discarding people vs using them.

I've been reading Chris Matthews 'Life's a Campaign' while in the bathroom for the last couple weeks. The most important lesson, thus far, is one thrown in the book jacket, which, imho, makes the book worth buying (or receiving as a gift), the gist of which is that people don't mind being used, they mind being discarded.

This, I am starting to think, is a universal truth. How many problems in your life, or in the modern world, can be traced to someone being abandoned and ignored after they were used. A large part of me thinks this is the real issue behind a lot of the war on terror - if you train someone, convince them to risk their lives, and point them at an enemy, they probably aren't expecting abandonment afterwards. So, when abandoned, guess who the new, worse enemy is?

However, I've only recently started considering this in terms of branding and advertising. I complain a lot about the use of 'authenticity' as a buzzword panacea for any failings on the ad front for anyone. And generally, I've thought of authenticity as a bullshit substitute for actual value. The only people I encounter who use the word authenticity work in branding-related fields, for are insufferable hipster-stereotypes who think of it as something conferred by drinking cheap beer, and spending the savings at Urban Outfitters.

But consider authenticity in terms of the using vs. discarding argument. Advertising is about creating associations, and using those associations to create desire. At a base level, it's about creating a desire to be the things associated with the brand in question. So, if a brand needs to maintain a justification for those associations to avoid making the consumer think that their identity, which has, to an extent, become an offshoot of the collection of brands they accumulate, then any glimpse that those associations were a transparent attempt to bring more customers is the same as discarding the originals.

To put it more simply, authenticity isn't the issue. Brands needs to develop organically, in a way that makes sense based on the associations they have claimed in the past, or abandon those who have used the brand as an identifier.

When a brand you have taken on as an aspect of your persona changes inorganically, they have discarded you, and everyone of their previous customer-base.

So. Either I misunderstood, and everyone who was talking about authenticity meant this, or authenticity is still a bullshit buzzword in the world of branding, but one with a hint of truth behind it.

More importantly, take the advice to heart. Using people is fine. Discarding them is where things become problematic.