Against Authenticity: The Marketing Trope Has Run Its Course

By Carlos Aguilar – Editorial Director| Multimedia Producer | Content Strategist @ Q + A The Full Service Agency | Living, breathing, and writing about Advertising + Entertainment + Culture

Authenticity has become such a hollow marketing virtue that whenever I see another brand trot out an “authentic Latino story,” I roll my eyes hard enough to hit a 7-10 split.

It’s a reflex. Not because culture isn’t real. Because the way we talk about it has become predictable, sentimental and, honestly, mad lazy.

I say this as someone who has straddled two very different worlds. I trained as a seminarian (@ Talbot School of Theology), where the whole business of orthodoxy is taken seriously. Very seriously. You learn fast that orthodoxy is never just about belief; it’s about authority. Whoever defines the orthodoxy owns the room.

Then you spend twenty years in marketing and media and discover the same thing. Different building. Same dynamic.That’s the problem with authenticity in advertising.

The word has become a soft power move. It’s the calling card of professional cultural gatekeepers (don’t make me tag you) who want you to believe their proximity to the culture gives them the right to certify what counts as real. If you’ve ever been in a conference room where someone confidently declares that a script or storyline is “not authentic,” you’ve seen this in action.

No citations. No receipts. Just vibe.

So let me offer a different marketing framework. In seminary, you learn that orthodoxy has a spectrum. Orthodox. Heterodox. Unorthodox. Heretical. There’s an entire vocabulary for the tension between center and edge. It turns out that is exactly what marketers need. Not another blurry plea for authenticity. We need a real map of how culture actually behaves.

Here’s a thumbnail sketch:

Orthodox

This is the cultural canon. The abuela. The quince. The papel picado. The beloved tropes. The safe zone. Orthodox stories matter. They connect to heritage. They set the baseline. Yet when brands park here too long, everything turns into a highlight reel of predictable moments. Familiar, yes. Fresh, rarely.

Heterodox

This is where contemporary Latino life actually sits. The mix. The mash. The contradictions. The bilingual kid whose Spanish is shaky but whose cultural instincts are flawless. The household where Mexican food and K pop memories live side by side. The family who prays the rosary during dinner while the teens watch anime in the next room. This is culture with its kicks off.

Unorthodox

This space asks new questions. What are we building? What future versions of culture are taking shape? Here we get Latino futurism. Weird comedy. New aesthetics that borrow from streetwear, anime and regional Mexican music. The creativity is generative instead of defensive. It lands. Sometimes you crash. But at least something happened.

Heretical

Every tradition has its prophets. People who speak from the edge with clarity. Transgressive work holds that energy. It challenges the idea of one Latino voice. It refuses to shrink to fit. It lets subcultures announce themselves instead of translating everything for a mainstream viewer. This space pushes culture forward.

This matrix gets you out of the authenticity trap because it allows for movement. Culture does not sit still. It contradicts itself every afternoon. Anyone who has grown up Latino knows this. You can have an abuela who is a devout Catholic and an uncle who is a conspiracy-theory Buddhist and somehow everyone still ends up at the same carne asada on Sunday. If that is not a heterodox miracle, nothing is.

The real danger of authenticity language is that it freezes culture into a single correct expression. It creates a museum of identity where only the curators have keys. But audiences are not looking for museum pieces. They want stories that feel alive. They want brands that understand the messy, joyful, contradictory way people actually live.

I am not telling marketers to abandon cultural truth. I am telling them to stop treating it like a certificate of purity. Drop the idea that only one expression is legitimate. Use the orthodox–heterodox matrix and let culture breathe again. Let it stretch. Let it get weird. Let it surprise you.

So the next time someone in a brainstorm solemnly declares, This isn’t authentic, ask a better question. Where does this live on the spectrum? And is that where we want to stay?