Leaning Into Authenticity: Why Honesty in Marketing Works For Gen-Z in 2025
Today we want to dive into a concept that we call "LEAN INTO IT" here at Lifestyled. In addition to needing to have your values as a part of your marketing, you need to be explicitly authentic to who you are as a brand in everything that you're creating.
This honesty or at least adherence to who you claim to be is essential.
Last year we worked on Germantown Media’s team on Josh Shapiro’s campaign for Pennsylvania Governor (who won and is now the governor of Pennsylvania by the way).
Josh Shapiro is white, and in trying to attract minority voters often we see candidates who say, “I get you.” “I understand where you're coming from” or “I understand the issues that exist, so let me help you solve them.”
What Quincy Harris (the owner of Germantown Media) came up with was allow Josh Shapiro to lean into his different upbringing and build genuine, authentic discussions around him asking questions to leaders and influencers about where the issues were and what they believed the solutions to be. Allowing them to answer the questions rather than him telling them what it is, this really allowed him to lean into who he already was not pretend that he knew something he didn't and come off truly authentic.
The reception to this was amazing, because Josh Shapiro wasn't fronting, he wasn't pretending to be something he wasn't and this is a fantastic example of leaning into your authenticity; leaning into whatever your brand stands for or where your brand comes from.
Even beyond a racial difference It can be anything: it can be belief systems, it can be location, lets say you only work in the East Coast, don't brand yourself nationally to try to gain an audience that you don't actually want.
There's an old marketing saying that says, if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one. You need to focus on who your target market is and be truly authentic to who you are and who you're talking to. Otherwise, you're not going to actually be communicating with the people you want to be communicating with. This concept of leaning into your authenticity of who you are, goes across the board and whatever you're doing.
Another great example is when we worked on a marketing campaign for a television show, and to attract that Gen-Z audience. We shot film photography behind the scenes, so truly very raw, authentic feel. Showing things that normally aren't supposed to be showed. In traditional TV, you're hiding. The behind the scenes. But in the marketing for it, we showed what was supposed to be hidden. And that had great reception for our gen Z and millennials, because they feel like they're being pulled into something special that you're building a deep, genuine connection.
With your consumer with your audience that that they, don't feel like they're getting from other brands or from other marketing campaigns.
The one thing you need to stay away from, if you want to touch the millennial or Gen-Z market is being disingenuous, while still being authentic to who you are. You need to stay away from pretending to be something that you aren't or for believing in something that you don't and you need to say, this is who we are, this is what we stand for, and lean into the things you don't know.
