But why is that the norm now and how do brands, who are very much within the realms of producing ‘stuff', make their product relevant in the age of the "Experience Economy"?
The term was first used in a 1998 article by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore who coined it to describe the experience economy as the next economy following the agrarian (agricultural) economy, the industrial economy, and the most recent service economy.
The article posited that businesses must create memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself becomes the product: the "experience". This seems almost old hat to many industries now. However, some brands still aren't fully embracing the need to not only produce remarkable products but to be able to market them in memorable and immersive ways.
An experiential marketing agency [1] can always help you with your specialist event but here we break down how and why your company should embrace the Experience Economy to boost sales and increase brand awareness.
- Pinpoint what makes your brand special
Identify your brand or products USP. This could be something tangible such as your particular brand of liquor being cask aged in a specific way, or it could be more esoteric, for example the belief that your liquor is just cooler (We're looking at you SoCo campaign)
Now that you're able to see what you have to offer that no one else has we can move to the next stages...
- Research your key demographic
Each product or service will have a demographic that will naturally flock to it, you can break these down by income, gender, location, age bracket, job type, anything really so that you can build up a picture of who your core buyer is.
Find out what films they enjoy, what sports event they attend, music venues, festivals or bands, make a concerted effort to discover what makes your buyer profile a happy individual. This is paramount.
Now you need to know if that core customer is the one you really want? Would you rather be appealing to a younger or older crowd for example, how do you go about that? Or maybe you know that mostly men buy your product but that means you're missing out on the female market, adjusting your advertising or availability could fix that problem.
- Go where the people are, or build it and they will come
Much like in a Field of Dreams you can set your cart out and entice your desired demographic to you. At this is stage is where we start using all the data collected in the previous stages, or you can try to find them at events they already go to. Knowing what makes your chosen demographic happy means you can align yourself with that, show up at festivals with sampling stands, or potentially partner with symbiotic brands and work together to create an experience that will stick in your customers minds.
Or you can create an experience yourselves, much like Netflix did with the creation of multiple ‘Luke's' coffee houses to celebrate the launch of the Gilmore Girls special. The cache of being able to take a selfie with the coveted Luke's sign and a branded coffee cup was enough to see 40-minute queues outside central NYC locations. Or the Netflix experience for The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where a specially constructed set allowed participants to film their own ‘character cameo' in super slow motion with effects.
This highlights the next point...
- Let me take a selfie
A 2016 Nielsen [2] report stated that Generation X (people between the ages of 35 to 49) spend roughly seven hours a week on social media. Millennials (aged between 18 and 34) spend just over 6 hours per week. What does this mean for your brand? It means that getting your experience to be selfie worthy, check in relevant, and a must attend event is key to spreading the message further than the day itself.
Choose your social channel wisely for your demographic and then couple your event with a comprehensive social marketing campaign.