Rendering Authenticity Part Two

So I continue down the path of understanding authenticity from a commercial perspective(although I feel free to digress into other areas). Things have been fast and furious on my end, accounting from my absence here. I'll make it up to you, I promise.

The book Authenticity continues with the idea that many retailers design their stores with natural elements(L'Occitane, and Starbucks as examples) to give the appearance of authenticity. They then go into the idea that things in their natural state contain flaws, look worn or are naked(imagine an all naked tradeshow as an authentic model), like jeans with tears, antiques with 'knots' in the wood and so on.

In short, one way of providing 'natural authenticity'(see previous posts) is the following:

Stress materiality

Leave it raw

Reek rusticity

Go bare

Go green

The result should be that your customers 'see the results not the rendering' of nature in your products if you hope to provide natural authenticity.

The 'natural' section was interesting, but where event producers could REALLY benefit is in the 'original authenticity' realm, that is to provide events which are original in idea(not 'me-too' events) yet still focuses on the audience need for a certain combination of information, access to products and services and the ability to interact with each other. One idea the authors get into is the idea of publicly posting the date that the company has been producing the product or service(I can see applications for my old company IDG World Expo, who owns Macworld which has been run for over 20 years, for instance). For other event organizers, if being the original networking or food service or jewelry event is a key differentiator, then why not market it, together with a story of how the founders got the event started?

At DCI, where I worked for almost 11 years, I could have seen the applications for this. The founders actually started a seminar business from the basement of their house which quickly became conferences and then expos as the content in the events became well known for their quality then attracted sponsors and so on. The company grew from 2 people to 180 in its heyday.

An interesting point from the book emerges here which that the very process of growth turns the product into a commodity and away from originality. So as the company accelerates forward it naturally becomes inauthentic, that is less original and more like every other product. Event organizers take note, as I imagine that 'me-toos' can also water down the effect of an original.

Enjoy the weekend.