Satisfaction vs. Authenticity: When We Prefer Replica Experiences

If you want to visit the Paleolithic paintings in the Cave of Altamira you have to endure a three-year waiting list and a lot of restrictions when inside the site, whilst the nearby replica is easily accessible and well lighted; furthermore, sculptures not visitable in the original cave are on display here.

The latest experiments conducted by Gülen Sarial-Abi, a consumer behavior scholar at the Department of Marketing, investigate the value of replica experiences and demonstrate that they can be preferred to the original experience when this is subject to too many restrictions.

"In a first experiment at BELSS, the Bocconi Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences", she says, "we showed to some students what was supposed to be a 1860s British Navy telescope protected by a glass case; to other students we showed the same object, telling them it was a replica and letting them use it. When asked to evaluate the experience, the second group was more enthusiast than the first".

In a similar way, Sarial-Abi and her colleagues, in a second experiment set at the Bocconi Art Gallery, showed a guitar supposed to be the Jackson Randy Rhoads electronic guitar, cordoned off by a ribbon. In a separate set, they showed the same guitar, presenting it as a free-to-be-used replica. Students, again, enjoyed the more engaging experience – even if a replica one – more than the original.

"The point is that when original sites or things need so much protection to prevent a full experience on behalf of the visitors, people can prefer a replica, but more immersive experience", the scholar explains.

The result is important for the tourism industry, in which replicas of caves, Egyptian tombs, Neolithic villages and Roman monuments are frequently realized at high costs and for consumer behavior scholars who could reconsider the concept of authenticity. "A relevant development could be the extension of the investigation to fake products", Sarial-Abi concludes.