Replace Performative Authenticity with Demonstable Authenticity
The medium was the message, but that's about to turn on its head.
A few weeks ago, Channel 4 caused a stir with the first use of an AI-generated presenter on UK television. In the coming weeks, OpenAI’s ground-breaking generative video model Sora 2 — adding synchronised speech, sound effects and ambient sound, along with improved physics and continuity — is due to drop in the UK. It's already proved popular in the United States.
It would be alarmist to state an ‘authenticity crisis’ is coming to the world of video marketing, but these developments — and the increasingly significant ones that will follow — will further blur the line between reality and virtuality in the world of video.
And if your business is using video, it will have an effect on you too.
As AI-generated video becomes more realistic, believable and prevalent; viewers will become more sceptical, wary and discerning of what arrives on their feeds. Whilst some formats, like live video, and — to a lesser extent — shorter formats like Instagram Stories, both of which are harder to 'fake', will weather this shift better than others, video marketing is going to get that little bit harder.
Seeing what passes as 'User Generated Content' on my feeds nowadays, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
But returning to the origin of the article, and taking Marshall McLuhan’s famous provocation that “the medium is the message”, we are entering an era where the medium itself is set to come under intense pressure. For a while now, video has been the one place to say something for brands and services with something genuinely good to say. But what if trust in that medium wanes? Even a small dip in video's perceived credibility could have significant impact on firms who rely on it. Where do those firms with something genuinely good to say go?
The answer is nowhere. They simply need to lean further into the message.
Specifically, looking at how is their message being proven? Real and tangible proof will be key. The voice of independent 3rd parties won't carry so much weight when they can be easily summoned from a few lines of prompt, but brands who can literally demonstrate their claims — through a robust process, legitimate IP, or even just an outstanding product — will cut through louder than ever before.
At Bear Video, we'll always care about our craft and creating visual impact. But we've found increasing value in initially helping our clients, who are in heavily-regulated sectors, surface the proof behind their promises — the processes, IP and expertise that make their message credible. And when that's done, the best way to bring that to life is through the good old fashioned medium of authentic, human storytelling (as long as you manage those potential compliance headaches correctly)
GenAI is not going to go away, we just need to dust ourselves down and crack on with what we think is right. Think of it as replacing performative authenticity (what people just say on camera) with demonstrable authenticity (grounded in the systems, methods and decisions that actually prove this).
At Bear Video we help highly-regulated firms earn trust & communicate complex concepts with clarity, whilst avoiding compliance headaches. If anything in this article resonated, feel free to get in touch to discuss.