I had the opportunity in October to participate once again in the fantastic Santamus experience. It’s an appropriate topic for this Christmas week, for Santamus is one of many experiences in and around Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland — Lapland being, as everyone knows, the real home of Santa Claus!
The name Santamus combines the area’s famous (albeit part-time) resident with the Finnish word isommus, a giant gold nugget, and that is the shape of the place, built out of local logs. The proprietor of the place (open only for businesses and private parties), Matti Korva, told me that “while the outside is designed to conceal a piece of authentic Lapland nature, what happens on the inside is designed to reveal a person’s own source of talent, innovation, and creativity - their own inner gold nugget.” To do so he created a beautiful outdoor Lappish landscape inside the outer gold nugget to engage all five senses, with real trees, a flowing brook (with its own gold nuggets), a pond laden with fish, and a burning fire pit from which dinner is cooked.
The bearded Korva is a renowned composer and musician who often ends dinner by playing the Finnish national string instrument, the kantele. Through his playing he desires for guests to listen “to their true inner mind and character, and allow them to think about their lives, understanding what they feel is truly important and what they want to do with rest of their lives.”
In seeking out their inner source, guests may also enjoy a peat foot bath, or perhaps a sauna, and relax by the fire - until toward the end of the evening a giant dessert boat appears through the mist, as if by magic. Every evening is rounded off by a personal handshake and goodbye from the proprietor.
And every evening sees all five genres of authenticity rendered effectively. And not just generic genres, but particular methods for appealing to each one that Jim and I outline in Chapter 4.
Most obviously Santamus appeals to referential authenticity by simulating a world, that of outdoors Lapland within its nugget-shaped building. And because it does such a fine job of representing the nearby landscape, it also taps into natural authenticity, but again not generically. The specific method applied here we call reeking of rusticity, for the homespun character of the place shines through in every nook, cranny, and corner, and even in the age-old Finnish songs sung by Korva and played on his traditional kantele. The appeal extends to original authenticity through the specific method of reviving the past, including here the Finnish past, real or imagined, of the kantale and the Klaus.
Moreover, Korva appeals to exceptional authenticity through the method of customizing for uniqueness, and thereby treating every one who comes through the door as special by personally greeting all guests on arrival and saying goodbye to them on departure, and letting them find their unique gold nugget in between. And, finally, he evokes influential authenticity in enabling each guest to find his own inner gold nugget, his figurative isommus, via making business art. For not only the music - which all guests often join in singing - but the cooking, the presentation of dessert, the foot baths, the sauna and especially the personal and business interactions have all been elevated to an art form by Korva and his associates.
All businesses should realize that appealing to authenticity generally involves not a laser-like focus on one method, nor even one genre, but the distinctive combination of methods that will provide you with a unique appeal, virtually impossible for any competitor to copy in totality.
Loading ...