Cardboard People, Photoshopped Beauty and Real Brands

This is supposed to be the age of transparency, empathy and connectedness. Can we please agree on what the real brand is?
Advertising is photo enhanced. Situations are all about perfect locations, beautiful happy moments or scary ones depending on product category. Advertising success invariably is shown as looking down upon someone else. Deviousness instead of playfulness gets you to the perfect family plan. All in the name of creative license. Fair enough.
You are after all an informed customer, making informed choices about your favourite brands. Yet you wonder about the intent of the brand?
Brand celebrities ask people to trust them. It’s known they don’t use the products they promote. They just hold them in their hands. So what if the customers lose health, money, feel vulnerable due to the dubious benefits of the product. There is always the exclamation mark in small print or spoken in faster language that saves everyone. Due diligence by the celebrity is rarely important. You are told customers understand that the celeb is play acting and it helps in sales. The big tick in sales is all that matters. Not what happens later. The mis-sold house, insurance or health product, the bad service is not something that concerns the celebrity. The marketing game is on.
You are told that the reputation management tools take care of customer concerns and everything is fine.
Shaving brands tell you how to treat women by shaving more. Yet are conspicuously silent on the biggest issues of the day. There is a perfectly better way to talk family products and plans. Devious methods is not one of them.
You are told that privacy is gone and that if you did not pay for the product you are the product.
You wonder about your data and your favourite brands desperate attempts to monetize your transactions even further. And even more desperate attempts to protect their corporate data. You wonder, did you have a choice. Would you like a choice? Then you wonder about products that you purchased, the price that you paid was it worth it.
According to the paradox of choice the customer will always be dissatisfied. Because of you see.. Choices!
You know that answer and yet you don’t want to say it. The choices are not that many.
Why are we focused on dystopian means and methods? Link baits, deviousness, hacking and so on. Where is the leadership that is focused on positive means and directions. Increasingly brands will need to engage with society, discuss policy with stakeholders and customers. If the brand wants people to trust them, then some methods need to change, because you see, trust means BEING REAL.
So, what’s the real brand? What does it really stand for?