Experience Manifesto

Decent Marketing

Kat Stone was with The Coca-Cola Company for 7 years in corporate marketing there, most recently as the Director of Experiential Marketing. She has a great blog and has a very good post called "Criteria for Success." Here's a brief excerpt:

There are other groups that focus on customer experience management, and still others that believe it's simply street marketing. Jack Morton did a survey on experiential marketing in which they defined the discipline solely as live events, whereas Bernd Schmitt says in his books that experiential marketing doesn't have to be a live event.

This can all lead to confusion. Who does it? What is it? I'd like to think that we can all come together and create a definition that is broad enough to include a variety of experiential methods, but narrow enough to be very clear.

Check out the rest of her blog on the link below and join the experience conversation!

Decent Marketing

Advertising: More Demand for Guerilla Marketing

Did you read yesterdays NY Times piece about guerrilla marketing? What's happening with our business??? In case you missed it, here are some highlights (from my POV, of course!):

I look at this as an art form," said Helen Wallace MacDonald, an energetic "field agent" in a guerrilla marketing street team, as she searched a Manhattan subway station for places to affix static-cling stickers that promote Le Tigre apparel. "I'm serious," she said.

Soon Ms. MacDonald, 25, found an outlet, smoothing the Tigre logo - a sprinting tiger - over part of an ad for a temporary Target store in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

The stickers are easily removed, but Le Tigre is banking on this guerrilla campaign to leave a mark on the minds of young, trend-conscious consumers.

In doing so, Le Tigre joins the front line of guerrilla marketing, a broad range of advertising methods that strives to strike when people least expect it. Though publicity stunts have been turning heads forever, mainstream marketers are increasingly turning to guerrilla tactics as consumers prove more difficult to reach with traditional advertising.

An art form? Covering ads with other ads??? Is it really a guerrilla tactic to simply place your logo on someone else's ad? Think about what this could be delivering as the brand message. We're to cheap to pay for our own ads. We don't respect other people and their messages. We look for an easy way out. Worse, we don't actually have a message of our own, so we're going to simply plaster our logo on things in the hopes that it alone will generate the right meaning.

Is this what we truly believe will offer a sustainable business advantage to our clients? They're putting logos on top of ads! They’re not even creating a clever over-lay message that would use the existing ad to launch their message. The most serious question for those of us in the advertising/marketing industry -- is this the level of creativity that we want to achieve?

Or how about this method that was also in the article:

...described a technique called wash-away graffiti, which effectively "cleans'' a company logo into the sidewalk by scrubbing industrial-strength cleanser over a stencil.

"The concept is we're doing a service to the community," he told the trainees. "We're washing away the grime - just in a very distinct pattern. What, is someone going to arrest you for cleaning up?"

Come on, this isn't cleaning any more then it's a creative advertising program. And, in many cities, it's even illegal. Are we understanding the real audience feelings toward this kind of marketing? If the Yankelovich study indicated that advertising is at its highest negative perception ever, why do we continue to plaster advertising over everything, even other ads? With all of the creative talent in the advertising industry, when are we really going to put our brainpower into creating the kind of compelling experiences that will not only drive business, but will do so in a way that brings a joy to people?

Now, I thought that the following wasn't a bad promotional gig. Yep, at the end of the day, attractive, scantily clad men & women will always be a good marketing tool!

Outside Grand Central Terminal tomorrow, for example, six men and women will advertise a New York Health and Racquet Club class by spending hours flashing their underwear at strangers, who may notice that the club logo and "Booty Call," the name of the class, appear on the garment.

"Our street team will be going around and mooning the message to the masses," said Darren Paul, managing partner at Night Agency in New York, which organized the event.

A pretty woman flashing her butt at me? Yea, that will always get my attention! Of course, it probably still won't get me to the gym!

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Advertising: More Demand for Guerilla Marketing

Harvard Design School - Experience Architecture

Friend of BEL Greg Beck hosts a yearly program at Harvard every year and it's always an exciting program. This year seems to carry the same excitement and will be a very worthwhile event to attend. For additional information, click on the link below or click here to send an e-mail to Greg Beck. The event is August 11 - 13 on the Harvard campus in Boston. Here's a brief description of the program:

Experience Architecture unites media technology and narrative to offer a compelling approach to the built environment. This design orientation focuses on the guest experience and highlights the potential for architects to integrate information and other forms of content into their design vocabulary. It is influencing the development of retail and brand environments, museum attractions, cultural destinations, and main streets across the country. Experience architecture represents a new set of values that confront designers with issues of relevance and the ability of their work to communicate ideas and emotions.

Experience architecture translates what we have learned from 150 years of world’s fairs, exhibition venues, and the theatrical arts into mainstream design assignments. A hybrid designer is emerging, one who uses environmental narratives as a design expression and who adopts a fresh list of creative priorities for buildings, landscapes, and civic places. These projects advocate a new relationship between form and substance, and they require a heightened degree of collaboration among the design, media, and content disciplines. Architects now face the challenge of understanding how the growing “experience economy,” with its intangible assets of pleasure and immersion, can be rendered into successful projects.

Harvard Design School - Executive Education On-Line Catalog

Ten evangelism and IT lessons from one of America's biggest churches

While reading through blogs tonight (actually, I guess it's now this morning!), I came across this post about the Dallas Fellowship Church. It seems that this is the 5th largest church in the US with 18,000 - 19,000 people coming to the church every weekend. They certainly have created a unique experience and they take full advantage of all of the technology available to them.

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

I found the original article here.

Young women point the way in knitting trend

Several nights a week, on my way to the subway, I pass a knitting store on Sullivan Street in Soho and it's almost always packed. Seems to be part of a trend across the country too.

Knitting and crocheting, along with scrapbooking, drive the $29 billion crafts industry, said Don Meyer, director of marketing and public relations for the Hobby Industry Association. Sales of needlecraft supplies went from $7.4 billion in 2001 to $8.5 billion in 2002.

"There was some concern on the part of the craft industry that the knitter was getting older," Meyer said. "But there's evidence that 20-somethings, 30-somethings and even teens are picking up knitting as a hobby and for relaxation."

It's interesting, how in the stress we live in, we turn to seemingly old fashioned activities. It's also an excellent example of a "third place," a place where people meet to share community. It's also another example of how small retailers capture business from big box retailers. They create a real sense of place and community. That's an incredibly invaluable tool!

sacbee.com -- Lifestyle -- Young women point the way in knitting trend