| "I TRY TO FAKE IT BUT I CAN'T, I'D RATHER LOSE FOR WHAT I AM THAN WIN FOR WHAT I AIN'T" |

Somewhere in the middle of 2015 something weird happened: Justin Bieber became cool. How did this happen and why does it even matter in a marketing context? Let me explain.

For years Justin Bieber has been a perfectly harmless kid singing pretty terrible but polished songs aimed at young girls. That changed once he became a little older and started behaving a little less well in public, which made him less marketable to his original demographic. So the team behind Justin decided to switch gears by moving his sound into a more R&B-ish direction that was probably supposed to appeal to an older crowd (think Justin Timberlake). Financially it probably worked out well enough, but it still seemed like his star was slowly fading. The reason this new sound did not catch on the way it was meant to is because it was being perceived as inauthentic, which it probably was. It at least felt incredibly calculated, which is never a good thing. So Justin, whose reputation had been increasingly damaged by so-called scandals, disappeared for a while.

In 2015, he resurfaced. His "comeback" started in February with 'Where Are Ü Now' and culminated in his tearful performance at the 2015 VMAs, where he introduced the world to 'What Do You Mean?', arguably one of the best commercial R&B songs of 2015. His album followed in the fall and it did not disappoint. His comeback was complete. The album is well made, fresh and, most importantly, it feels authentic - especially when you look at it in the context of how he handled and presented himself in 2015, the year in which he stopped upholding an image and presented his true self, flaws and all. As we know, he and his album took the world by storm, reaching basically every demographic, from Pitchfork hipsters to XXL readers, for the first time in his career. Why? What was different this time? Authenticity. He reinvented himself by, maybe for the first time, being himself.

In the long term, having a good product (like a well produced pop song) is not enough if you are being perceived as inauthentic. However, if you are authentic, unapologetic and have a good product? The sky is the limit. That last lesson is something many companies can learn from: don't pander, don't fake an image, don't hide your truth, because the people, especially Millennials and Gen Z’ers, will know and they will punish you for it. So if you have lost your way, try to reinvent yourself by doing something very simple: be yourself.

One Love,

M | 1520