Although marketing researchers agree that brand authenticity has various meanings, little consensus exists concerning the number of meanings and what those meanings entail. This paper addresses this lack of clarity in the literature by introducing the Entity-Referent Correspondence (ERC) Framework of Authenticity. The ERC Framework provides an overarching definition of authenticity—a consumer’s perception of the degree to which a supposed authentic entity corresponds with or is “true to” something else, which we label a referent . The ERC Framework also suggests three types of authenticity— true-to-ideal , true-to-fact , and true-to-self —that are consistent with the general definition yet are distinct. Each type may manifest in a variety of ways in a brand context, suggesting that brand authenticity is not a singular concept. The framework also proposes nomological nets that explain how consumers form perceptions of each type, how the types lead to managerially relevant outcomes (e.g., expected quality, trust), and how the types affect each other. This research advances the literature on brand authenticity by offering three types of conceptual contributions as identified by MacInnis ( 2011 ): integrating , differentiating , and delineating .

中文翻译：

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解开品牌真实性的含义：真实性的实体-指称对应框架

尽管营销研究人员同意品牌真实性有多种含义，但对于含义的数量和含义的含义几乎没有达成共识。本文通过引入实体参考信函 (ERC) 真实性框架解决了文献中缺乏明确性的问题。ERC 框架提供了真实性的总体定义——消费者对假定真实实体与其他事物对应或“真实”程度的感知，我们将其标记为所指对象。ERC 框架还提出了三种类型的真实性——真实的理想、真实的事实和真实的自我——它们与一般定义一致但又有所不同。每种类型都可能在品牌环境中以多种方式表现出来，这表明品牌真实性不是一个单一的概念。该框架还提出了解释消费者如何形成对每种类型的感知、类型如何导致管理相关结果（例如，预期质量、信任）以及类型如何相互影响的规则网络。这项研究通过提供 MacInnis (2011) 确定的三种概念贡献来推进有关品牌真实性的文献：整合、区分和描绘。