When it Comes to Branding; Experience Really Matters

Whether we own a small or a large company or even if one of us is a one man business; like a life coach or something, we all need branding. And the secret to successful branding is epic experiences. We all believe experiences are an important part of life. Experience is a much more thoughtful gift, and we know that they build lasting memories.

In today's business the trend in experiences goes well beyond consumer behavior; it also covers how our brands can drive stronger engagement, how our companies can retain employees, and how our B2B customers can retain clients. It comes down to more than just user experience, but to real-life experiences and how these experiences define us as people.

In any industry we are hearing from brands, consumers, and companies about how they are researching their customers and hearing that they are interested in experiences, especially millennials. Why is this trend happening? How do you go behind the obvious to understand why do we as humans value experiences more than things?

The new emerging neuromarketing techniques, the results of many experimental campaigns and the insights of high caliber experts reveal that there is a true science behind why experiences really matter to humans. And once you realize the true root to this trend, you can use it to build experiential elements into your brand or product.

The reason why experience really do matter is fully explained in a multiple hundred page paper from Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been studying the question of money and happiness for over two decades.

There are four main reasons that were proven in scientific studies for why experiences really matter:

1) Adaptation.

Dr. Gilovich experiment included surveying people who had received a new physical item, as well as people who had enjoyed an epic experience. What he found, was that the group who received or purchased a physical product, while their satisfaction was very high, similar to that of the experience, over weeks of continuous monitoring their satisfaction things quickly changed. He started to see differences in the experience, where the satisfaction levels significantly increased over time, but the satisfaction for the physical item quickly decreased.

This is known as the adaptation point, where we quickly adapt to our physical purchases and they no longer provide much satisfaction over time, but with experiences, we continue to tell the stories of those experiences, and relive them in our heads, over, and over and over, thus driving higher satisfaction.

The conclusion is we adapt to physical goods over time, and our satisfaction decreases quickly.

2) Shared consumption.

After surveying groups of people who had enjoyed shared consumption of physical goods vs. those who had shared experiences, Gilovich found that there were distinct differences in how people think about shared consumption of experiences vs. physical items. 

In a similar manner to adaptation, those who had shared consumption of an acquired physical good had a high level of satisfaction to start, similar to that of the shared experience. As they were studied over time, however, satisfaction for the shared experience significantly increased over time while satisfaction of the physical good shared experience significantly declined.

The conclusion is shared experiences drive more satisfaction over time than shared physical consumption.

3) The total sum.

Another fascinating point that Gilovich has proven, was that whether a negative experience or a positive experience was had, the satisfaction for both of them increased over time, where the negative experience turns into a positive one. Both of these types of experiences, whether positive or negative are all part of the stories we remember and share, learn from, and grow smarter from. We view them as part of who we are.

The conclusion is we are the total sum of our experiences; our physical goods aren't a part of us.

4) Comparisons.

It's much easier to compare physical items to what others own, and if we can compare the chances are we're going to be frustrated.

The study found that people, who had purchased a new diamond ring, or a car, were much more likely to compare it to that of their friends or neighbors. Those who had a recent leisure experience it was almost impossible for them to compare their experience to anyone else's.

So, by now I think you have a clear understanding about the real science behind why experiences matter; the question now is how do we incorporate experiences into our brands?

In the remaining part of our article I'm going to show you how to build unique experiences for your customers as part of your next campaign.

• Sweepstakes: we just did this partner campaign with PopSugar which helps traditional publishers bring experiences to the mix.

• Loyalty programs: instead of rewarding customers with more products, how about something cool like a special experience that they would have never thought of themselves? Nordstrom and Amex do a great job of this with experience redemption. Amazing experiences are being used to reward employees and drive employee loyalty and retention.

• Employee rewards: I have heard of a few companies in the bay area that give you incredible experiences instead of a coffee mug, ZenPayroll gives employees a trip to anywhere in the world after your first year.

• Event experiences: Dreamforce had Bruno Mars at their conference last year and announced this year that the Foo Fighters would be there. As we all saw at the Apple reveal yesterday, One Republic showed up. Bringing these unexpected experiences to your business events not only drive ROI, but create loyalty among employees.

• Win business: Win over business and loyalty by creating a special experience for the client, or turning the pitch into an experience by bring a guest star, or surprising them with a video message from someone special.

• Client entertainment: Don't give your client the same old dinner or spa treatment but come up with something truly unique for client events. I attended a tequila tasting and margarita class with a mixologist last year from Bizo, one year I drove on the track at the Texas motor speedway courtesy of a partner of mine. These were unique and definitely drove that shared consumption that we all love so much.  In a world where we can get everything, client events need to be truly unique.

Now you know why experiences really matter, you also know how to incorporate them into your brands; I encourage everyone to think about how to incorporate experiences into their brands, businesses, and among their employees.