Fake. Contrived. Disingenuous. Phony. Inauthentic. Do your customers use any of those words to describe what you sell or how you sell it? That is exactly how more and more consumers view what companies offer them. People increasingly see the world in terms of real and fake, and want to buy something real from someone genuine, not a fake from some phony. In Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want, readers can begin to understand this emerging consumer sensibility and business imperative.

Why Authenticity—and why now? Because of the shift to the Experience Economy. Goods and services are no longer enough; what consumers want today are experiences—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 their 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). 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.