The value of provenance: Part 1
21st November 2006 by Tim Wilson
The difference in value between a tired, stage-battered, old Fender Stratocaster previously owned by my mate Chas, and one owned by Eric Clapton could be more than £50,000. Why is that?
My colleague has a Rover P4, previously owned by the legendary Mimi Farina (no I hadn’t heard of her either). Anyway, Mimi hung out with Bob Dylan (who I have heard of) and his girlfriend at the time was Joan Baez… Mimi’s sister. Bob probably rode in this car, and may even written songs in it. As a result this car is worth more than your average P4.
The first question is… why? Is it hardwired in the human psyche? Are we programmed to place value on provenance? Has “good breeding” and “strong lineage” been an effective shortcut to comprehending survival of the fittest prior to any understanding of genetics, and this learning simply been adopted in other areas of our busy lives?
The next question then must be to ask what this means in the context of products and consumer behaviour. Apparently organic products are experiencing a 11% annual uplift in sales at present. Given that most consumers don’t really understand what organic means in practice, what are they queueing up to pay for? Fair Trade is exploding too. This is in fact a far simpler concept than organic, but even this is poorly understood on the street (who in the supply chain actually gets paid what, when and by who etc.). Furthermore, these two concepts are quite different, but both are flourishing in the same sectors of society.
Is provenance the link? Whether we are buying organic or Fair Trade we know that someone, somewhere has managed or monitored the product from primary production through to retail. We may not know the individual businesses involved, the story behind the product, but we know that somebody does and they are working to maintain that position. We know because they have stuck a little label on the product.
So how much of the value that consumers are apparently placing in organic and fair trade is actually locked up in the provenance advantage? If a product simply told it’s story, without being organic or Fair Trade, would consumers value it more highly?
