I’m reading Paul Bloom’s book “How Pleasure Works” and am loving his notion of  “essentialism”.  His basic premise is that our interest and attraction to everyday things (artwork, people – brands!) has to do with our belief about their histories.  He cites a tape measure that was owned by John F. Kennedy as selling in auction for $48, 875, or the seventieth home run baseball hit by Mark McGwire that went for $3 million!

Bloom argues that “the enjoyment we get from something derives from what we think that thing is…for a painting, it matters who the artist was, for a steak, we care about what sort of animal it came from, for sex we are strongly affected by who we think our sexual partner really is”.

In other words, the invisible and intangible history associated with an otherwise ordinary object can give it a value far above and beyond what that object alone might otherwise command.

He calls this concept Essentialism, “the notion that things have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly, and it is this hidden nature that really matters.”

I directly equate this “essential essence” to my first brand building pillar “authenticity”.  Although an intangible, it’s a companies’ passion, history and purpose that consumers care about from brands.  For example, knowing that at their core essence, Patagonia stays true to their “authenticity” or original purpose of making better products without harming the planet matters to us deep inside, and we’re therefore willing to pay more for a Patagonia t-shirt than one from another company lacking in such values.

I thank Professor Bloom for giving us such a thoughtful articulation of something so hard to define, yet so very essential.