Experiential Marketing : How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Bernd H. Schmitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1999

Traditional approaches to marketing are out of touch with today's fast-paced multimedia environment. No longer is it enough to pitch the features and benefits of a product. Consumers now take functional quality and a positive brand image as a given, says Bernd Schmitt. What they want are products, communications, and marketing campaigns that arouse the senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds. Responding to the public's desires, experiential marketers do not sell mere products. Instead, they seek, through packaging and advertising, to create a holistic experience to which customers can relate. In this way, Schmitt explains, marketers can transform a product or service from a one-time purchase to a daily part of the consumer's life. Incorporating the latest findings from psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and evolutionary biology, EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING is essential reading for managers at every level who want to create, build or revitalise a brand or company.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Experiential marketing, a decidedly turn-of-the-millennium form of corporate persuasion that strives to elicit a powerful sensory or cognitive consumer response, is rapidly superseding the stodgy features-and-benefits approach generally in vogue since the gray-flannel '50s. In fact, says Bernd H. Schmitt, a professor of marketing and director of the Center on Global Brand Management at Columbia Business School, leading enterprises ranging from Gillette and Martha Stewart to Amtrak and Oprah Winfrey are already using such emotionally loaded techniques successfully to develop new products, communicate with customers, create business partnerships, build innovative cyberspace and brick-and-mortar sales outlets, and boost profits. Experiential Marketing presents Schmitt's insightful and thought-provoking examination of this growing trend, along with a series of suggestions (for example, how to create an "us vs. them" atmosphere) for implementing similar efforts. By dissecting a series of relevant campaigns undertaken at the leading-edge firms mentioned above, along with those at other major players such as Harley-Davidson, Volkswagen, Celestial Seasonings, and Taster's Choice, Schmitt demonstrates its effectiveness while deftly pointing out salient techniques that readers might adopt. --Howard Rothman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Hayes RothSenior Executive Director, Landor AssociatesA fresh, new voice in the wilderness of so-called marketing experts -- one who speaks with unusual perception, clarity, and common sense. Bernd Schmitt will have a profound influence for years to come on how we all think about brands and the marketing that sells them. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• ISBN-10: 0684854236
• ASIN: B000062UIR
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,122,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A New Model", February 2, 2000

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate (Hardcover)

In Marketing Aesthetics, Schmitt & Simonson argue that "most of marketing is limited because of its focus on features and benefits." They then presented what they characterized as "a framework" for managing those experiences. In Experiential Marketing, Schmitt provides a much more detailed exposition of the limitations of traditional features-and-benefits marketing. Moreover, he moves beyond the sensory "framework" into several new dimensions, introducing what he calls "a new model" which will enable marketers to manage "all types of experiences, integrating them into holistic experiences" while "addressing key structural, strategic, and organizational challenges." The key word is "holistic"; the key process is Issues

Epilogue

In his Preface, Schmitt introduces his reader to someone he identifies as "Laura Brown." At the end of each of the 11 chapters, Laura Brown reacts to the material presented. Often, she responds with questions which the reader may be tempted to ask. For products but what if a company is an industrial firm? What if it is a consulting firm or a medical practice? How does experiential marketing come into play for these kinds of companies?" Or at the end of Chapter via a brand? What kind of communities are the 'brand communities'? What about communities of real people?"

Obviously Schmitt is a clever fellow. He includes Laura Brown (who turns out to be a real person) to respond to his material with questions such as these so that, in effect, he can say "I am so glad that you asked me about that!" Of course, he then answers the questions. This interaction is playful, adding humor; it is also a brilliant device by which to expand and enrich the flow of Schmitt's ideas.

They are very important ideas indeed. Simultaneously, Schmitt establishes a rock-solid conceptual infrastructure while examining a number of different companies (eg Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Apple Computer, Volkswagen, Siemens, Martha Stewart Living, and SONY) which demonstrate the fundamental principles of Experiential Marketing. One of the book's most valuable contributions is provided in Part Two as Schmitt focuses on what he calls Strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs), each of which has its own distinct structures and principles which must be understood by each manager. SEMs include sensory experiences (SENSE), affective experiences (FEEL), creative cognitive experiences (THINK), physical experiences and entire lifestyles (ACT), and social-identity experiences (RELATE). Schmitt examines each, explains how to achieve the effective integration of all four.

In the Epilogue, he reveals Laura Brown's identity (no surprise there), suggesting that the experience-oriented organization is a "Dionysian organization and focuses on creativity and innovation...it takes a broad, helicopter view focusing on long-term trends, pays attention to its physical environment, and views its employees as human capital." Indeed, he hastens to add, "the experience-oriented organization is keenly interested in promoting its employees' experiential growth." Schmitt thus offers an alternative to the traditional organization which is oriented toward order, structure, analysis, and short term.

If you read Experiential Marketing and then share my high regard for it, I urge you to read also (if you have not already done so) The Experience Economy and The Entertainment Economy.

47 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Old & Obvious News, May 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate (Hardcover)

From the perspective of someone who works intimately with major consumer brands, this book was a huge disappointment. There is absolutely nothing new here, as should be evident when most of the approaches held up as paragons of experiential marketing are 5-15 years old. Schmitt acts as though moving past "features and benefits" advertising is a new and controversial idea, when in fact marketing to people's emotions and aspirations has been accepted practice for at least 15 years. Is academia (Schmitt being a professor, not a practicioner) that far behind what has actually been going on in marketing departments and advertising agencies for so long?

Not to mention that every possible brand tactic under the sun can fall under the wide umbrella of "experiential marketing" -- and Schmitt attempts to make examples from virtually any good marketing idea of the last decade in a cluttered and undisciplined format.

I guess I wouldn't be so peeved if I were brand new to the world of mass marketing, and maybe this book wouldn't be such old news. But even for the neophyte, it's nothing more than a collection of neat marketing ideas with little of a distinct theme to hold them together.

If you want to read about accepted marketing tactics of top brands, it's an OK read, but those examples are all around us anyway. If you want to learn how these ideas originated or how you can think about your brand in a new way, it's of no help.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Marketing Paradigm for the New Millenium!, September 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate (Hardcover)

This book is definitely an eye-opener for everyone in business of all types. Experiential Marketing is a cutting-edge yet a fundamental approach to marketing, which should be taught in all business schools. Via "experiential marketing," Schmitt presents a revolutionary framework for getting in-touch with one's customers while at the same time differentiating oneself from rest of the competition. I especially liked Chapter 9 where Schmitt lucidly illustrates the "Experiential Hierarchy" concept using Volkswagen Beetle examples. A well-written, easy-to-read format, which makes it a great reading even on planes.