BBQ sauce: "authentic food court flavor"

James Gilmore and Joe Pine, authors of the famous business book Experience Economy, are visiting with us at Institute for the Future today. Their new book, Authenticity, is about the quest for truly "real" things and what that means for biz strategy. Basically, it explores why companies should keep it real even if they're selling something fake. (Think Las Vegas, for example.) Joe and Jim just told me about Bourbon Chicken Grill'N Dip, a BBQ sauce that has this amazing tagline on the label: "Authentic Food Court Flavor." I love it almost as much as if they promoted the use of "real artificial flavoring!" Link to Bourbon Chicken Sauce, Link to buy the book Authenticity, Link to Authenticity site

• [Moon]

  Everybody uses Cattlemen’s Barbecue sauce.

• [subaculture]

  Reminds me of the ‘Genuine’ Fake Watches signs in kusadasi (Turkey)
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/irish-guy/2533071633/

• [OceanSpring]

  Hi all, thanks for all the comments. Regarding the hot topic of authenticity, let me ask you all a question, “How many of you know how bourbon chicken is authentically made in food courts?” That’s the fundamental question you have to ask yourselves first to examine if our bourbon chicken sauces are truly authentic.

  The reason why we can boldly say our sauces are authentic is because we run restaurants in mall food courts, and not to anyone’s surprise, we sell bourbon chicken. It ususally takes a few steps to make the sauces, and some of the ingredients are not familiar to everyone. With the bottled sauces confusion and hassle are greatly reduced, and time saved. If you follow our recipes you should be able to achieve the authentic flavor, but to duplicate the mall vibe, well, that’s beyond our abilities.

  Our marketing strategy is being honest with our customers, and thus we put authentic on our labels. It’s just that simple.

  Oh, if you don’t like our old website, check out the new one: http://www.oceanspringfood.com. Hope you will like it a little bit better.

  Ocean Spring LLC
  info at oceanspringfood dot com

• [stratosfyr]

  I learned how to make lemon sauce (as in lemon chicken) recently. Surprisingly, it’s just lemon juice and sugar, boiled until saucy.

  I was expecting something more complicated.

• [Halloween Jack]

  Don’t forget genuine Swarovski crystals, aka glass.

• [wtmesq]

  My favorite of all time is “Genuine Zirconium”. I mean I wouldnt want a fake, fake diamond, No siree. Only real fake diamonds for me….

• [maxoid]

  man, if i don’t get that food court feeling, it just ain’t the same.

• [aj]

  Real or fake, their website is pretty hideous, and severely overdesigned.

• [Anonymous]

  It’s a pretty good selling point to me. I like that food court chicken!

• [Thorzdad]

  I always cringe when some infomercial for some “collectible” makes sure to mention the “certificate of authenticity” that comes with the item. As in “yes, this is an authentic product from an authentic factory”?

• [ridl]

  I went to the Burger King recently and noticed their table-top ad for Flurries or Freezies or whatever they call their milkshake-like semi-frozen substances proudly proclaimed they are “Made With Real Ingredients!”

  Sadly I didn’t have any camera-equipped gadget with me to offer proof you all on the Nets, but I get tingly and happy every time I think of it anyway. No fictional ingredients for Burger King!

• [royaltrux]

  Reminds me of Stubbs BBQ sauce. ( http://www.stubbsbbq.com/ ) But, they claim real authenticity, not a snarky food court reference.

  It looks like a delicious home recipe from a kindly old African American Gentleman. But the first (or second) ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Bleah! When did he start putting that in the stuff he feeds his kids!

• [Fnarf]

  An awful lot of Kindly Old African American Gentlemen start off their barbecue sauce with Karo Brand Corn Syrup, and always have.

  One of my favorite moments on Martha Stewart’s show was when she had an old black guy on for a barbecue segment, and he said “now salt” and dumped in a bunch of salt, and she said “what kind of salt do you use, is this Mediterranean sea salt, or –” and he cut her off with a curt “no, no, it’s salt, just salt” and you could almost see the thought balloon over his head reading “damn fool woman talking about what kind of salt, hmmpf” but of course he was much too polite to say it.

• [Tommy]

  This month’s Cook’s Country magazine had a quick and easy recipe for a mustard-based BBQ sauce.

  I may never buy bottled sauce again.

• [Aloisius]

  I only buy food made with real ingredients. Virtual ingredients just aren’t substantive enough for me.

• [dculberson]

  “Made With Real Ingredients!”

  Reminds me of a cheap tool I bought, the backer card read “Professional Manufacture!” I should hope that the people making the tool did that for a living.

• [Takuan]

  wait till we get the electrodes implanted

• [Beanolini]

  The word ‘authentic’ is one of my pet hates. In my experience, if it can’t be replaced by a more apposite word (e.g. ‘genuine’, ‘accurate’, ‘verified’), it signifies fakery cashing in on misplaced aspiration.

  ‘Authentic food court flavour’ is clearly the latter- it’s not purporting to be the actual flavouring used in food courts; just an ersatz representation.

  …and from a quick reading of the book’s website, it appears to be aimed at marketers trying to establish ‘authenticity’ for their products; i.e. promoting perceived value over actual merit. The words first, wall, and revolution spring to mind.