Authenticity itself

Last week, I finished Matt Singer’s book on Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, titled Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever. If you’re not a film geek of a certain age, I’m not sure I can recommend it. If you are, it’s absolutely worth your time.

I covered the cinephile part of it on my other website, but I think there’s also a lesson in their audacious, unlikely success that can be traced to the power of brand.

Consider only the superficial stuff and it becomes hard to believe that anyone ever heard of these two, much less that millions tuned in to watch them every week at the height of their fame. Ebert was fat. Siskel was bald. Neither had a TV background or were particularly charming. Both were from Chicago - not a backwater exactly, but also not the first (or even second) American city anyone thinks of when they think of film. They never had celebrity guests. They rose to prominence on public television, barely a step above public access. They were a lot more Wayne and Garth than, I dunno, Sonny and Cher.

Why?

Well, as Singer illustrates, Siskel and Ebert were relentlessly authentic. They weren’t particularly good at television at first, and even after they figured that piece out, they never made a show with a lot of sizzle or high production value. Indeed, their would-be successors had much more of those and washed out almost immediately.

What they always brought to the table was rigor and ethic in how they evaluated and talked about films and a real relationship - one forged by the fact that they were rival critics in the same town competing for the same audience. Yes, that relationship evolved over the years, but it never lost its originating spark.

Siskel and Ebert were true to themselves and true to each other. Sometimes that meant they found common ground, and other times that meant confrontational fireworks. But if you watched the show enough - listened to them talk - it was never remotely possible to think that it was all an act, which is the exact opposite of the many, many crosstalk imitators that have fanned out across cable news in the years since this pair pioneered the format. Neither ever gave a good or bad review to play to the audience.

When I talk to people about the underlying philosophy behind building brand well, I spend a lot of time on the twin pillars of authenticity and consistency. Those two words are ripe for misinterpretation. In the wrong hands, authenticity can become just the opposite - an inflexible, one-note worldview. Consistency, similarly, can turn in to rigidity and rule-following.

Get those two things right, though, and you go from having a set of rules that reinforce a single thing to having a framework for making the right decision at any given moment, even if the right decision is to change your rules or branch out.

Siskel and Ebert had no right to be as successful as they were other than the fact that they were their authentic selves every time you tuned in to their show. That, of course, means they had every right to be successful.

Be yourself, and people might pay you millions just for the privilege of watching you talk.