The thing that stuck with me most of many of the cases was the importance of ‘externalities’. Externalities are usually defined as third-party or spillover effects that happen in economic activity. It was remarkable in how many cases that were discussed and presented during the Experience Academy this type of externalities was involved. It could be that these are an important part of experiences in general and that they have to be taken into account if one wants to understand what the actual value of the experience is.

Cliff Crosby told us about a research project that took place in Nokia, on the most loved and admired brands. One of the results of this research was that if everything was taken away, people would try to hold on to their mobile phone. The phone is an object that people want to have near to them all day long, just like they would want to be near a loved one as much as they could. People need to fall in love.

Today, in the people age, as Josephine Green of Philips calls it, the way personnel is dealt with and treated becomes more and more important. Although according to Nokia’s Cliff Crosby, personnel is not the primary reason for selling, one should keep in mind that they are the primary input for making the sale. If you expect them to deliver excellent service, you should also give them exceptional benefits. If these people are the ones that the customer comes into contact with in what should be a highly personal and memorable experience, then this means that their personality is crucial.

Nokia’s Cliff Crosby told that he knows everything there is to know about the Nokia N95. When someone sitting next to him in the airplane asks about this phone, he can not only explain everything in 10 minutes, but do it in such a way that this person will also want one. The problem is: how can you replicate this experience millions and millions of times? How do you make the experience scalable? The same issue came to the fore in the presentation of the Academia Barilla-case of Gian Luigi Zenti. How can you replicate experiences and reconcile the principles of scale and uniqueness?

In the words of Philips’ Josephine Green: we are going from pyramids to pancakes. We have to leave the pyramid which was all about one truth that has to be communicated downwards from the top, and go towards the pancake which is more about equality and networks. This also means that values, behaviors and organizational principles have to change.

” I visit reguraly refreshing courses for professors at Harvard or ISE . This is way way better, more profound, way more relevant content, the selection of speakers is 10 times as better. This is really different”

As a frequent speaker on peer to peer issues, there is always a temptation to settle into routines, and if you do so many lectures, there is always a danger that your memory turns originally distinct experiences into a single blur.
There is one event in the year where I think this will not happen, and these are the memorable experiences of the annual gathering of the Center for the Experience Economy. One of the highlights was Mark Hansen, director of Business Development at Lego, who has been focusing his life’s work on spurring co-creation processes between Lego as a corporate community and the legions of fans that are normally operating independently of the company. This year Mark Hansen gave us an equally fascinating account of his progress. I have no longer any doubt that Lego is simply, at least if Mark’s projects can be further carried out, the paradigmatic example of the mutual adaptation of a business with its surrounding communities. Rather than prohibiting user involvement, Mark’s instinct go into the opposite direction of learning to tap further and further into it, and to develop mutually beneficial relationships.

In the fall we wil start a Master in the Creation of Immaterial value. A complete course of 6 modules, where every module will be taking place around a significant project related to experiential or transformational value.  Programme will be in Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Parma, Barcelona. For more information contact us. This Executive programme is being developed now and will soon be published.

A lot of professionals, like media and marketing professionals believe the hype of experience economy, the trick of experience marketing, seems to be over. We are at a sort of zero point. The new buzz could well be authenticity. In fact we believe that thinking and acting from a really customer or guest perspective for the mean stream companies still has to really begin(excluding some best practices). Competing in the future will be really on an experience and transformational level. And on the level of integration of technological innovations and the physical experiences. ( A lot of innovations are doe not fit automatically the customer experience. Business innovation through customer co- creation will be the next step. LEGO company is in this field an important pioneer and innovator.(Experience Economy 2nd generation).The important societal shift that is taken place is towards self direction, self determination.The role of companies will change from an experience stager towards facilitating platforms for all kinds of human expressions and to facilitate groups and individuals to create their own form of meaning. The third phase will be transformational where parties involved will change together. All generations will co exist together. There is still a great need for well executed first generation experience concepts.Also readhttp://www.experience-economy.com/2006/05/25/in-what-phase-of-the-experience-economy-is-your-organisation-by-ed-peelen/

At our partnermeeting with Koninklijke van den Boer groep, ID&T en Q Dance, DST experience Communication, Lost Boys and Performance Solutions, the partners discussed what role they see for the European Centre for the Experience Economy.

The partners expressed that they would like to see the Centre put more effort into and give priority:

1. clarifying the accountability of experience creation (why is investment in experience creation and experience co-creation more effective than tradional marketing budgets?)
2. taking care of more exposure of our experience research results in the professional press
3. investigating what the future developments are in the field of the experience economy
4. making experience economy more accessible

Our progression so far;

We have developed the Experience Framework XRP http://www.experience-economy.com/index.php?s=XRP) which measures the emotional impact and differences between traditional marketing campaigns and experiential ones. We are working now with prof. Ed Peelen and dr. Karoline Wiegerink (Business University Nyenrode) on an evaluation model of Events. We are writing an article on authenticity with Anna Snel and Motivaction based on our recent research results (see above) and look forward to do our third XRP project during the World Out games in Copenhagen 2009. If your interest is raised to do a research project contact us.

The European Centre for the Experience Economy and Shiraz partners completed a research project with Motivaction on what the Dutch consumer considers to be the building blocks of authenticity. Which companies and brands does he or she consider to be very authentic and which are the least authentic? The top three concepts are “originaliteit” (original, new, fresh), “oorspronkelijkheid” (the original source, from the source), and “echt” (real, genuine) together with “betrouwbaarheid” (trustworthiness). The results also show which kinds of people (according to Motivaction’s mentality segments) embrace specific kinds of authenticity.

Ex en Lengkeek (2000) differentiate between material authenticity (made of the original material), conceptual authenticity( made according to the intention of the original maker), contextual authenticity (in the right context) and functional authenticity (being used in the traditional way). Furthermore they differntiate between historical (when aging is shown) and a-historical authenticity (when aging is hidden or the object is restored). We will study now if these concepts of authenticity confirm or falsify the theory of the five genres of Gilmore & Pine.

As the most authentic Dutch brands were mentioned: Albert Heijn, Douwe Egberts, Philips and Calvé. All specific Dutch companies that have a long history. We assume that a sort of Dutch nostalgia plays an important role. Perceived as the least authentic companies were the energy suppliers, telecoms and ICT suppliers. When asked about inauthenticity, respondents speak more about business sectors than about individual companies. The same research was done for the financial service industry. The most authentic bank is RABOBANK and the least authentic is ABN AMRO. We would like to replicate this research in other European Countries. Please contact us if you are interested.Further research will be done in the hospitality and retail industry.

“Authenticity is what consumers really want” . This is the claim Gilmore & Pine make in their new book. Is there really a need for more authenticity? Or is this a new marketing gimmic that we have to believe in and that people have to follow? Consumers have very little trust in companies and organisations. We believe that people can be authentic but is it possible that organisations can be authentic? The European Centre for the Experience Economy and Shiraz Partners directed a research project with Motivaction under Dutch consumers on what they believe are the building blocks of authenticity. And which brands and organisations they think are most authentic and which ones are not authentic at all. Next Tuesday at the Authenticity eventwww.authenticiteit-event.nl/Experienceeconomy we will present the results of this empirical research.The second part of this research will cover authenticity in the financial service industry. Joe Pine will direct an exclusive masterclass and include the results of our research. If you are interested in a full report please let us know.