From Hype to Honesty: The Honest Marketing Method
Aug 26, 2025
When I was 22, I landed my dream job straight out of university: Assistant Brand Manager for Kraft spreads. That meant I got to work on Vegemite and peanut butter. It was competitive, it was exciting, and I thought I’d made it.
Until one meeting changed everything.
That meeting was about how to make Kraft peanut butter more profitable by reducing the peanut content and replacing it with synthetic fillers and emulsifiers. The goal was to cut costs, not improve the product. I resigned exactly 12 months later.
It was the first time I realised how deeply broken the marketing world can be. But it wasn’t the last.
Why we need honest marketing now
Australians are smart. They know when they’re being sold to, and they know when they’re being lied to.
68% of Australians say they won’t buy from a brand they don’t trust.
But only 30% of customers say they trust brands at all.
90% of executives believe their customers trust them highly. The data doesn’t lie: the chasm between belief and reality is enormous. There’s a mismatch between what brands think they're doing and what customers are actually experiencing. And this is a huge opportunity to do better.
Add to that the findings from Sprout Social: when customers were asked what traits they associated with bold brands, the top answer wasn’t humour, shock, or unhinged content. It was honesty.
So, why are so many businesses still relying on manipulation, fake scarcity, and overinflated claims?
Weaponised Psychology and the Marketing Swamp
Marketing uses psychology. It always has. Every brand, from your local coffee shop to Coles, is influencing buyer behaviour. That’s not inherently a bad thing. Marketing psychology is neutral. It is neither good nor evil.
But some marketers have taken these tools and turned them into weapons. The term “weaponised psychology,” coined by Melissa Packham, describes what happens when tactics are used to override a customer’s ability to make informed decisions.
These tactics are often built on heuristics—mental shortcuts we all use to make quick decisions. We make roughly 30,000 decisions per day. Heuristics help us survive that cognitive load. But they also leave us open to manipulation.
Here are three of the most misused heuristics in online marketing:
1. Illusory Truth Effect
The more often we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it—even if it’s false. That’s why slogans like “six figures in six weeks” feel true after the twentieth time, even when our gut is telling us to run for the hills.
2. Bandwagon Effect
When we see others jumping on board, we’re more likely to follow. Tactics like “1,200 sold this week” or “join 5,000 others” make us think someone else has already vetted the product. Spoiler: they probably haven’t.
3. Social Proof
We assume that if someone has a big following, glowing testimonials, or a shiny award, they must be credible. But these things can be bought, faked, or manipulated. Popularity does not equal integrity.
These heuristics aren’t evil. But the way they’re used? That’s a different story.
The Honest Marketing Method: An antidote to manipulation
The Honest Marketing Method is how we combat marketing manipulation with clarity, connection, and credibility. It’s designed to grow trust and long-term impact. At the heart of the Honest Marketing Method is the idea that, as brands, we simply cannot help everyone. Not everyone is going to genuinely benefit from our products and services, and that means we need to intentionally turn people away who are not a good fit. Marketing is just as much about repelling the wrong customers as it is about attracting the right ones.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t be extremely successful. It does, however, mean that we grow to the limit of how many people we can genuinely help. No more, no less. Trust is the ballgame in business, but it has never been harder to earn. The Honest Marketing Method is about winning back trust through honesty, transparency, and marketing that doesn't feel like marketing.
RXBar is a prime example of marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing. Most protein bars on the market have a laundry list of impossible-to-pronounce ingredients in tiny font. RXBar has flipped this on its head and made their entire packaging design their ingredients list, because there is nothing in there that will scare or surprise you. Just real ingredients, no-bullshit packaging, and a rapid scale to becoming a hundred-million-dollar brand. Honesty pays.
Here are the six pillars of the Honest Marketing Method:
1. Clarity
Define who you are, what you offer, who you’re not for, and who you’re not for. Be willing to turn away the wrong fit. You need to nail your positioning, offer, audience, and values; because without this, your marketing is nothing more than guesswork. This isn’t about squeezing as much money as possible from your customers in the short term, it’s about aligning with the right people.
2. Discovery
Help your ideal customer find you in places they already trust. No gimmicks. Just smart, strategic visibility. I prefer to use the term discovery rather than ‘top of funnel’ or ‘awareness’ because it speaks to the challenge that we need to have visibility in the right places by the right people (your target audience).
3. Memory
Repeat the right messages consistently. Branding and marketing works by building and refeshing memory structures in people’s brain. You might be eyerolling at your own branding or sharing the same message, but repetition is vital. Don’t be afraid to show up with the same message again and again—it’s how trust is cultivated.
4. Trust
Earn it through social proof, transparency, and consistency. Trust isn’t built by saying you’re trustworthy (and if you try that strategy, people will run for the hills.) It’s built by doing what you say, leading by example, and demonstrating your values—again and again.
5. Participation
Talk with your audience, not at them. Reply to comments and DMs. Join conversations. Make your audience feel seen. So many brands treat their marketing like a one-way broadcast channel—doing the posting and ghosting strategy—rather than engaging in a conversation. People don’t just consume content. They respond, comment, click, share, and connect. This is fertile ground to build genuine relationships and win customers.
6. Advocacy
When customers are nurtured and delighted, they stick around and spread the word. Advocacy happens when people genuinely want others to experience your work—not because you offered them a discount to refer a friend.
Here are six things you can start doing today to put the Honest Marketing Method into practice.
Solve a real problem. Too many brands are created for self-serving reasons. You need to have a robust understanding of the business case behind your brand: your offer, who it’s for, and what problem it’s solving or goal it’s fulfilling. Do your research (then do some more) and for the love of God, talk to real people in your target audience to evaluate if this is something they genuinely need, how much they’d pay for it, and where the gaps are. No amount of good marketing is going to solve a flawed business model.
Use concrete language. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If your copy uses words like “elevate”, “supercharge”, and “skyrocket”, you need to go back to the drawing board. It is not our job to overhype and make things sound better than they are. Specificity leads to authenticity. Avoid exaggeration, half-truths, and hyperbole—consumers have finely tuned bullshit detectors and they can see through the smoke and mirrors. Use simple, visual language. Here are some examples of swapping wishy-washy language to concrete language:
Supercharge your business and skyrocket your success vs Stop spinning your wheels. Discover exactly where to focus your marketing to get more sales and less overwhelm.
Unlock your potential and scale to 7 figures vs Pinpoint the exact bottlenecks slowing your growth and learn how to break through them.
The ultimate blueprint to thrive in your industry vs Get the Focus Framework: the strategies behind global brand growth, made simple for small businesses.
Use customer-led claims. Too many small businesses use founder-led claims, like “I work four hours a day and make six figures in my business”. You cannot guarantee that customers will be able to replicate your success in the way you achieved it—there are simply too many variables at play. Instead, share your customers' results. For example, inside Marketing Circle, our members have increased their revenue by 185%, profit by 206%, and grown their email list by 3%. This sets the tone for what new customers can expect, rather than trying to sell them on replicating my success.
Find communities of values-aligned humans. There is strength in numbers, and finding your people in business is vital for it to be sustainable across the long term. Connect with your community, find good role models, and nurture these relationships.
Flex your creative muscles. Capture attention with bold moves, not bold claims. Stop following the pack and listen to the fire within you; this will help you create marketing that makes people feel something.
Meet fire with fire. If the online business world is filled with seven-figure screenshots and “you can have it all” messaging, we need to do something different. Ethical marketers can use heuristics too—but with honesty.
One example is the Pratfall Effect. When a brand admits a minor flaw or shortcoming, customers actually find them more trustworthy. Buckley’s cough syrup has used the line “It tastes awful. And it works.” for close to a century. It works because we know it’s honest, and admitting a weakness upfront instantly makes this brand more human.
You can use this too. Acknowledge trade-offs. Be real about what your product doesn’t do. Tell the truth, and people will lean in.
Put the Honest Marketing Method to work
The Honest Marketing Method is more than a framework; it’s a way to future-proof your brand and grow without compromising your integrity (and sanity).
Inside Marketing Circle, we don’t just talk about this method—our members are trained and certified in it. That means you’ll have a proven process to attract, convert, and retain customers ethically, while cultivating the type of trust that will help your business thrive.
If you’re ready to ditch the gimmicks and shady guru tactics, and market your business to win without selling out, join us inside Marketing Circle.
Written By
Mia Fileman
Marketing Strategist
Author
Mia Fileman
Marketing Strategist and Founder
