A great reportwas broadcast on NPR yesterday regarding everyone’s favorite, 3-million-year-old, hominid fossil Lucy.

It turns out Lucy is going on tour and will be exhibited in Houston starting next week.

One would think this would be similar to any other historical artifact running the American-museum circuit, be it Ramses’ tomb or Elizabeth’s carriage, but the very idea of shipping Lucy across the globe as many paleontologists up in arms.

Benard Wood, professor of human origins and George Washington, stated “If Lucy is removed from a box and then put on display, and put back in a box and then put on display again, as sure as night follows day, it will be damaged. It’s not something that might happen. It’s something that most certainly will happen.”

Many others have stated to the press that Lucy should be left alone, locked in a museum in Ethiopia (not even they put it on display), and her replica should be put on tour in its place.

Such accusations put Joel Bartsch, the president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, on the defensive.  He defends the decision to have it on tour for many reasons, including the facts Lucy is in a fine condition for transport and ticket sales of the exhibit will go to the benefit of the Ethiopian people (who could use the cash, needless to say).

What struck me was his third reason:

“Being in the presence of the original of anything … takes the message that the object is trying to tell you to a different plain. No matter how good the replica is, it’s still a replica, and that leaves people cold.”

This is a profound point.  I don’t know if I would be willing to shill out any amount of money for a replica of Lucy, let along the $20 fee Houston will charge.  Sure, it would be nice to have a replica available in my local museum, but if we are going to go to the effort of fabricating and replicating Lucy’s skeleton, I would imagine she should also have a place on my coffee table.

Authenticity is such an important factor for the world of marketing and advertising, be it an exhibit in a museum or a label of soda on a store shelf.  Not to minimize the impact of Lucy on our understanding of humanity, but brands stewards across the globe face the same issues with their label.  The issue of authenticity in today’s market, where replicas are available within days of the original hitting the shelves, brings this issue to the forefront of many a boardroom conversation.

I did some digging for anything out there that may show the impact of authenticity vs. fakes.  I came across a study published in Marketing Letters title The effect of experience with a brand imitator on the original brand.  The abstract reads as follows:

Imitating the look of an existing successful brand is a common occurrence in today’s crowded marketplace. It was found that a negative experience with an imitator brand increased the evaluations of the original brand. A positive experience with the imitator was shown to have the opposite effect, and there was a decrease in the evaluations of the original brand. Subjects also indicated they would be likely to purchase the positive imitator over the original at only a 10 percent price reduction.

So, if I were to like Lucy’s replica, the original Lucy could potentially devalue.  Same goes for Coke.  Same goes for Nike.  Same goes for Polo.