Authenticity a brilliant basis for marketing but no guarantee of quality
Salesmanship plays a big part in creating brands but keeping it real for consumers is paramount
Karan Bilimoria, co-founder and chairman of the British-based Cobra Beer company, recently explained what happened when his restaurant customers were informed that Cobra had established a British production line for its beer, meaning that supplies would no longer be imported from India.
These customers were appalled, because Cobra had developed a highly successful niche supplying Britain's Indian restaurants, and they wanted to maintain the integrity of their offerings. The restaurateurs insisted that their customers would be most reluctant to order Cobra if they knew it was no longer being produced in India.
Authenticity has become a much bigger issue when it comes to products like wine
Bilimoria claimed that they had missed the point, because the beer was still being made according to Cobra's recipe, and that retail customers were more focused on taste than place of origin. Nonetheless Cobra's entire marketing revolves around its "Indian-ness".
This raises an important issue about the authenticity of goods. In Hong Kong, this issue hardly needs explaining, as mainland visitors flood shops in search of authentic goods ranging from baby milk formula to handbags. These products are available across the border, but, for mainland consumers, their authenticity can only be guaranteed by purchases made here.
Hong Kong's experience with matters of authenticity is extreme, because of mainlanders' lack of trust in goods made and sold in their own country, but it is a widespread issue that heavily influences sales elsewhere.
Authenticity in other countries is mainly about provenance and image, which explains why, for example, fashion houses emphasise their origin as being French or Italian, while meat suppliers in Australia and New Zealand are able to command premium prices on the basis of the origin of the meat.
Ironically, communist Cuba retains a premium price for its cigars although many of the Cubans running well-known cigar companies left after the revolution and use the same methods, and in some cases, the same tobacco, to make cigars elsewhere, but these command lower prices.