To win the soul of such new consumers, as the marketing literature argues, businesses then need to move “from abundance to authenticity” (Lewis and Bridger, 2011: 6), that is “learn to understand, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity” (Gilmore and Pine, 2007: 3) and ofer real services that would satisfy a new consumer’s “quest for authenticity” (Lewis and Bridger, 2011: 6). In their later Authenticity: What the Consumers Really Want, a book aiming to “help executives, managers, and workers see the world diferently and thereby figure out what to do about it” (2007: xii), Pine and Gilbert posit authenticity as the main resource for a flourishing experience economy. As in the previous book, the authors are here categorical from the start: “Now more than ever, the authentic is what consumers really want, […and] organizations today must learn to understand, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity” (Gilmore and Pine, 2007: xii). Their reasoning of why authenticity is vital for business is indicative of how this new managerial ethos perceives the social tensions of the disorienting information landscape: tensions are simply a further opportunity for capitalization. In the world of internet, avatars, and virtuality, reality becomes “a scarce resource”, for Pine and Gilmore (2007: 18), and thus experiences of living irreplaceable moments are in high demand. The more fakeness traverses every aspect of social life, from political lies and corporate deceit to broken educational institutions, and futile non-profit organizations, the more consumers are under the suspicion that they live in a Matrix-like world. For Pine and Gilmore, the rise of lifestyle politics, as in New Age, spiritualism, mindfulness, and wellness programs, is a further indication that the search for meaning is in high demand (2007: 28). Like all prudent capitalists, however, Pine and Gilmore do not seek political solutions to this frustrating condition (for instance, in enhanced civic participation) but suggest capitalizing on social dissatisfaction for generating further profit. If people feel “faked” by everyone around them and the demand for authenticity is high, why do businesses not jump into this grim bandwagon and sell “reality”? Pine and Gilmore, however, in a Baudrillardian twist, argue that when it comes to developing authentic products, the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity does not matter; what matters instead is “the customer perception of authenticity” (Gilmore and Pine, 2007: 3). In this sense, as we shall see later with the examples of cooking and restaurants, authenticity is a matter of the customer’s perception, and thus it can be adjusted to customer demand, which usually derives from an already formulated middleclass habitus.
The Babushka–Nonna Experience
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