), antecedents of brand authenticity are object authenticity, where the authentic is the original, and self-authenticity in a social world, in which authenticity relates to the ability to remain true to one’s own identity despite corrupting external pressures. Authentic brands thus position ...