Taking back "experience"

“Experience". That's a ‘funny marketing word’. 

The reason it's ‘funny’, I suppose, is because when a word becomes overused, or even worse, ubiquitous it can become a catch-all for all manner of things. Good and bad. It loses meaning because we allow it to.

Great brands are often built and then burnt on such meaning (just think of Hoover, or Biro, or Kleenex). With this misuse, we collectively ensure that the special attribute we once placed against it, or the light house it once stood for, is lost to the generic.

And so, it is I fear for "experience". 

Let's create …"an amazing experience".

It's all about the …. "experience"

I can't say I haven't been guilty. I can't place my hand on my heart and say I haven't played marketing word bingo in a meeting. But I'm trying hard to stop. The first step in any recovery after all, is acceptance. I’m a recovering ‘experience marketer’ and proud of it. A little bit of self-awareness never hurt anyone and perhaps now, more than ever, we need a jolt to both system one and two.

Why? Because today, and every day we face a constant inflection point in our industry.

• Our challenges have never been so fluid
• Marketing has never had such responsibility.
• Marketers have never wielded such opportunity to connect the world and its people for good.
• Data has never given us so much insight.
• Technology has never been so bricolage.
• Industries have never been so disrupted
• People have never held so much power.

And whereas traditional marketing focussed on specification; incremental differences that would drive differentiation of people (segmentation) and consumable products (USPs), so 21st Century marketing mind set switches to what connects people together (not what drives people and products apart). It feels our collective progress rests more about what we can agree on, not disagree on. The hive-mind. The connected consumer. The conversational web. The internet of things.

So perhaps we’re viewing the world in the wrong way? Perhaps our KPI’s need to change? Perhaps, new business challenges mean we’re measuring the wrong things?

Facing such a barrage of change and question marks over our solutions, isn’t it time we really consider what “experience” means and take ownership back. Or in the very least, decide collectively how it should be used, properly.

The definition of “Experience”

Experience, if we really think about it, is two-fold.

1)   It's the positive, ambivalent or negative interaction that happens between two objects (the immediate present).

2)   And it's the emotional imprint, memory, or newly learned behaviour that that interaction leaves behind. An echo. (Past and future)

Experience is the quintessential ‘whole brain’ marketing effort. And when thought through properly, Experience Strategy should holistically consider how, as marketers we’re motivating the rational and emotional sides of human experience. Answering all of the unmet needs. Connecting across the most relevant touch points and channels. Creating empathy.

Because by its very inertia, ‘Experience’ stays with us. It forms our ongoing reflection of the past. It effects our recommendations for the future.

With that in mind, Experience has a dollar value far higher than a week long, en-vogue pop-up shop in Shoreditch, or a 4D enabled poster in the centre of Manhattan. The reason Experience Strategy drives such debate and interest, is its ability and importance in stretching across a proliferating channel set. It’s “after-life” is ever present, living far beyond the one-time customer interaction. Good experience’s spread and stay with us.

The business of Experience Strategy.

As marketers, we look to the new for both inspiration and opportunity, however there is a watch out – Experience must be grounded in something more rigorous than a technological whim. That’s where Experience Strategy comes in to its own. The ability to blend business case thinking through the filter of a brand with a real-life person in mind. And this, I believe can only be achieved by blending specialisms and skillsets from today's marketing mix, in order to answer the evolution of "Experience" challenges.

As CMO’s and CXO’s become more and more expected to present the tangible business case for experience based marketing (i.e. Zero-Based Budgeting), so Experience Strategy becomes pivotal in breathing new confidence into our decisions. Marketers need options which are fit for purpose against business drivers and measured in a way which reflect how we view brands today. Trust, affinity, the data we grant access to, the service stack we engage with…Experience-first businesses should be looking to quantify and qualify metrics beyond traditional business KPI’s. And in turn they should be embracing the disruptive forces which are enabling such fluid change:

Where is the market moving?

How will it pay back in both the short and long term?

What effort will it take to make it successful?

However, for me personally it’s not just about going through the traditional motions of business strategy. It’s far more exciting and fundamental than that. We have a much greater responsibility and “Experience” has a far greater expectation on its’ shoulders. If there was ever a time for empathy – fuelled strategy to live beyond on a slide deck, it is now.

Experience Strategy should be about “us”, not “business”. It should dare to reframe the business problems of today as the bold human-first experience opportunities of tomorrow. We should be thinking about the big bets. The things which will make a positive dent in the world around us. It should be about the most joined up, diverse, creative and progressive thinking that enables our future, based on a brutal diagnosis of the market, our expectations of today and our dreams of tomorrow.

The future:

A cautionary note to the wise:

Words are weapons. Language is a currency. The meaning we build around a word has a huge impact on its perception and perceived importance.

“Experience” isn’t throw away. “Experience” is important.

As marketers, we have a collective opportunity to out-do ourselves on a daily basis. That’s an incredibly motivating and empowering feeling.

So, the next time you talk about “experience”, really think about the positive and lasting effect that could have on the world around us.

Importantly, think about the value it could create and the empathy it could generate, the opinions it could sway and the communities it could change. It’s not just about technology or data driven triggers. It’s far more human than that.

We’re only skimming the surface of our ability to change the world around us, and I for one can’t wait to dive deeper in.

 Nick Tate is a Senior Manager at Accenture Interactive London. All views are his own.