Last week, my friend Cal Axe interviewed me for his online show. We talked about several topics, including the increasing importance of authenticity in modern marketing and how platforms like TikTok best exemplify this new consumer expectation.
We recorded the entire unscripted interview over Zoom, without any fancy production or editing, and did everything in one take. You can see the full interview on my LinkedIn Page. We don’t really look pretty or polished at all.
Today, I watched a reunion of the cast of the TV show Community. It seemed like the entire thing was recorded on Zoom. There were awkward pauses, moments where people started talking over each other then apologised, and unscripted tangents. Like my interview with Cal, there were no fancy edits and the cast seemed genuinely engaged. As a big fan of the show, I loved witnessing these actors have their own mini-reunion. At certain moments, I felt like I was watching a group of friends laughing out loud as they reminisced about old memories.
It reminded me of some of my own group Zoom calls during quarantine, connecting with old friends and laughing about old memories.
Modern consumer desires, driven mainly by Millennials and Gen-Z, has been moving towards having real authenticity in their interactions with athletes, celebrities, and brands. And this need for authenticity is even more important in troubling times like the coronavirus. We are demanding more unpolished, raw, authentic content in our media and entertainment.
Where are we seeing this now?
The mobile video chat app House Party recently went viral through an explosion of new installs when the world went into quarantine.
Part of the appeal of House Party is that it allowed spontaneous gatherings. You can casually join video calls with your friends, even sometimes without their permission, mimicking elements of socialising that we have missed under lockdown. You can play games with your friends and have shared experiences. This weekend, House Party hosted a virtual event with celebrities that you could co-watch with your friends.
Also this weekend, leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz announced their Series A investment in the app Clubhouse, an audio-based social network. Clubhouse is essentially an audio version of House Party that allows you to drop in to different audio rooms and chat with people spontaneously. Controversially, the early stage startup was valued at $100M despite having only a few thousand users.
Is there huge potential in what Clubhouse is offering?
In his Substack newsletter ‘Divinations,’ Nathan Baschez boils down the essence of Clubhouse:
“Clubhouse is working because it’s halfway between a podcast and a party, and people love both of those things.”
“By default, the content is co-created with a small group. Listening to a conversation from a handful of people is so much more compelling than watching a video from one or maybe two people. It’s also the key to the “party” dynamic.”’
“Live audio enables a uniquely efficient form of social learning. When you can see a person responding to new information on the fly, it’s easier to piece together the deeper patterns that govern their thinking. When they’re in an environment that’s not perfectly controlled and edited — like an essay — it’s easier to mask shallow understanding. “Live” takes the spontaneity of a podcast and cranks it to eleven.”
While it’s not clear that House Party or Clubhouse will succeed in the long-term, they are nipping at the heels of what is clearly a relevant consumer tech trend.
Techcrunch reporter Josh Constine wrote an article last month titled, “Clubhouse voice chat leads a wave of spontaneous social apps.” The underlying consumer behaviour driving the need for ‘spontaneous social apps’ is a desire for authenticity.
This emergence of authenticity, as always with any consumer trend, will lead to new businesses being created to capitalise on these behaviours. Whether it’s through spontaneous audio, live video, or something else - the Age of Authenticity is now here.
I’m always looking to meet and work with like-minded people from around the world. You can find me on Twitter and Linkedin — come say hi!