The story of how experiential marketing became a blue ocean for philosophers

1.      Wrong idea about a philosopher:

Bookworm sitting in the corner of a dusty old library reading an even dustier book.

Philosophers like most things in life come in different shapes and sizes. Contemporary philosophers, however, occupy themselves with a broad scope of current issues, from ecological thought and movements, to the European crisis, the flaws of the prison systems, sustainability, quantum physics, art, and, yes experiential marketing. Surely not everything happens inside the same head and at the same time. The point is that philosophy is a discipline deeply rooted by its interest in contemporary life.

So, why would philosophers have anything worthwhile to say about marketing?

The answer is simple: philosophers are expert communicators with a highly structured mind. Being an expert communicator means truly knowing how to persuade, how and when to use arguments and when emotional messages, and how to create structural profiles based on qualitative or incomplete information. If these skills are not enough to give them an advantage over most marketers I know, keep in mind that they have also the uncanny ability to see problems from a myriad of different angles, which can be of great help when managing teams and clients. If you ever had a client asking for something that seems entirely at odds with his own goals, no one better than a philosopher to explain why a different course of action should be taken. This ability to transform problems into reasonable silutions is fundamental, because it would allow you to, in this particular case, approach the client from his own point of view making the at times impossible task of changing someone’s mind a feasible possibility.

‘Hmm this surely doesn’t sound so bad, but you said something about ‘experiential marketing’…

 Yes! I refer to experiential marketing for one important reason. The creation of consumer experiences, whether at the level of the offering or of the marketing efforts requires for a complex network to be created with a sole aim in mind—effectiveness! The hard truth is that most people learn by doing or by trial and error, which can be extremely costly for a company and which can leave a stain on a marketing manager’s reputation.

Philosophers are not only able to envision this network, without losing track of its complexities, but they are also able to provide an additional and incredibly valuable insight on human experience itself. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not some abstract or perhaps even mystical story about the human spirit—although you may get that when you go for after work drinks. Their insight is valuable because it provides you, on the contrary, with a perspective on experience based on precisely those material means at your disposal.

A philosopher will be able to provide you with clear answer to questions such as: How do both reflection and emotion work jointly in the consumer’s mind? How can I make the messaging more persuasive without being pushy? How can I expect my customers in Latin America to react to my European campaign? Is it really worthwhile to make culture specific ads?

There are many grasping and interesting figures that will help you discover the great potential of philosophers. A few of my favorites on human experience are Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari,the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau Ponty. When it comes to understanding networks, few are as illustrative and acute as Bruno Latour is.  

Written by Daniel Vargas Gómez

All you wanted to know about ‘Experiential Marketing’ but were 2 afraid to ask (Part II)

I have argued (see Part I below) that the key to experiential marketing lies in the way we understand the term experience. The term, I suggested, should be understood following 2 conditions:

1) A multi-level analysis, that is, an analysis where the different elements cannot be simply added and subtracted to each other, but associated as running parallel to each other, while maintaining a still tangible relation between to each other.

And

2) The projection of a sense of unity, which assumes the coherence of the elements collected, results in the construction of a cohesive structure, which is the network.

Just to keep things clear, the term ‘network’ is widely used today in relationship to social media networks, which are, no doubt, a type of network. When it comes to experience the concept however is owed to Bruno Latour and Actor Network Theory. It would be a long roundabout to go into the details of ANT, which forces me to continue rather to the way in which such form of analysis is applied to experiential marketing.

The question of experiential marketing cannot be taken as separate from experiential offerings. This means that producing marketing experiences is related to the task of rethinking an offering in terms of an experience.

From the side of an authentic experiential offering the key elements for the creation of an experience follow from addressing these questions:

·         What sensations are unique to your offering?

·         What reflections or ideas are unique to your offering?

·         What ideas do you want the consumer to associate with the offering at time of consumption?

·         What type of memorable experiences does your offering enable?

·         What other elements (products/services/persons) will help to enhance your consumer’s experience?

In a similar fashion addressing the following questions will allow you to construct marketing efforts that are truly experiential:

·         What concept better gathers the type of experience your offering gives consumers?

·         How can the experience of your offering be transformed so as to convey it through the various marketing channels available?

·         How can you use two or more of your marketing channels to deliver a more powerful experience of your offering?

·         How does knowledge about the elements that your consumer associates with your offering affect your messaging?

·         How can you use that same knowledge to promote your offering through the various channels? (e.g. create blogs, newsletters, infographics, etc)

The more comprehensive the answer to these questions is the more experiential your offering and your marketing will be. Answering these questions will, in turn, provide potent insights about your consumers’ attitude toward the experiential and, hence, will help you to better analyze and select the key performance indicators that drive your business.

 Written by Daniel Vargas Gómez

All you wanted to know about ‘Experiential Marketing’ but were 2 afraid to ask (Part I)

Experiential marketing has become one of those terms which are so fashionable yet so obscure in what they really refer to that its impact on actual marketing practices is limited, and its potential still untapped.

So, let’s begin to clarify by being explicit about what is NOT experiential marketing:

·         It is not advertisement driven by emotions

·         It is not a shallow or superficial marketing strategy

·         It is not impossible to define

·         It is not a different term for ‘Creative Marketing’

The basics of experiential marketing lie outside of marketing practices and, hence, cannot be reduced to marketing alone. Literature on the nature of human experiences has deep sociological, anthropological, and philosophical roots. The key to creating experiential marketing campaigns lies in understanding what the term ‘Experiential’ means. Here, once more, one must begin by avoiding traditional and often simplistic definitions of ‘experience’. So we must understand what experience is not:

·         It is not a sophisticated term used to explain things like love, hate and other emotional responses, or mystical and religious events.

·         It is not an exchangeable concept with ‘feeling’ or ‘sensation’

·         It is not subjective—meaning that every experience is essentially incommensurable

·         It is not objective—meaning that every experience is quantifiable and subject to, for instance, statistical manipulation

Sometimes when we try to untie a knot too quickly we end up simply making it tighter. If ‘experiential marketing’ is the knot we need to untie, in order to find all its connections and uses, then it must be the case that we must work it out by softening each individual lace.

To properly understand experience we must think on two entirely dissimilar events in which we use the word experience to explain them. Take first the experience of standing in front of your favorite painting (I hope you have one, but if not maybe some masterpieces could serve as inspirations Picasso, Liechtenstein, Kandinsky). When standing in front of a captivating piece of art we are said to have an aesthetic experience, that is, an combination of a series of effects: the colors awake certain moods, the figures, lines or shapes are associated with other people, other places, other times, the museum or gallery itself encourages in us a certain sense of respect and awe for what is being shown, and, finally the work will also help to inspire our own creativity—depending on our interests we may be inspired by the use of forms, colors, by the depiction of an event, the way a person’s character is conveyed, etc. Now, on the other hand, think of returning from a trip to a distant country with a different culture, and telling someone how that experience was life changing. An experience will in this case refer to our new found relationships, our experimentation with new foods, new habits, and new places, and the discovery of our own particular costumes and differences with respect to the local people, etc., all of which created in us a reflection and a sense of pride and fulfillment for having felt, heard, seen and touched so many new things. Keep in mind that there is no reflection no intellectual grasp without the many new sensations, and that in equal manner, those new sensations gain meaning only when we begin to reflect on them.

In both kinds of experiences there are two fundamental aspects, two joining lines between them:

1) both can only be understood by means of what can be called a multi-level analysis, that is, an analysis of aspects that cannot be simply added and subtracted to each other, but which instead can be taken as running parallel to each other, while maintaining a subtle but tangible relation to each other;

And 2) in both kinds of experiences, we project a certain sense of unity and coherence that work by collecting the diverse elements, so that they don’t appear as separate and unrelated, but as forming a coherent structure, a network of elements. Like all networks these ones don’t exist in isolation, but are connected, in turn, to other networks, which are in any case separate from the new one—this is why no matter how new an experience is, how novel it seems, it is not disconnected from the rest of our lives, but on the contrary it is always new, novel, and exciting, with respect to other previous experiences.

The second Part of this story will discuss how to identify the experiential elements of any offering and, more importantly, it will discuss the elements that transform marketing and consumption into an experience. Subscribe to the factish and keep up to date with the creative trends that are moving the world today.



Written by Daniel Vargas Gómez