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“Experiential marketing gives you a competitive edge”
As cluttering increasingly blurs product differentiation, letting consumers expereince the product is the key to remain in consumer minds, says Bernd Schmitt
By
Amit Agnihotri
Bernd Schmitt is the Robert D Calkins Professor of International Business at the Columbia Business School, where he also directs the Centre for Global Brand Leadership. A prominent name in the world of branding, he is best known for his unique call to marketing to look beyond the selling model and instead focus on experience as the next big 'differentiator'. In this email interview, he talks about the alternative approach of experience being the pivot of marketing, the five-step process to achieve it and how the consumer is at the end of the day human and like all humans oftentimes it's the heart that rules the head. |
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| In your books and talks, you have been propagating managing ‘customer experience’ as the new marketing approach. What were the limitations you saw in the 80s and the 90s concept of marketing that led you to develop this framework? |
| Older, more traditional frameworks of marketing are focused on functional features and benefits and assume that all consumers are rational. However, experiences as provided in retail spaces, packaging, websites and communications matter a great deal. That explains the success of Apple’s iPod, Starbucks, Singapore Airlines and many others. Such approaches are not rational; they are emotional. The rigid rationality of the older frameworks makes them highly suspect.
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| It’s argued that the 4Ps model lacks customer orientation, and focuses more on the product and the functions of the firm? What’s your view? |
| Most definitely! The 4Ps are about the product features, price, place (in the sense of distribution) and promos. Where is customer insight, or relationship building; or customer attac- hment to the brand? It does not exist.
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| The 4Ps model is an engineering approach to marketing, not a customer-focused one. |
| Yes, it’ an alternative approach. Exper- iential marketing starts with customer analysis and makes sure customer appeal is guaranteed at every level.
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| Why is managing or enhancing customer experience key today? |
| Customer experience is key because many products are similar functionally. Think of mobile phones, computers or many consumer products. They must be differentiated in other ways. Experience is one of them.
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| What framework would you recommend to maximise their customer experience? What are the steps? |
| I recommend the framework of my book Customer Experience Manage- ment that I’ve used with a lot of companies. It presents a straight five-step process to create a customer experience. It begins with original customer insight into the experiential world of the customer. Then second step is building an experiential positioning platform. Then comes implementation in three steps: in the brand, in service and through innovation.
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| Is experience management equally important to all kinds of marketing situations, say services, mass products or niche/hi-value marketing? |
| Customer experience management differs in the approach but it can be used for any business. In consumer business, mass communication is more important, in business-to-business models, maybe trade shows. But the approach, such as customer focus, customer insight, touch point analysis and so on are all the same.
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| Which firms are good at generating positive customer experience? |
| Currently some airlines are ahead of the curve. Singapore Airlines and Virgin, though they do it very differently. Apple and Starbucks are examples I’ve already mentioned. But now American banks are also getting into it. Commerce Bank and Washington Mutual for instance. Similarly, leading car manufacturers like BMW is also into with its Mini.
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| New marketers like Starbucks and Apple are the new icons of marketing success, displacing the Cokes of the world? What’re they doing right? |
| They understand that it’s important to fit a product into customer lifestyles and not use a selling approach. And they are innovative and creative. They constantly improve upon experience.
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| What are your suggestions to Indian marketers who’re facing a sea of value-conscious customers, given the modest income levels amidst a flurry of new products and services? |
| In a clutter, you need to differentiate and experiential marketing is the way to do just that!
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- “Marketing has to re-examine all of its central concepts”: Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler is a brand, and an iconic brand at that. The author of Marketing Management; the definitive textbook read by every business school student across the world, Kotler is currently the SC Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of Interna- tional Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, US.
The maverick marketing academic talks in detail about the changing marketplace and what it means for marketers, the threatened state of marketing as a function and emerging paradigms.
- “Marketers are still stuck in the memories of golden 60s & 70s”: Jagdish Sheth
One of the most erudite scholars and copious writers on various aspects of marketing and consumer behaviour today, Dr Jag Sheth is the proponent of the 4As framework, which lobs the consumer at the very centre of the entire marketing spectrum.In this freewheeling interview,Prof Sheth speaks at length on the whys and hows of refashioning marketing-moving away from the product-and-brand-centricity to one that of consumer-centricity.
- “A great product is the starting point of a strong brand”: Kevin Keller
It’s not everyday that you get to co-author a marketing Bible. But Dr Kevin Lane Keller, the EB Osborn Professor of Marketing at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administ- ration, Dartmouth College, has just done that—the 12th edition of Marketing Management with Dr Kotler. It more than justifies his status as a marketing maven with an enviable reputation in strategic brand management and integrated marketing communications.
- “P&G and HP are leading the marketing RoI wave”: James Lenskold
James D Lenskold is the foremost proponent of marketing RoI. In his book, Marketing RoI: The Path to Campaign, Customer and Corporate Profitability, he asks marketers to inculcate financial discipline by evaluating the return on marketing investments. Lenskold is credited with developing innovative and holistic marketing RoI processes and tools.In this interview, he talks about the demarcation between marketing and business goals, the business relevance of ‘softer’ aspects of marketing, and the need for marketers to look beyond just building a strong brand equity.
- “Customers see higher value when they can co-create”: Venkat Ramaswamy
The rising flow of information and the resultant knowledge that customers have about various products and services, together with their increasing demand for customisation, have put an ever-increasing burden on marketers. In fact, this essentially is a call for letting customers co-create value and thus provide them with product experience that can a last lifetime, says Venkat Ramaswamy, professor of marketing at the Stephen M Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.He says it’s high time that companies shifted from the traditional 4Ps of marketing and allowed customers to become part of their marketing process so that they can give the product an altogether different meaning. He insists on delivering unique experience to customers by engaging them in a personal way thereby making product purchase a memorable event.
- “All communication is an incentive”: Don Schultz
Don Schultz is the Professor of Integrated Marketing Communi- cations at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, and is a renowned name in the field of marketing. He is more known for highlighting the importance of integrating marketing communication (IMC).In this interview, he talks about why IMC is necessary, how marketing needs to move out from a narrow definition to become a strategic planning function!
- “Markets undergo changes faster than marketers”: Nirmalya Kumar
A formidable authority on marketing, Nirmalya Kumar is the Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Aditya Birla India Centre at the London Business School. In his latest book Marketing As Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Growth and Innovation, he speaks about the interesting paradox of the marginalisation of marketing as a function while the need for marketing is being increasingly voiced.In this email interview, Kumar speaks about the 'century of retail', its implications for marketers and more specifically what domestic marketers can do to build and sustain strong brands with the advent of organised retail.
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| July, 2006 |
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| June, 2006 |
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| May, 2006 |
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