First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers and friends. It’s been a great year for me, with the continuing to learn about growing a new business from a series of ideas…
Back to my study of the the book, Authenticity. First of all, I am finally becoming conscious of of products and services which say “authentic” this or ‘real’ that(as in ‘real cheese flavor’). From these products, I guess there must be a sense from the person experiencing them that they are not real or authentic and the producer needs to convince them otherwise….So why market them that way? Well doing so seems to sell the products….
In fact a competition seems to be happening between producers between what competing products are more ‘real’. It makes me wonder whether I myself am a sucker for this type of advertising, let’s see…in the past 24 hours I bought a gas station hot dog and some gas…beyond that? I ate lunch at an an Italian chain restuarant called Bertucci’s (http://www.bertuccis.com/), which has audience noise when you access the website(slighly eery when you are working in the home office), and ate dinner at an Indian restaurant with my father (http://www.littleindiawaltham.com/index.html), so unless I was seduced years ago by Bertucci’s years ago, I guess I am clear there….
The competition includes the vineyards of Champagne, Chablis and Bourgogne in France actually spending money trying to combat the numerous non-French vineyards pumping out ‘inauthentic’ champagne, etc….so I guess it’s a REAL competition since the actual authentic brands are having to stick up for themsleves. Disgusting.
So what does Gilmore and Pine say about the flood of inauthentic?
1) The existence of fake phenomena pushes the issue of authenticity to the fore;
2) Business enterpises generate new economic output based judged predominently is valuable or invaluable based upon whether consumers find it authentic or inauthentic;
3) The prevalence of so much ‘real’ and ‘fake’ language in the packaging and advertising copy touting this economic output proves that companies and their supporting ad agencies discern the emerging sensibility.
Therefore if you claim to be authentic, you are seen to be fake….As I go along out with my friends as they meet women, learning how not to be literal with what they have to offer to a women(ie to speak in subtext) is as much of an education as being authentic in offering product seems to be…
So following my thinking as I turned the page, they offer the following three axioms:
1) If you are authentic, then you don’t have to say you are;
2) If you say you are authentic, then you had better be; and
3) It’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you are.
Food for thought. Here’s to a prosperous 2008 to each of you.
PS I also just found out(from the book) that many ‘Close Door’ buttons in elevators are actually fakes(ie not functioning)…