At an important dinner for you, how much more would you pay for the same wine that you get in a supermarket for $ 100? How much more would you pay for a coffee at the Café de Paix in Paris?
These kinds of questions are unconsciously resolved in the minds of consumers. The answer depends on the value of the Shopping Experience.
Creators of Experiences
In almost all the acts of our lives, we have the option to choose. Thus, a basic need can be satisfied either with the acquisition of commodities, or with products obtained in a place where you want to spend time and gladly pay more for what you buy.
The economy of experience ascends by steps. We have at a basic level the commodities: fungible goods, followed by products: tangible goods, then services: intangible and as a last step memorable experiences.
Most companies are in a position to manufacture products that meet generic needs, while the most innovative companies are focusing on building memorable experiences by appealing to the sensory and perceptual.
Chief Experiential Officers
Many companies begin to have a new position in their organization charts: the Chief Experiential Officers, who know about the disciplines of the new behavioral sciences, art, art and architecture and their contributions to the stimulation of the sense organs..
The "creators of experiences" rely on Visual Marketing to achieve from orderly exhibitions to real stage sets that represent experiences that exceed customer expectations.
Visual Marketing for whom?
The Visual Marketing is a selection of tools that enable the staging of an experience, on the premises. From the years as a teacher of Visual Marketing courses in retail chains, I rescue that once you are taught to be aware of the elements of design, even the most basic, these change personal perceptions and become part of life everyday. Colors, textures, shapes, details help to awaken memorable sensations.
Thinking about employee training, a question arises that many companies seem to forget: how to build memorable experiences for customers, when these are not valid for employees? What "affection" will a retailer from a retail chain have for her task when, when asked about a product, her colleagues say "Ask the girl who fits"?
Successful management of the shopping experience
As in any creative act, the good result does not come from inspiration devoid of content, but can only come from knowledge. Successful management is based on the proper definition of the Purchase Experience, the clustering of customers and their needs, and a strong coherence between objectives and tactics to satisfy them.
For this, we work on factors that influence emotional aspects: colors, lighting, music, smells, tastes and touch.
Every time a store opens, a play is staged and it is inevitable to go to design, creative act. We thus pose a double problem: How is a creative act distinguished? How do you know if it fulfills its purpose or not? In the theater intuition is asserted; for business, intuition confronted with consumer behavior.
For the staging of the experience we must consider the following aspects:
- Prepare a story that allows identifying the main characteristics of the client. What are their interests, opinions, and attitudes towards certain life situations in general? Define the thematic axis of the experience, which emerges from the knowledge of the client's needs (expressed, real, delight or secret). Consider the products or product category that will be part of the experience. Determine the degree of participation that the client is expected to have in the experience, which can be: Educational, Escapist, Entertainment or Aesthetic. Develop and supervise the production in detail, dwelling on the component elements of the scenery.Establish the space assigned to the staging, considering that it must allow people to transit and interact in it. Define the materials to be used for construction.
In design there is a function, but beyond it, there is its expression.
