NEWS & UPDATES

April 21, 2008 In By Advent

The Original Experiential Marketer

Expe­ri­en­tial Mar­ket­ing has become one of the hottest trends in the mar­ket­ing world today.  How­ever, if you go back to the mid-1900s you might might find the unof­fi­cial begin­ning of Expe­ri­en­tial Marketing.

At Advent we define Expe­ri­en­tial Mar­ket­ing this way:

Expe­ri­en­tial Mar­ket­ing con­nects audi­ences with the authen­tic nature of a brand through par­tic­i­pa­tion in per­son­ally rel­e­vant, cred­i­ble and mem­o­rable encounters. 

Going from that def­i­n­i­tion, I believe that Walt Dis­ney was the orig­i­nal expe­ri­en­tial mar­keter.  Think about it for a sec­ond, his vision for Dis­ney­land and Dis­ney World brought time­less movies and sto­ries to life.  There is no other place on earth where you can expe­ri­ence the Dis­ney brand with all five senses. 

When a vis­i­tor walks through the gates, they are imme­di­ately trans­ported into their favorite Dis­ney story.  This makes the expe­ri­ence per­son­ally rel­e­vant, cred­i­ble and cre­ates a last­ing mem­ory that they will talk about with their fam­ily for years.  All of these ele­ments are listed in Advent′s def­i­n­i­tion of expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing.  Other theme parks have tried to repli­cate a Disney-like expe­ri­ence but the atten­tion to detail just isn′t there.  Sure, you go to other parks to ride super-fast roller coast­ers and other thrill rides.  How­ever, at Dis­ney its about being wrapped in the story for each attrac­tion and then becom­ing an active char­ac­ter in the story!

What′s even more amaz­ing is that in today′s expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing where con­sumers “expe­ri­ence” a brand usu­ally at no cost in hopes it leads to future sales, con­sumers pay up front for the Dis­ney expe­ri­ence and don′t think twice about it.  

Walt Dis­ney may not have thought of him­self as an expe­ri­en­tial mar­keter.  But his imag­i­na­tion and cre­ativ­ity paved the way for what expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing has become today.  Walt was ahead of his time in more ways that one!

For more infor­ma­tion on Dis­ney click here.

Authored By Advent

Advent partners with organizations to help them visually express differentiation.