The Importance of Keeping it Real

Today's world of media is more saturated than ever, as companies' online presence is becoming of increased importance. However, only so much space exists in the already overcrowded minds of young adults. Brands are continuously contesting for the attention of adolescents. As a result, young consumers have created a mechanism to protect themselves from the significant quantity of persuasion attempts every day. Brands have started producing Branded entertainment (BE) in order to provide consumers with real value, hoping to achieve brand resonance and loyalty in return, as opposed to direct sales. This works most effectively when employing a resonant authentic narrative. This study aims to answer the research question: "How do adolescents (18-25) perceive the authenticity of Gymshark's branded entertainment? It will attempt to do so by conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews in order to fully grasp what authenticity means to consumers. Subsequently, a thematic analysis will be conducted in order to formulate multiple patterns that emerged from the large quantity of data. The first theme displayed the significance of the main premise of BE, which is providing genuine value. Participants indicated that they were not bothered by the apparent commercial nature of BE as long as value was provided. Secondly, participants found the authenticity of BE to be dependent on the extent to which they were able to identify with the influencer/content. Identification was possible through perceived body and lifestyle similarity. However, most participants indicated that a large extent of Gymshark content felt inauthentic to them due to the perceived unobtainable nature of both bodies and lifestyles represented. Third, the continuity of Gymshark's branded entertainment was doubted in some cases, as participants found it difficult to identify with the predominantly entertaining content due to the lack of values presented. However, the events were deemed relatable. Lastly, the quality of Gymshark clothes was found to have decreased over the years, even though product quality explained the largest part of brand authenticity according to consumers. The overarching theme found that adolescents expect company's like Gymshark to be real, displaying transparency, relatability and honesty across all forms of communications. This thesis is limited due to participants being asked to think about BE very deeply, it is possible that this evaluation does not fully align with the way they ordinarily evaluate brand communication. Future research could focus on this thesis' observation that adolescent wish to take matters into their own hands when it comes to their engagement with brands. Although this observation was true for this sample, a quantitative overview of the ways in which consumers deal with persuasion attempts would be insightful.