The anatomy of an experience....pre phase of anticipation, during phase of immersion and post phase of savour!!!
Today, we as a ‘people’ seem hungry for newer, better, bigger experiences in life. No matter how transient the experience, nor the time pressure we may feel, we want to ‘not miss out’ on any experience. It’s hardly surprising that our lives seem like a series of short lived experiences. The days of few deep and enriching experiences are numbered. Our hunger for a lot more in a lot little time is changing our value systems faster than we can imagine and more than we would like to believe.
Are we headed towards a shallow superficial people? Are we going to be become ‘More, here and now’ in everything including in our relationships?
Is there enough evidence to say this? Well let me site a few observations…Homes were painted once in 5 years today there is a fresh coat of paint every year. Consumer durables like refrigerator was bought as a ‘will use it for at least 15 years’ to a new fridge every five years or when an exciting model hits the market , things outlive their appeal is much shorter time. Its even more apparent in technology related products a new laptop every year, a new mobile every 8 months, a new car every 15 months, there is no end to our hunger for newer things and we must have them quicker.
Apart from things even our ability to enjoy media at leisure is impacted. We would rather watch T20 cricket and at best one day, 5 day matches seem too tedious. Our movies are getting shorter and there are a few movie launches every month over the 4 weekends. Most of the box office collection of a movie is in one weekend. And news coverage is another area where our hunger for experiences is changing the way news is communicated,lots of news bytes in the first few minutes and then an elaborate coverage, so that you can zone out once you have multiple tidbits of information. Even the books we read and knowledge that we want to gather has to be in quick small doses. There is a term called knowledge snacking that is being used to describe how large amount of knowledge and information can be given in a capsule.
The appeal is not just the ‘instant’ ness but the ‘short lived’ ness that kicks in a quick rush of adrenalin. So while one ‘experience’ high is just about abetting, we feel the need to quickly move on to the next.
Like little frogs we are jumping on from one experience to another at rapid speed. Even before we have juiced out the emotional richness of one experience, we are on to the next. Unlike earlier, we do not toss around the experience in our minds…The pre experience excitement, the high during the experience and the savoring of the feeling post experience happens in such quick succession. So much so, that our memory banks are sure to get confused over which experience to cherish and file away to grow into nostalgia some day.
Are we being pushed into this or is it our choice to behave such?What is this obsession about multiplicity of experiences and getting it all ‘now’? Where and why has this insatiability happened? Every once in a while these questions pop up in my mind…and I am sure in the minds of a lot of 30 somethings. We are the cusp generation, we have lived the shift from color TV to multi media, grocer shops to modern retail and good old alankar talkies to Multiplexes. We had fewer richer experiences in our growing years and we are witness to the tizzy of experiences that are thrown at the generation today. We can see the difference; we can feel it and probably feel both the ‘highs’. The one that comes from richer slower in depth life and the one that comes from a momentary euphoria.
Every breathing moment we have newer better things vying for our attention. Lets look at it like this;
1.) People are constantly looking for newer experiences,
2.) People want to experience everything at one go and early in life
.
Together the two create what I call a ‘high traffic of experiences’ in life. The point is where is this taking us? What is this mad rush to live in the moment and creating many more exciting moments so that life seems meaningful, doing to us?
Psychologists say that we are a sum total of the learned behavior that we are exposed to. Will this high traffic of experiences alter our behavior over a period? And slowly but surely change our value systems? And what all will this change impact?
It is a theory that in the long term behavior leads to attitude an attitudes form basis of value system. Whether by choice or by force, if we keep creating high traffic of experiences as a behavior pattern, it is bound to reengineer our value system.
How?
Superficiality and celebration of mediocrity: For one, superficiality will become acceptable in our society. Most people will be happy skimming the surface and delight themselves with the superficial. Most experiences will be like travel package holiday where tourists get a feel of the place but not really an in-depth experience. People will get carried away with brief interactions and form impressions basis the little time spent on any one experience. ’Newness’ will be created for the sake of newness and not be really something new. When was the last time we saw a new improved promise being really new and improved beyond minor packaging or shape tweaks?
Deceitful social fabric- We are setting out to weave a deceitful social fabric .Disillusionment about false promises made and expectations not met. It won’t be long before lack of trust and cynicism will creep into our lives much earlier and much more that it is scheduled to. Brands will have to work much harder to give reasons to believe and deliver accordingly.
Impatience and low tolerance- The second thing that will become obvious is reducing tolerance levels in two ways-
a) As people try and gather the vast number of experiences, their tolerance levels to even the smallest negative experience will go down drastically. So no experience gets a second chance.
b) Rising expectations - In an attempt to offer multiple experiences marketers and media strive to offer more in less time. This raises overall service levels and we all know that it is easy to get used to attention. What a McDonald’s or a financial services company does is not only giving us quick and good service for their products but also getting us used to high service quality levels. So much so that we start expecting the same service levels everywhere else and when our expectations are not met, we don’t have the patience.
Emotionally hollow: Finally, we as a people are lowering our emotional quotient, by crowding our lives. For us to feel strongly about anything or anybody, we need to spend time. While we keep flirting and flitting, it comes hardly as a surprise that we will be emotionally hollow towards things, people and the world around us.
Is the high traffic of experiences man made? Or are there reasons beyond our control? Reasons such as-
Opening doors to the world- India has opened up its economy to global players and we are bound to feel like a kid in the candy store. And it is not surprising that we are greedy for the plethora of new experiences thrown at us. A look at the last 10 years….so much has happened. Coffee shops, malls & Cineplexes, mobile phones, low cost airlines, international brands at our local grocer, multiple choices to ‘go abroad’, lots of information on little pen drives…just to name what comes top of the mind. It is mind numbing.
Technology- Rapid technological development makes it possible to give more in less, less size, less time and less effort. What breakthrough earlier took years takes a few months. The process of research and development is facilitated by technology. Ofcourse even technology resorts to cosmetic changes and launches versions and new models every other day.
The demography of the country- We are a young nation and the young are restless and impatient. What makes it easy is that the young have high income and no responsibilities.
The mood and sentiment of the nation is high speed and hedonistic.
Overall as a young country that has found its place on the global map, riding on optimism and is being spoiled silly by global players who find the country’s staggering numbers an opportunity when compared to the recession in their markets, high traffic of experiences is a natural fall out in the process.
A combination of what’s genuinely new and a lot that’s been there in rest of the world but is new to us is surely keeping us busy. If it is a wave of development that stabilizes soon,we will learn to find our roots sooner than later and still enjoy the multiplicity of experiences. If it is an era of change, it is likely to impact our value systems .
The high traffic impacts not just negatively but may have some good and some interesting fall out as well. To begin with it has made people efficient at multitasking, it has certainly improved service and quality and it has opened up new business opportunities.
Impact of High traffic of experiences on Branding and strategy in the times ahead…
The Opportunities
The new opportunities as we look around are in the area of
Making each experience bigger
New opportunities will have a plethora of choices for convenience goods but Of course time saving convenience products have been there for a while but now the trick will be to making every experience large and doing so quickly. So a ready to cook gourmet meal instead of a 2 minute quick fix average dish, a movie experience in a gold class, an exotic flavor in every chips etc.
Simulating experiences, specific to target audience films, knowledge snacking, creating your own pizza, jeans or stationery , computer simulation of how a haircut or apparel will look. Almost like getting consumer to feel the product experience before buying into it. The good old conventional way was sampling, which will continue but Brand swill have to go beyond just sampling.
Converging experiences. Converging experience of the game and entertainment, T20 is a great example, Converging shopping and movies, coffee and net surfing, formal and semi formal will be the order of the day. Products and services that perform more than one function, example Bank Café by ABN AMRO, Book Café by book store Crossword will appeal to consumers.
Getting recommendation to work for Brands
Since consumers will be time pressed , having recommendations and word of mouth will help their choice.
The Challenges
The truth is that consumers are born out of real people. People’s value systems reflect in what they buy and how they buy. So it will hardly be a surprise when consumers treat exchanges with a brand as transactions and not as long term relationships. Did I hear iconic brands? Did I hear Brand loyalty? Apart from everyday challenges like breaking through the clutter and making your money work harder and having genuine value in your offering, Clearly, the most challenging tasks in the coming years will be to create iconic Brands and to enjoy loyalty of consumers..
The entire offering of ‘Brand experience’ through multiple touch points approach will be the way to go. Brands will not speak from an external medium but will need to weave themselves in consumer’s lives. A whole new area of expertise is opening up and some examples are Axe Click , where the consumers were interacting with an interesting clicker to keep score of how many women stared at them and the activity became a rage and Axe became even more closely associated to its Brand promise. The Brand advertising came in much later and actually borrowed from the clicker promotion. As against earlier when Brand advertising happened and you pulled a thread from it and took across to other media. Another example is Pril academy which trains maids to do house hold chores and dishes more efficiently to improve their consumer’s life. Many more examples of Brands planning parties and dinners or doing errands for consumers are being seen around. Branding will become a lot more holistic than it has been.
As Brands let’s keep the promises we make, not bombard consumers with false ‘new improved’ launches and re-launches. For every time we over claim we are chipping away ‘loyalty creating’ behavior and destroying trust and excitement that consumer’s place in a new product. We as marketers need to guard ourselves from leading consumers to experience fatigue and quicker burn out. This will allow us to Brand ‘stories’ that consumers will grow up with and build Brands that offer a bank of memories to consumers.
Are we headed towards a shallow superficial people? Are we going to be become ‘More, here and now’ in everything including in our relationships?
Is there enough evidence to say this? Well let me site a few observations…Homes were painted once in 5 years today there is a fresh coat of paint every year. Consumer durables like refrigerator was bought as a ‘will use it for at least 15 years’ to a new fridge every five years or when an exciting model hits the market , things outlive their appeal is much shorter time. Its even more apparent in technology related products a new laptop every year, a new mobile every 8 months, a new car every 15 months, there is no end to our hunger for newer things and we must have them quicker.
Apart from things even our ability to enjoy media at leisure is impacted. We would rather watch T20 cricket and at best one day, 5 day matches seem too tedious. Our movies are getting shorter and there are a few movie launches every month over the 4 weekends. Most of the box office collection of a movie is in one weekend. And news coverage is another area where our hunger for experiences is changing the way news is communicated,lots of news bytes in the first few minutes and then an elaborate coverage, so that you can zone out once you have multiple tidbits of information. Even the books we read and knowledge that we want to gather has to be in quick small doses. There is a term called knowledge snacking that is being used to describe how large amount of knowledge and information can be given in a capsule.
The appeal is not just the ‘instant’ ness but the ‘short lived’ ness that kicks in a quick rush of adrenalin. So while one ‘experience’ high is just about abetting, we feel the need to quickly move on to the next.
Like little frogs we are jumping on from one experience to another at rapid speed. Even before we have juiced out the emotional richness of one experience, we are on to the next. Unlike earlier, we do not toss around the experience in our minds…The pre experience excitement, the high during the experience and the savoring of the feeling post experience happens in such quick succession. So much so, that our memory banks are sure to get confused over which experience to cherish and file away to grow into nostalgia some day.
Are we being pushed into this or is it our choice to behave such?What is this obsession about multiplicity of experiences and getting it all ‘now’? Where and why has this insatiability happened? Every once in a while these questions pop up in my mind…and I am sure in the minds of a lot of 30 somethings. We are the cusp generation, we have lived the shift from color TV to multi media, grocer shops to modern retail and good old alankar talkies to Multiplexes. We had fewer richer experiences in our growing years and we are witness to the tizzy of experiences that are thrown at the generation today. We can see the difference; we can feel it and probably feel both the ‘highs’. The one that comes from richer slower in depth life and the one that comes from a momentary euphoria.
Every breathing moment we have newer better things vying for our attention. Lets look at it like this;
1.) People are constantly looking for newer experiences,
2.) People want to experience everything at one go and early in life
.
Together the two create what I call a ‘high traffic of experiences’ in life. The point is where is this taking us? What is this mad rush to live in the moment and creating many more exciting moments so that life seems meaningful, doing to us?
Psychologists say that we are a sum total of the learned behavior that we are exposed to. Will this high traffic of experiences alter our behavior over a period? And slowly but surely change our value systems? And what all will this change impact?
It is a theory that in the long term behavior leads to attitude an attitudes form basis of value system. Whether by choice or by force, if we keep creating high traffic of experiences as a behavior pattern, it is bound to reengineer our value system.
How?
Superficiality and celebration of mediocrity: For one, superficiality will become acceptable in our society. Most people will be happy skimming the surface and delight themselves with the superficial. Most experiences will be like travel package holiday where tourists get a feel of the place but not really an in-depth experience. People will get carried away with brief interactions and form impressions basis the little time spent on any one experience. ’Newness’ will be created for the sake of newness and not be really something new. When was the last time we saw a new improved promise being really new and improved beyond minor packaging or shape tweaks?
Deceitful social fabric- We are setting out to weave a deceitful social fabric .Disillusionment about false promises made and expectations not met. It won’t be long before lack of trust and cynicism will creep into our lives much earlier and much more that it is scheduled to. Brands will have to work much harder to give reasons to believe and deliver accordingly.
Impatience and low tolerance- The second thing that will become obvious is reducing tolerance levels in two ways-
a) As people try and gather the vast number of experiences, their tolerance levels to even the smallest negative experience will go down drastically. So no experience gets a second chance.
b) Rising expectations - In an attempt to offer multiple experiences marketers and media strive to offer more in less time. This raises overall service levels and we all know that it is easy to get used to attention. What a McDonald’s or a financial services company does is not only giving us quick and good service for their products but also getting us used to high service quality levels. So much so that we start expecting the same service levels everywhere else and when our expectations are not met, we don’t have the patience.
Emotionally hollow: Finally, we as a people are lowering our emotional quotient, by crowding our lives. For us to feel strongly about anything or anybody, we need to spend time. While we keep flirting and flitting, it comes hardly as a surprise that we will be emotionally hollow towards things, people and the world around us.
Is the high traffic of experiences man made? Or are there reasons beyond our control? Reasons such as-
Opening doors to the world- India has opened up its economy to global players and we are bound to feel like a kid in the candy store. And it is not surprising that we are greedy for the plethora of new experiences thrown at us. A look at the last 10 years….so much has happened. Coffee shops, malls & Cineplexes, mobile phones, low cost airlines, international brands at our local grocer, multiple choices to ‘go abroad’, lots of information on little pen drives…just to name what comes top of the mind. It is mind numbing.
Technology- Rapid technological development makes it possible to give more in less, less size, less time and less effort. What breakthrough earlier took years takes a few months. The process of research and development is facilitated by technology. Ofcourse even technology resorts to cosmetic changes and launches versions and new models every other day.
The demography of the country- We are a young nation and the young are restless and impatient. What makes it easy is that the young have high income and no responsibilities.
The mood and sentiment of the nation is high speed and hedonistic.
Overall as a young country that has found its place on the global map, riding on optimism and is being spoiled silly by global players who find the country’s staggering numbers an opportunity when compared to the recession in their markets, high traffic of experiences is a natural fall out in the process.
A combination of what’s genuinely new and a lot that’s been there in rest of the world but is new to us is surely keeping us busy. If it is a wave of development that stabilizes soon,we will learn to find our roots sooner than later and still enjoy the multiplicity of experiences. If it is an era of change, it is likely to impact our value systems .
The high traffic impacts not just negatively but may have some good and some interesting fall out as well. To begin with it has made people efficient at multitasking, it has certainly improved service and quality and it has opened up new business opportunities.
Impact of High traffic of experiences on Branding and strategy in the times ahead…
The Opportunities
The new opportunities as we look around are in the area of
Making each experience bigger
New opportunities will have a plethora of choices for convenience goods but Of course time saving convenience products have been there for a while but now the trick will be to making every experience large and doing so quickly. So a ready to cook gourmet meal instead of a 2 minute quick fix average dish, a movie experience in a gold class, an exotic flavor in every chips etc.
Simulating experiences, specific to target audience films, knowledge snacking, creating your own pizza, jeans or stationery , computer simulation of how a haircut or apparel will look. Almost like getting consumer to feel the product experience before buying into it. The good old conventional way was sampling, which will continue but Brand swill have to go beyond just sampling.
Converging experiences. Converging experience of the game and entertainment, T20 is a great example, Converging shopping and movies, coffee and net surfing, formal and semi formal will be the order of the day. Products and services that perform more than one function, example Bank Café by ABN AMRO, Book Café by book store Crossword will appeal to consumers.
Getting recommendation to work for Brands
Since consumers will be time pressed , having recommendations and word of mouth will help their choice.
The Challenges
The truth is that consumers are born out of real people. People’s value systems reflect in what they buy and how they buy. So it will hardly be a surprise when consumers treat exchanges with a brand as transactions and not as long term relationships. Did I hear iconic brands? Did I hear Brand loyalty? Apart from everyday challenges like breaking through the clutter and making your money work harder and having genuine value in your offering, Clearly, the most challenging tasks in the coming years will be to create iconic Brands and to enjoy loyalty of consumers..
The entire offering of ‘Brand experience’ through multiple touch points approach will be the way to go. Brands will not speak from an external medium but will need to weave themselves in consumer’s lives. A whole new area of expertise is opening up and some examples are Axe Click , where the consumers were interacting with an interesting clicker to keep score of how many women stared at them and the activity became a rage and Axe became even more closely associated to its Brand promise. The Brand advertising came in much later and actually borrowed from the clicker promotion. As against earlier when Brand advertising happened and you pulled a thread from it and took across to other media. Another example is Pril academy which trains maids to do house hold chores and dishes more efficiently to improve their consumer’s life. Many more examples of Brands planning parties and dinners or doing errands for consumers are being seen around. Branding will become a lot more holistic than it has been.
As Brands let’s keep the promises we make, not bombard consumers with false ‘new improved’ launches and re-launches. For every time we over claim we are chipping away ‘loyalty creating’ behavior and destroying trust and excitement that consumer’s place in a new product. We as marketers need to guard ourselves from leading consumers to experience fatigue and quicker burn out. This will allow us to Brand ‘stories’ that consumers will grow up with and build Brands that offer a bank of memories to consumers.
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