The Unreal is More Powerful than the Real

A few marketing blogs that I read (The Rouge Marketer and The Marketing Maven) have written a thing or two about experiential marketing lately. The Rouge highlights an excerpt of a new book by Joseph Pine & James Gilmore, the leading authors in this space. Their classic book, The Experience Economy, is a must read for any marketer. The Maven wrote about Abercrombie & Fitch having live models in their flagship store creating a unique shopping experience.

Another great read about this subject is Building Great Customer Experiences by Colin Shaw. Colin, who spent 20 years managing customer relationships for BT and now runs Beyond Philosophy marketing consultancy in London, talks about managing and measuring the experience and the resulting emotions created by the experience.

“In the late 20th century, businesses reinvented themselves; in the 21st century it is customers who will reinvent themselves. And the companies who can help them do it will be taking the bows in the new transformational economy.”

Understanding that the experiences customers have with your product or service is just as important, if not more important, than the physical features of your product is key to successful marketing in the 21st century. Your product or service always run the risk of becoming a commodity, but the experience a customer has with your brand is something that will remain a differentiating factor. This is how you build customer loyalty, brand power, and long-term value.

My favorite quote on this comes from a very strange source... Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club. Palahniuk has a screw loose, but he definitely understands pop culture and customer experience.

“People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become… The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. Without access to true chaos, we’ll never have true peace. Unless everything can get worse, it won’t get any better…

The only frontier you have left is the world of intangibles… the Internet, movies, music, stories, art, rumours, computer programs, anything that isn’t real. Virtual realities. Make-believe stuff. The culture.

The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.

If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives. And that’s the only thing lasting you can create.”