⚠️Is the Authority Principle working against you in 2025?

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Clear desk, full heart, can’t lose. Well, I’ll let you know how it works out.

Today’s Feature Story shows how marketers have to be careful using the Authority Principle these days. A lot’s changed. Including what authority and trust look like.

After that comes the following sections: 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (useless) 

• Facts & Stats (spendception) 

• Get Hacking (get interactive) 

Appetizer: Can’t find your motivation? Be like Mike & find your Labradford Smith.

Now, let’s pop the top on today’s Feature Story…

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Feature Story

A Different Angle on the Authority Principle in 2025

Marketers can’t lean on the Authority Principle quite as much as they once could. 

Still works, but times have changed. 

This principle is designed to make you or your brand appear more trustworthy. It can be achieved in ways such as:

• “#1 recommended widget of doctors”

• “Clinical trials at XYZ university show our widget tastes better”

• “Trusted by Fortune 500 companies like X, Y, & Z”

Or the Authority Principle can be used simply by stating your company has been in business for 27 years. 

Today, though, Americans are more skeptical of claims than ever. It doesn’t matter if a banker, lawyer, or doctor makes the claim or they back up a claim for a product or service.

For many people, an “expert” can actually decrease trust!

Saw a chart back in the spring that showed nurses to be the number one most trusted profession in America. Military officers and pharmacists were ranked two and three, respectively.

What professions were NOT high on the list of trustworthiness? 

• Lobbyists

• Congress critters

• TV reporters

• Business execs

• Lawyers

• Newspaper reporters

• Bankers

These folks wear proper suits and have nice haircuts. They’re clean as a whistle. Too clean.

After over a century of scandals at the top of major corporations and government institutions, people no longer take the “suits” at their word. 

Cigarette companies had doctor-recommended smokes.

Enron and Bernie Madoff proved major players can’t be trusted. Madoff was on track to be the SEC Commissioner, for Pete’s sake!

Youngsters Have 0 Trust

The generational thing makes trust even harder to gain. Gen Z doesn’t believe (or care) about anything someone with gray hair says. 

Your 58-year-old Aunt Helen is way more likely to buy a timeshare from a dude with a 50,000-dollar smile and shiny shoes. A Gen Zer would never buy→ because of the big smile and shiny shoes.

Another Example of the Authority Principle Changing

Saw a debate clip of a PhD professor vs. a high school graduate. The professor was not impressive. 

The high school grad made the professor look - not dumb - but simply of average intelligence. 

What does that show? It shows if you can provide real proof that you, or your product, or your service outperforms the traditional choice or what’s supposed to be the best, well, you have generated your own authority.

This is true even if your audience doesn’t have faith in the authority figure you just trounced.

They understand the significance of a PhD, traditionally. They may not give it weight, but they’ll give you credit if you show you’re smarter than a professor. 

The same thing could work if you were selling a supplement that boosted endurance. All you’d need is a customer with a couch potato body running an endurance race and matching the endurance of people who belong on Crossfit posters. 

Best Example of the New Authority Principle

Why the heck does Alex Hormozi wear a cheap white tank top like perps on the TV show Cops back in the day?

• To look average

• To avoid being viewed as a suit

• To be relatable

• (To stand out)

• To be the opposite of an authority figure

His cheap tank top shows he’s “just like you and me.” 

Not a silver-tongued finance bro trying to get you to invest. 

He’s no researcher from the hallowed halls of Yale. 

Just a man who wears tank tops and flannel. Same as your dad or uncle. 

Your dad or uncle will change your tire in the rain. Your banker won’t. Your insurance agent won’t.

Hormozi dresses down to show he can be trusted. He’s basically his own user-generated content. 

Because he could be a guy working at the car wash, construction site, or stocking shelves at Kroger.

He dresses nothing like an authority figure who played a role in the 2007 housing meltdown or a CEO peddling pretend biotech.

The Bottom Line

I’ve no idea what you’re trying to promote and sell.

Perhaps you do need the old-school Authority Principle. 

Depends on how many times your audience has been burned by that principle. Burned by someone dressed to the nines but lying through their teeth. 

Depends on exactly what you’re selling too.

Depends on if you’re a solo business owner or part of a company with 50 employees or a national brand.

All I know is the internet may be dead in 2025, but it did some good things while alive. Namely exposing corruption.

The web made it easy for shady authority figures to be outed. And those stories were easy to share. 

Consumers are no longer in the dark about who to trust. More and more, they’re finding the safest bet is always their family, friends, and neighbors. 

So, maybe lean less on the Authority Principle and more on getting honest reviews and making it easier for your best customers to spread the word about how great your brand is.

People have heard enough from “9 outta 10 doctors” and the countless studies that “suggest” mountains of B.S.

Onward now to The Knowledge Base, including how to do SEO right for YouTube…

Self-Help

I don’t see how talking about politics benefits regular folks nowadays.

Especially online→ the absolute worst place to communicate.

Does more harm than good.

Being online at all - same.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: 83% of consumers would be more inclined to buy from a brand that used more of what in its marketing? Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Your audience likely wants more interactive content. 

Something they can participate in. Polls are ok. But interactive video is better.

Two example ideas for interactive video:

1. Fun trivia with random people on the street. Give your video viewers time to answer before the people you’re interviewing answer. Mixes real-world and online marketing.

2. Create a video contest with clues. Viewers have to choose which video to watch next based on the clue. If they make it to the correct final video, they get a discount code or freebie or entered into a drawing. Make the contest available only for a limited time.

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: 83% of consumers would be more inclined to buy from a brand that used more UGC (user-generated content) in its marketing.

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are." ~John Wooden