Littlewood & Son colourises wool and synthetic fibres for products ranging from pea coats for the United States Navy to National Basketball Association mascots. Littlewood develops colours and then dyes them onto fibres in the company's brick-walled plant. Richard Littlewood's great-great-grandfather opened for business in this same factory in 1869. "This is a piece of United States history," he says, "and it's still in motion."
That kind of provenance matters to Darabi, a co-founder of the online retailer Zady with her friend Maxine Bedat. Zady sells clothing, household items, jewellery and office supplies from companies that the founders have researched for ethical practices and whose stories they share on the site.
The two women this year created their own clothing label, starting with a wool knit sweater, and they chose Littlewood to dye the fibre. "We are making it entirely in the US," Bedat says of the sweater. "And by make we mean source and make, from the sheep farm in Oregon to the wash house, dye house, processing and knitting. Along the way we've met some amazing characters. They really tell the story of the history of the country."
Stories are important to Zady's owners. The narratives add a personal and experiential component to a tangible good and giving it an aura of authenticity.
Authenticity is a fuzzy concept, but Julie Napoli, a marketing professor at Curtin University, and colleagues recently reported in The Journal of Business Research that consumers see three dimensions to brand authenticity: heritage, sincerity and commitment to quality.
Bedat says people love being a part of an authentic brand because they aren't just buying into a logo - but also "buying into a set of values."
Tito's Handmade Vodka, of Austin, Texas is another company that emphasises authenticity in its marketing. Its website tells the life story of Tito Beveridge, the founder, highlighting his commitment to quality while also pushing the heritage angle: The vodka is "made in small batches in an old-fashioned pot still," using a "time-honoured method." The approach seems to be working: Last year, the company sold 1.3 million cases of vodka, compared with 365,000 in 2010.
Heritage comes through loud and clear when a company puts down roots and stays there. Professors at the Yale School of Management, reported this year in the Journal of Marketing Research that consumers especially valued products that came from a company's original factory. In one study, subjects who read about a pair of jeans made in the Levi Strauss plant built in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake rated it as containing more of the "true essence" of the brand, compared with people who read about Levi jeans from a newer factory. The first group also rated the pants as more "authentic" and were more willing to pay a premium for them.
The Yale authors quote marketing language from several companies that play up a sense of tradition:
n From Hershey's: "Hershey, Pa is where it all started more than 100 years ago, and it's still where the famous Hershey's Kisses are made."
n From Fuller's Brewery: "Our brewery's stood in London, beside the Thames, since 1845."
The Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services reported that luxury brand managers use myths and rituals to cast historical shops as sacred. Talking to the researchers about Christian Dior's first outlet in Paris, one manager said, "It's a mythical place." He added: "These stores keep the traces of something that has gone."
Several studies have shown that authenticity - real or perceived - can affect the bottom line. A marketing professor at Cornell University found that when menu items had geographical or nostalgic labels ("traditional Cajun" red beans with rice, "Grandma's" zucchini cookies), diners bought them more often and said they tasted better.
But of course, companies have been known to slap the words "artisanal," "traditional" and "authentic" on their products without an accompanying story to back up their words. J Crew secured the name and logo of the American workwear company Madewell and began manufacturing much of the clothing overseas. Dan Nosowitz, whose great-grandfather started Madewell in 1937, recently wrote in an essay for BuzzFeed, "How many corporations are out there rifling through the defunct brands of America's past like a bin of used records, looking for something, anything, that will give them that soft Edison-bulb glow of authenticity?"
Another factor that could be affecting consumers' authenticity-seeking is what Bedat calls Globalisation 2.0, a new awareness of the ethical and environmental costs of consumerism. Bedat and Darabi look to Patagonia, the outdoor clothing store, for inspiration. Seven years ago, that company started the Footprint Chronicles on its website, documenting its supply chain with videos, articles and an interactive map. Jill Dumain, Patagonia's director of environmental strategy, says "the reaction I feel like I heard the most was, 'I trust what you tell me on the good, because you're willing to tell me about the bad.'"
"It's storytelling," Bedat says. "It's people getting to feel that connection and wanting to be part of it."
© 2014 The New York Times