We’ve all used stock photography, illustrations, audio, and video: it’s inexpensive, covers a multitude of topics, and is easy to obtain. Still, as companies learn more about how consumers interact with stock material, they are learning a hard truth — stock material may actually be damaging their brands. Why? More than ever, consumers are looking for genuine authenticity in the brands they trust, and they are becoming especially adept at sniffing out stock content and labeling it as inauthentic.

In many ways, the choice to use stock material is just one of many decisions that affect a company’s brand authenticity. With the rise of AI-generated content, the presence of inexpensive graphic design services, and the proliferation of stock websites, it’s easier than ever for companies to produce content that used to be exclusively outsourced to marketing and creative professionals. Unfortunately, online users can detect this kind of content quickly, and while they identify an authentic image as contributing to a brand’s story, they often judge (consciously or unconsciously) an inauthentic image harshly, seeing it as filling space and conveying little useful information.

With the increased emphasis on empathetic marketing (i.e., marketing that truly caters to the needs of your audience), it is now more vital than ever to learn about the importance of authenticity. In this article, we will introduce the concept of authentic marketing, explore a growing body of research that suggests consumers of marketing content react negatively to perceived inauthentic materials, and provide some advice for B2B brands trying to establish their own authentic presence.

Intro to Authentic Marketing

So, what does it mean to be authentic? In the traditional sense, it means something that is genuine and not falsified, but in marketing, the word takes on a much broader definition. Authentic marketing is not just about appearing genuine and one-of-one: it’s about actually being a sincere brand that reinforces a company’s values and purpose. No company will succeed for long if they appear disingenuous to consumers, but this necessity for authenticity will often encourage companies and brands to put up an insincere façade that portrays them as more genuine than they actually are. This has led to a number of companies suffering from one or more “washing” accusations — e.g., greenwashing, pinkwashing, and momwashing.

Authentic marketing is rooted in the idea that you are what you say you are — no “tricks,” no smoke, no mirrors. This idea might seem obvious to some, but, according to Forbes, the notion that consumers “prefer brands that are ‘real and organic’ over brands that are ‘perfect and well-packaged’’’ only recently emerged, requiring brands to emphasize their unique, genuine qualities over artificially perfect ones. Authentic marketing not only helps you identify and define your target audience, but even more significantly, it builds trust between you and that audience through an honest portrayal of your company’s ethos.

Unfortunately, inauthenticity seems to plague B2B brands the most because of the complex stories they are often trying to tell. Obviously, describing the technical details of a robotic picker/packer, a pharmaceutical mixing system, or an environmentally friendly polymer creates challenges for marketers. Stock images simply fail to convey the reality of complex products and processes, yet visuals are an absolute necessity to communicate effectively to a diverse audience that could include non-technical investors, community partners, and others. Clear, competent narratives are also needed to make sure key features and benefits are not obscured. That’s why it’s particularly important for B2B brands to invest in high-quality creative teams to showcase complex products authentically. Buyers in B2B transactions are just as unwilling to accept poor design, hackneyed visuals, or lack of differentiation as B2C consumers. Just because your product may not be the most aesthetically pleasing doesn’t give you an escape hatch to avoid creative, authentic imagery. If anything, it makes it more important than ever to give customers what they want — unique, eye-grabbing imagery of real people and real products.

Stock material is not inherently bad. The main issue comes down to this: people are interacting with your content to gain information, but with the rise of content marketing over the last decade, they have become inundated with stock photos, illustrations, and music, as well as inexpensive design templates. They now consider stock material as pure filler that communicates zero information. Even if an authentic photo is identical to a stock photo in terms of style and composition, consumers will always prefer the authentic version. This is because the authentic photo at least tells you something.

• “Do I relate to the people standing behind the product or service?”
• “Does their operation look substantial and ready to deliver?”
• “Do they take the time and energy to maintain a consistent brand/identity?”

All of these questions can be answered by exploring authentic photography/material in a company’s marketing materials. One of the most important questions, however, is related to the growing interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Stock imagery does not often accurately reflect the real people that occupy a workspace. For example, Getty has recently reported huge increases in the following terms: “real people,” 192% increase; “diverse women,” 168% increase; and “strong women,” 187% increase. What this data suggests is that marketers are working hard to find stock images showing real people in real situations. But a stock image of a “real person” is not real at all — by its very definition, it can’t be. This issue is also encountered when using AI-produced content, which generates results on what a team looks like based on the consensus of a database. This uncanny portrayal of a team is lost in the evergrowing sea of AI content, but authentic imagery stands out like a lighthouse.

The Evidence Base: Why Inauthentic = Ineffective

This may seem like a soft science, but there is a growing body of research indicating that inauthentic content attracts less attention and erodes, not strengthens, a buyer’s trust in a brand. Let’s summarize some of the key findings.

In a study conducted by Nielsen Norman Group, researchers utilized eye-tracking technology to determine what consumers were actually paying attention to when scanning company websites and online storefronts. What they found was eye-opening (no pun intended). One would expect, given that stock photography and stock material is ubiquitous on the websites of both small businesses and large corporations, that users would pay the same amount of attention to photos of real people as they would to stock photos of people. However, users spent much more time interacting with authentic imagery and hardly glanced at or completely avoided the inauthentic stock imagery. This behavior was accentuated when users were attempting to gain more information about the inner workings of a small business or company. In this situation, users demonstrated an increase in engagement with photos that displayed images of real people who worked at the company and not stock photography of workers. So, while stock material might appear cheaper in the short term, its return on investment is diminished greatly if it barely registers with users or is ignored altogether. These findings suggest that producing your own authentic, personalized material could be a far better investment than purchasing a large library of stock images.

Researchers at the University of Florida arrived at similar conclusions when studying the impact of photos used in social media. A team from UF’s Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement found that when natural photos were used instead of stock photos, the engagement rate of posts more than tripled. In fact, the overall engagement score (likes + reactions + comments + shares divided by followers) for posts featuring natural photos was 15% higher than posts featuring stock photos.

Sometimes, finding authentic stock imagery is hampered by bias built into the stock photo industry itself. For example, a study published by researchers at North Carolina State University stated that “the majority of images related to health topics on stock photography sites (Adobe Stock Images, Canva, Getty Images, Microsoft Office Image Library, and Pixabay) are of light-skinned people within a fairly narrow age range.” So, if you’re a health company attempting to market a product to any other demographic besides light-skinned people within that age range, you will be forced to spend more time and money searching for those photos that do properly capture your targeted demographic. The researchers also found that if a site producing stock material had a paywall, it was more likely to include people from a perceived minority ethnic group when compared to a database without a paywall. That means businesses on a tighter budget will be forced to use stock imagery that does not properly represent their target audience.

Some people believe they can avoid these stock image issues if they pay for graphic design service on a popular gig platform, such as Fiverr or 99designs. The working principle of these platforms is that a person in need of an icon, logo, or illustration submits a brief to a community of graphic designers, who then bid to win the work. This would seem to lead to authentic, custom-built creative solutions, except the fee-for-service model (designers are forced to work at extremely low hourly rates to win the bid) encourages deception and plagiarism. These websites will often have no preventative measures in place to guarantee that the product being delivered is not copyrighted, recycled, or a generic template with only a few insignificant alterations. For a sobering account of what the experience can be like working with a gig platform like Fiverr, read “What Kind of Logo Do You Get for $5?” on Medium.

Additionally, when these freelance design services are used, bar the first brief sent to the artist as a part of the project initiation, there is minimal to no communication between the purchaser and the designer. Without dynamic and iterative cycles of presentation and feedback, it’s almost impossible for a designer to produce anything but generic and often uninspired material. Unfortunately, inexpensive freelance platforms don’t provide an adequate environment for you to properly influence your own creative material, leaving it in the hands of a stranger who has taken no time to actually get to know your business or marketing strategy. This, in turn, produces an obviously inauthentic and disjointed product that doesn’t necessarily match your brand.