Experiences, by their very nature, are too complex to be enumerated as comprising any ‘list’ of elements; and the attractiveness of ‘experiential marketing’ (EM) is precisely because experiences embody the whole set of direct and indirect interactions between a brand and a consumer, writes Subhashini Kaul in ‘Experiential Marketing: Myths and realities’ (www.vivagroupindia.com).
The author urges marketers to view EM not merely as a tool to wield in the media plan and advertising execution, or a tactical short-term intervention, but as an orientation, a marketing philosophy that stretches from strategic to tactical issues. “From not just communication issues (what many proponents fondly call the creating of memorable ‘live brand experiences’) but also in terms of design, production, and distribution of the offering,” she adds.
Functional coordination
Observing that under highly competitive situations any product or service offering is an experience, Kaul instructs that branding an experience requires a different orientation from that of branding products and services. A consumer experience, she explains, ‘is created by focusing on stimulating consumer thoughts and emotions, is an embodiment of the brand, and all this is enabled through inspirational leadership, an empowering organisational culture and empathetic employees who are happy and fulfilled.’
A chapter titled ‘experiential organisations’ speaks of enterprises that are centred around consumer experiences, with all functions, activities and departments coordinated in an interdependent manner. In such organisations, strategy, marketing, finance, operations, systems, and manufacturing are all united seamlessly in delivering the branded unique experiential consumer value proposition, Kaul describes.
Experiential employees
Experiential organisations need experiential employees (EE), who are proud to have the social identity of being part of the organisation, the author reminds. Conversely, in organisations with poor social identity constructions, you should not be surprised to come across ‘transactional employees who are simply looking at the price (salary and perk) tags – something consumers do when brands make little sense to them.’
An EE is one who is happy to meet the consumer, even if it is not his or her job role to meet consumers, the author informs. “The EE wants to know how his/ her contribution helps the consumer’s experiential seek. The EE is proud to know that consumers have such a wonderful relationship with a brand that he/ she is part of as an employee. The EE feels ownership of the brand because he/ she has helped co-construct the brand meaning for the consumer.”
Motivation to change
Okay, how do organisations address the need to have involved employees? In two ways, says Kaul: One, by hiring people with such ‘helpful’ attitudes; and two, by providing skill-training to people so they can behaviourally demonstrate the desired helpful behaviours. Alas, both these approaches are flawed, the author frets.
Drawing inspiration from a quote of Edwin H. Friedman – that ‘the colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change’ – Kaul reasons that providing skills does not change one’s attitude or substitute for the inherent lack of motivation. “When people are motivated to change, they make the effort to seek out skills and equip themselves to do their jobs better.”
A telling example in the chapter is from a large Indian retailer that found the store personnel to be uncomfortable in dealing with the upper class, the English-speaking shoppers visiting the stores. “The store personnel were often feeling disoriented in the store which was so different from their modest homes and poor living conditions. This discomfort often manifested itself as unhelpful or even rude behaviour towards shoppers.”
Improving self-esteem
So, what did the company do? It launched a special five-day programme for the staff with the sole aim of improving the self-esteem of the participants. “No skill inputs on ‘how to behave helpfully’ were provided in those five days. No inputs were given about ‘our organisational philosophy of service.’”
The programme was simply focused on the participants to make them think of themselves as having the complete ability to move from ‘zero se hero,’ the author narrates. She notes that the staff returned from this unique experiential programme with newfound confidence, no longer uncomfortable about their social class being so different from the social class of the shoppers, and all by themselves they interpreted their front-line jobs as being of help to the shoppers who were looking lost within the store.
With this new sensitivity in place, each employee made an extra effort to learn whatever ‘skills’ were needed to help shoppers efficiently, Kaul reports. She laments, however, that the above initiative of laying an experiential route to the employee and to consumer-service quality was ‘a little time-consuming and too complexly abstract for business managers to understand or appreciate.’
Recommended read for avid marketers in search of practical insights.
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