Experience Manifesto

Coke Happiness Machine

I'm a little late getting this posted, but Coke certainly had fun creating this Happiness Machine. Nice example of a brand bringing their message to live.

The First Location Based Storytelling

The images above are from the Lascaux cave in France and are estimated to be about 16,000 years old. I've been playing around with some new images for business cards and thought of images like this when I began my search. To me, they represent two of the most basic things that I talk about:

1. They're one of the first examples of storytelling. And if you've ever heard me speak, you know that above all, I believe that a great story is they key to success. It's not about how you use tactics, we've all seen movies laden with special effects and cool technologies that were just crappy movies. If you have children, think about the stories you tell them. We still share Aesops fables, Grimms fairy tales and variations of those stories and they're hundreds of years old. Remember, people want to hear a great story, people want to share a great story and people want to participate in a great story. Without a great story, you might get some attention, but you'll never get engagement.
2. They also represent one of the first times that people used place to help tell the story. During a recent panel at Social Media Week about Social Retail, it struck me that retail has always been social. The early markets in the town square were a place for the community to gather, share and enjoy each other. It was a social experience. When Ray Oldenburg talked about the third place, he believes they are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place (source: Wikipedia). While we gathered during Social Media Week to discuss the online tools that allow us to connect with one another, more then one person observed just how many cocktail parties there here to allow us to connect in the real world too.

Think of how much money brands spend on space -- rent, utilities, staffing, overhead, etc. -- and then think of how little effort most retailers put into their space. They invite us to become fans of their Facebook page, but they don't invite us to become a fan of their physical space.

For example, Best But usually high marks for their online experience. They have a good web site, for me at least, where it's easy to find information, get reviews, etc. They've been aggressive in using Twitter as a customer service and information tool. It seems to all work online. But, as much credit as Best Buy gets for creating a really good online experience, I really don't know anyone who likes shopping at Best Buy. You can't get information, there's no connection to all of the data available online and for the most part, it's just hard to shop there. When I'm shopping there, I usually end up using one of their computers to get online, log into my Consumer Reports account and then doing research on the products I'm looking at. Why isn't that information available right at the product? And why do I have to use my Consumer Reports account? Surely Best Buy could cut a deal to make that information available to its customers.

If you're not going to provide a compelling, authentic and relevant brand experience, you're going to end up competing on price alone. Thanks to tools like Google Goggles and cell-phone based bar code readers, stores that don't provide the right experience will simply become very expensive windows for online retailers like Amazon and Zappos.

Polinchock's Ponderings: Socialization of Place.

Lascaux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lascaux.

More Thoughts on the Value of Place

A few years back, Greg Beck related about asking a 13 year old when was the last time she went into a record store. She said she never goes to a record store, she buys her music online. We asked the youngster of our office at the time, and she confirmed that. She doesn't go into music stores either.

Back then, I also ran across this post, Experience the Message: THE HUMAN TOUCH:

The Hollywood Reporter has a brief interview with Judith Regan, the publisher and media mogul, for the "future of entertainment" special. Surprisingly, the woman whom made millions with tawdry tell-all books, political muckraking and celebrity gossip, sees the future as a step away from the "pornoization" of American culture.

In doing so, she echoes experiential marketers' calls for a humanization of marketing, and of using real people to engage with other real people, instead of the mindless gloss of traditional marketing and advertising.

"The central problem in America is lonliness, which comes out of consuming all this pop culture and yet, not having human experiences. I call it the "pornoization" of the culture. If you look at where the culture is going, there is no love, there is no tenderness. The images my daughter sees are devoid of love. I actually see in the future that simulating love or some authentic human experience will become what people desire and what they want to pay for."

It made me think of how often we eat at Burger King just because they have an indoor playground. And it's not just about the actual playground. It's Sydney's desire to play with a group of other children her age and the social aspect of that experience. It's not about the food there (sorry Burger King!), it's about it being a Third Place for Sydney.

It also made me ask the question, what is the value of real estate for retailers today? Does a record store really need to exist as it's been for the past 40+ years? Or banks, grocery stores, fashion retailers? If, thanks to the internet, people are much more comfortable getting their purchases sent to them, rather then getting them right away, do we need that much space dedicated to merchandise? So, if we can do away with the inventory portion of most retail spaces today, what else would you do with the space? How could you make it a much more social environment, rather then being a retail environment? After all, this is exactly why places like Starbuck's or the Apple stores have boomed -- they created a social space, rather then a retail space.

But, while people look at Starbuck's or the Apple stores and say "Yea, that's great for them, but it doesn't apply to me," I think that they're missing a huge opportunity today. I continue to think that there's a coming trend to socialize the retail environment instead of just merchandising the real estate space. And the more we try to use the space for our purposes rather then our guests, the more they'll stay away.

I'm doing some interesting research on this topic now, so stay tuned for updates.

Brand Experience Matters: Circuit City cost cutting madness

I can't say it any better then Andrew Weir did here, so I'll just let him say it! Make sure you read his full piece by clicking on the link below.

They neglected the in-store brand experience.

In the Customer Experience article there is a quote from Jason Goldberg, VP marketing for MTI, who was on the team that designed the in-store experience for Circuit City in the 1990s:

“They made the dramatic step of cutting their most expensive salaries and in the process, eliminated what remained of their most loyal high quality sales staff," ..."They were left with a store that required great sales staff, and no experienced sales staff to support it."

In an age when brand experience is a key differentiator Circuit City’s decision was crazy.

If you don’t deliver a great brand experience when consumers are buying then they will either not buy or not come again. (Emphasis mine) On the other hand, if you deliver an experience that WOWs then they are much more likely to buy, buy again and may be even tell their friends. The power of word-of-mouth/advocacy is well understood.

Staff are the clearly the main drivers of a good in-store experience so cutting best staff is always likely to create a problem. (Emphasis mine)

This is an important lesson for any retailer considering cutting staff cost in these difficult times.

Brand Experience Matters: Circuit City cost cutting madness.