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Why - and why now? Because of the shift in the Experience Economy. Goods and services
are no longer enough; what consumer want today are experience - memorable events that
engage them in an inherently personal way. As paid-for experiences proliferate, people now
decide where and when to spend their money and time - the currency of experiences - as
much if not more than they deliberate on what and how to buy (the purview of goods and
services). (1) But in a world increasingly filled with deliberately and sensationally staged
experiences - an increasingly unreal world - consumers choose to buy or not buy based on
how real they perceive an offering to be. Business today, therefore, is all about being real.
Original. Genuine. Sincere. Authentic.
In any industry where experiences come to the fore, issues of authenticity follow closely
behind. Think of Disneyland. No place before or since its opening in 1955 has provoked
more debate on authenticity within modern culture, nor has any other business sparked
more controversy on the effect of commercial activity on the reality of modern living than
the Walt Disney Company.
(2) Or think coffee. Starbucks earns several dollars for every cup of coffee, over and above
the few cents the beans are worth, precisely because it has learned to stage a distinctive
coffee-drinking experience centered on the ambience of each place and the theatre of
making each cup. Perhaps no other company in the world more earnestly and steadfastly
seeks to render authenticity ー resolutely shaping how real consumers perceive it to be. The
task has become harder and harder, however, as Starbucks has grown from one shop in
Seattle to over 13,000 venues around the world, for nothing kills authenticity like ubiquity.
The success of Starbucks no longer depends on its operational prowess or taste superiority;
it lies solely in sustaining coffee drinkers' perception of the Starbucks experience as
authentic.
(3) Now that the Experience Economy has reached full flower - supplanting the Service
Economy as it had in turn overtaken the Industrial Economy, which itself had replace the
Agrarian Economy - such issues of authenticity now bear down on not only all experience
offerings but across all of the economyY.
