“Creating an Experience” Is the New “Pivot to Video”
Let’s examine the one of the biggest (potential) shifts in marketing that could happen in 2018.
As we end 2017, inevitably people are beginning to look ahead to 2018. What are the trends? What are the passing fancies? How different will our world become in the next twelve months, and what are the implications?
In marketing and advertising, one trend that appears to be standing out is experiential marketing, or “UX.” The reason for this trend taking shape is fairly straight-forward. As we have moved towards giving more of our attention to things online, and the internet is infinite, we have more choices where, how and to what we give our attention. That means more effort is required to earn and keep our attention, so companies are inundating us with more content (ads). In fact, many of these companies seem to make decisions based solely on how they can make content more valuable to themselves ($$$). Thus, our attention spans are getting shorter because a lot of that content is bad, and we have to sift through it to find what we’re interested in giving our attention. While the average person may be using 3–4 social networks per month, usage in social media has become far more passive. We scroll, scroll and swipe, swipe. The needle in the content haystack has become ever-more harder to find.
Content, Clicks and Craziness…
It seems we have reached peak content. “Content is king” goes the saying. Previously, I’ve debated whether or not that’s true anymore. What’s not really up for debate, though, is that much of the content we’re exposed to is low-quality, irrelevant and/or untrustworthy, and this glut of badness is affecting our experience with advertisers. To witness the effect of content gold rush, we need only to look at the meteoric rise of ad-blocking, the recognition of this trend by major conduits of our online activity and our ever-shortening attention spans to see that content for the sake of content may not be the best route for company to earn our attention and, ultimately, our dollars.
The digital content gold rush has transformed consumers into clicks. Consumers are now clapping back at brands by tuning them out online. It’s time for brands to remember what is most important in someone choosing to buy your product or service:
- the product or service serves a purpose in the customers’ life.
- the product or service is good.
- the experience of purchasing and using the product or service is good.
The world has never been more full of stuff we could buy, and yet increasingly, people are placing more value in experiences as opposed to material possessions. Research shows that experiences make us happier. It stands to reason, then, that the experience of buying and using a product or service is very important in a person’s purchase decision-making process. We have more information available to us anywhere, anytime and therefore more choice in where, how and why we spend our money. So despite the deluge of content online advertisers put out online, the things that still drive consumer affinity and purchase behavior are related to the product or service and the experience we have with the company selling it. Global Web Index did a series of studies recently that illuminated just how much we value the experience with a company over its advertising.
These were the top reasons that motivated people to make a purchase:
- Free shipping
- Financial rewards
- quick and easy checkout process
And these are the top expectations consumers have for the role of a brand:
- Improve your knowledge and skills
- Make you feel like a valuable customer
- Provide innovative new products and ideas
Notice, nowhere in that information did people say, “I believe it is important for brands to spam me with banner ads that follow me everywhere online and social ads in my feeds that push me to tap and buy, over and over.” What’s been lost in the era of content marketing is that with more content comes more choice, and with more choice comes higher chances that someone chooses not to pay attention to your content, especially if it’s crappy. We demand more from brands today. We expect them to be thoughtful about their place in our individual lives and our world. We want them to know their place in relation to us, and to meet our needs and expections — not theirs. We want brands to provide us with a great experience.
Transforming Experiences Through Tech
For awhile, online commerce threatened to make physical retail obsolete. Companies treated their online user experience and their retail user experience the same way second cousins treat each other on Thanksgiving. Now, as new online-only retailers have emerged to usurp the market (cough, Amazon, cough), drive innovation and push us towards a mobile-first mindset, there’s a new potential for the convergence of physical and digital into singular and compelling user experiences. Everlane, an online fashion brand, is opening its first store in NYC and carefully curating the experience with panels, community events and three lounge spaces. “More than anything we want the space to be a place people come to connect, learn, and share,” reads their website. They’re not the only retailer. Amazon is reinventing how you pay for things in a physical store with Amazon Go, and other brands like TOMS, pictured above, have taken to making their retail presence a space that’s designed in equal measure for people to hang out and shop.
Apple has done this for years. Walk into any Apple store and you’re likely to see that there are as many people attending a “Today at Apple” event as there are people shopping. Wilhelm Oehl, Chief Design Officer of Eight Inc., the company who helped Apple design their iconic retail experience said, “We really wanted people to feel a sense of connection.”
The surest way to earn someone’s attention is to provide them with a sensory experience that makes them feel good. The traditional retail strategy was to maximize sales per square foot. The more “stuff” you had for sale in the store, the more potential for revenue. That model is changing. Now, less is more. Less products on the sales floor means more space to do other things. Smart companies are making their stores places for people to spend time doing things besides making purchases. They’re creating spaces designed to earn and retain share of mind (attention) in an effort to secure share of wallet.
The evolution of technology is likely to accelerate the trend of experiential marketing. Mobile is playing a huge role in re-shaping our experiences. The smartphones we keep on our person at all times acts as equal parts information portal, creative canvas, networking tool and homing beacon. Recent data suggests that, finally, mobile devices are becoming our primary purchasing tool. Wearables are changing how we stay connected via mobile and provide even greater elasticity in allowing someone to take in a sensory experience. Augmented reality is being explored by forward-thinking brands as a new, more theatrical and immersive way to connect digital and physical experiences. If you’re a retailer who sells clothes, consumer products or home decor, look at what IKEA is doing. Artificial intelligence is here, it’s growing and it will have an impact on our society, even if we don’t quite know what that impact will be. The brands that will win in 2018 and beyond are the brands who understand that the best marketing is an experience between customer and brand that surprises and delights.
Market and Manage Your Experience
At the top of the article I equated the trend of experiential marketing with 2017’s trend of companies saying they were making the “pivot to video.” My point in making the comparison is that a trend is not necessarily a good thing on its own. If you’re a company making the pivot to video by simply producing more video content, I have a feeling you’re going to regret that investment in 12–18 months. Look at what’s happening with Buzzfeed right now. That’s a company that pioneered the strategy of pumping out video content to game alogirithms and gain eyeballs in the name of making money. Companies to have a deep understanding of who their customers are, a holistic view of how they behave online and offline and synergy between marketing, service and sales departments. To implement a truly masterful experience, companies need to market and manage it properly.
And so content marketing still has a role to play in delivering a top-tier experience. The stories told through advertising content should sync with the experience someone has inside of your store and on your website or app. Originally, content marketing was broadcast-centric. Brands would pump out stories that mattered to them. Access to richer, real-time data has supercharged that process, and the by-product has been a glut of content that consumers don’t really care about. Companies are going to need to start dialing back on broadcast and using mediums like social media for its true value — behaviorial insight and intimate connection. These mediums are opportunities to nurture relationships and invite people to join an experience with the right message in the right place at the right time. Let’s go back to Apple. Their content marketing is very well synced to their experience — both are clean, simple and convey a sense of wonder, possibility and fun.
Increasingly, content marketing will likely cease to exist in its current form. As we move towards an augmented reality-driven, wearable-powered future, the line between content and experience may very well blur to the point of indistinction. At that moment, success will be determined by whether or not a company has done the legwork to entrench a philosophy of driving marketing and customer experience through consumer insights and connectivity.
Managing the experience to keep apace with changes in consumer behavior and the cultural landscape will be crucial, too. If the ascent of online-only retailers has taught us anything, it’s that agility is paramount. Companies need to create an experience that’s firmly rooted in its objectives but fluid enough in operation that the execution can adapt over the course of time. The brands that win over the long haul will continue to strike the balance of staying consistent and consistently updating with the times, and they’ll need to do it at an accelerated pace with the transformations occuring in tech.
Awareness, Acknowledgement and Adoption
It’s one thing to be aware of a trend. It’s another to acknowledge the trend and its impact on consumer behavior. And it’s yet another step up from that point to successfully adopt a trend for the benefit of a business. Trends themselves are meaningless without consideration for the context of how it fits with a particular company’s situation. Acknowledging that a trend exists isn’t enough. What matters is how a company adopts a particular trend. Whether you’re “pivoting to video” or “creating an experience”, the key is to make your effort relevant to your audience. They’re in charge now. Listen to them, learn from them and cater to their needs and wants or the experience you may end up with will be a painful one.
