Today, brands face endless challenges. One that may be overlooked is maintaining a consistent and authentic voice amidst a cacophony of micro- and macro-influencers, AI-generated content, and virtual personas. As Strategy Fellow at Imaginuity, I witness daily the evolving complexity and inconsistency of brand communication in a multi-voice, multi-channel and multi-moment marketing environment. While these emerging approaches offer exciting opportunities to connect with audiences in new ways, they also pose risks to brand integrity if not managed carefully.
The Changing Face of Brand Communication
Gone are the days when a brand's message was solely controlled by its marketing team and distributed through a few mass-reach channels. Today, a brand's voice can be amplified—or potentially distorted—through a myriad of external sources:
- Influencers: From micro-influencers to celebrity endorsers, these individuals speak about brands in their own unique style, tone, and outlook and on their own platforms.
- AI-Generated Content: Sophisticated algorithms can now create content that mimics a brand's voice, sometimes with uncanny accuracy.
- Virtual Influencers: Computer-generated personalities are gaining traction, blurring the lines between real and digital brand representation.
While these voices can significantly expand a brand's reach, they also introduce the risk of purpose and message dilution or, worse, contradiction. The key question becomes: How can brands maintain their authentic voice while leveraging these powerful new communication methods and tools?
The Foundation of Brand Authenticity
To navigate this complex, ever-changing landscape successfully, brands must first establish a rock-solid foundation. This foundation consists of three critical elements:
- Meaningfully Differentiated Positioning: What sets your brand apart in a crowded marketplace? This unique value proposition should be clear, compelling, and consistently communicated.
- Distinctive Brand Voice: How does your brand think, speak, and act? The tone, style, and personality of your communication (aka your Archetype) should be instantly recognizable and resonate with your target audience.
- Emotional Brand Promise: What feeling or experience can customers expect from every interaction with your brand? This promise delivered well is often what turns casual buyers into loyal advocates with megaphones.
With these elements in place and well documented, brands can create a cohesive and authentic experience for customers, regardless of where that experience is encountered.
Aligning External Voices with Brand Values
Once a strong brand foundation is established, the next step is to ensure that all external voices—be they human influencers or AI-generated content—align with the brand's positioning platform and messaging. This requires:
- Careful Selection of Influencers: Choose partners whose personal brand and values naturally align with your own. Provide them with clear guidelines while allowing room for their authentic voice to come through.
- Thoughtful AI Implementation: When using AI-powered tools or developing virtual personas, ensure that the underlying algorithms and prompts are deeply informed by your brand's positioning, voice, and promise.
- Consistent Training and Updates: Regularly update all stakeholders—including influencers and AI developers—on any changes to brand strategy or messaging.
- Ongoing Monitoring and Adjustment: Continuously assess how your brand is being represented across all channels, adjusting as necessary to maintain consistency and authenticity.
By taking these steps, brands can harness the power of diverse voices while maintaining a coherent and trustworthy identity.
Case Study: Bringing Brand Authenticity to Life
We recently had the opportunity to put these principles into practice for a large, national client in the property management industry. Recognizing the power of customization and the growing influence of virtual personalities, we set out to create a unique solution that would resonate across multiple properties with diverse customer bases.
The result was Cindy, the shopping center industry's first virtual shopping "bestie." Developed for JLL Retail Property Management, Cindy represents a groundbreaking approach to maintaining brand consistency across shopping centers nationwide. Rather than creating separate virtual influencers for each location, our AI and UX teams collaborated with our retail agency partner, The Dealey Group, to create a multi-ethnic personality that provides relevance and resonance across various US cities and ethnicities.
Cindy's creation was deeply rooted in the similarities of the brand equity of each shopping center and the characteristics of their customers. Cindy shows up on shopping center websites and embodies a complex mix of personality traits designed to feel authentic and relatable to shoppers across different market sizes and demographics. By leveraging generative AI tools guided by a proprietary set of procedures, prompts, and modeling, we brought Cindy to life as a consistent and replicable online shopping companion who talks about the latest fashion trends and shopping center goings-on.
The success of Cindy demonstrates the potential of thoughtfully implemented AI and virtual influencers in brand communication. By starting with a solid understanding of the shopping center’s values and customer profiles, we were able to create a virtual persona that enhances the shopping experience while maintaining brand authenticity across diverse marketplaces.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the importance of a strong, authentic brand foundation cannot be overstated. By establishing clear positioning, a distinctive voice, and an emotional promise—and then carefully aligning all external communications with these elements—brands can not only survive but thrive in this new era of influencers and AI. The key is to embrace these new tools and channels while never losing sight of what makes your brand uniquely interesting and valuable to your customers.
