Coca-Cola has on their balance sheet an asset for brand equity, otherwise known as goodwill. It places the value at $50 billion. To put that number in perspective, if you stacked $100 bills on top of each other you would have a stack 3,459 feet high for every billion dollars (a stack of $100 bills 32 miles high). Try fitting that in your wallet.

Surely we can all agree that the real value of Coca-Cola isn’t in the recipe. After 100 years, a better tasting sugar-water could have been invented. The real value is the brand and the bedrock of the brand is “genuine” and “authentic”. Or, as they sum up in a successful campaign “The Real Thing”.

The book The Experience Economy has been around for a while and I’ve long recommended it (we even did a book report on it). The follow up book by the same authors is titled “Authenticity”. It also is a must-have in your personal library.

With 1,000,000 restaurants in the United States alone, differentiation is a key tenant of successful restaurant marketing. At the heart of differentiation is authenticity and being true to what your company stands for.

I found this clip for you of the author of Authenticity and Experience Economy. These principles are essential components of restaurant marketing.