Stretching the imagination and fulfilling fantasies

By Hari Susianto

JAKARTA (JP): Every few years there will be a new concept and trend in marketing. Since the late 1990s, it has been experiential marketing.

We can easily detect the latest marketing trend by surfing the web. For example, when you access the Oreo (a cookie popular among children) website, you will be bombarded with a variety of Oreo games besides ideas on how to consume Oreos the right way. "Stacking Contest", "Oreos Slam Dunk" and "Oreo Adventure" are such games, just to name a few. The variety of games will keep you interested even after several visits to the site.

For example, when you click on "Oreo Adventure", you will be swamped by a variety of adventure games, such as "Indiana Jones" where the hero has to brave a mountain of obstacles to obtain a Golden Oreo. Interesting prizes, such as MacIntosh computers, are also promised for winners of the contests at the website.

You would expect Unilever's home page to show the company's logo, products or headquarters. Instead, what you will see is two young boys embracing each other, like long-time friends.

The headline reads: "Relationships are stronger when built on trust." Beneath the headline, the text reads: "For more than 70 years, our consumers have known that they can rely on us and use our products with confidence."

Unilever cleverly uses the image of the boys to portray its relationship with its customers.

How is experiential marketing different from marketing as we know it?

Bernd Schmidt, a psychologist at the University of Columbia, was the first person to popularize experiential marketing, as opposed to F & B marketing where emphasis is placed on a product's functional features and benefits.

When buying a cookie, consumers look for taste, and its nutritional and vitamin content. As for a car, it is fuel usage, speed, and whether it is equipped with power-steering. When choosing an airline, one looks at its destinations, schedule and whether frequent flyer miles are offered. When buying a computer, one looks for speed, memory capacity or after sales service.

Consumers generally use their money rationally.

A prospective buyer goes through four stages before buying a product, namely a need (a broken radio-cassette player), gathering information (browsing through various electronics ads), evaluating the options (what are the advantages and disadvantages of a Philips Boombox mini-compo in comparison to a Sharp Simba), and making a purchase decision.

Unlike F&B marketing, experiential marketing does not stop when a product is purchased. This new marketing approach also puts a strong emphasis on how customers should be using the products.

Marketers realize that a woman using an expensive perfume will also want to use other expensive products while men coming out of a theater after watching a western will be feeling macho.

Teenagers attending a Spice Girls concert will use clothes, shoes or make up - including the temporary tattoos - used by their idols.

People in the People's Republic of China queue up at a MacDonald's outlet not only for the hamburgers but also to have "a typical American" experience.

Oh how thrilling it is to go with the stream! In short, although consumers are generally rational, they still want fantasy, pleasure and a variety of emotional experiences.

As the markets are overwhelmed with competitors, only through healthy competition - along with effective consumer protection laws - would consumers be inclined to consider the features and benefits of a particular product. So, marketers have to look for ways to differentiate their products from those of their competitors.

Soto Gebraak is a popular stall among youths. A big poster that reads: "Soto Gebraak! Give us your smile, not your anger," greets customers at its entrance. On my first visit there, while my friends and I were chatting after ordering, I was shocked to hear a loud pounding sound. The food vendor was deliberately banging a big bottle of oil on the table.

I was certainly appalled. Surprisingly my friends sitting before me was smiling and the rest of the customers went on eating as if nothing was happening. That was when I realized that it was actually the sensation that people are looking for.

Out of curiosity, I persuaded a student of mine, Rahmawati to investigate why a soto stall with such an atmosphere was able to draw a large crowd.

So for four consecutive days, Rahma took four persons with her to have lunch there and six other persons were asked to have lunch at the same time at another soto stall known for its delicious food.

On the first day, the six persons who had never been to Soto Gebraak, was disturbed by the noise and could not enjoy their lunch. But after the second visit, they seemed to have gotten used to the noise and had even begun enjoying it. They would smile or even laugh when they hear the sound. This effect on them was even there on their fourth visit.

Meanwhile, the six persons lunching at the other stall enjoyed the meal on the first and second day but got bored with the food on the third day and by the fourth day the food did not seem so delicious anymore. Thus it turned out that people patronized Soto Gebraak for more than its food.

In the early 1990s, we witnessed how Benetton stood out from its competitors with its provoking advertisements. In the fall of 1991, it put up a poster showing nuns and monks kissing. The poster, which meant to show that love surmounts all conventional taboos, was indeed very controversial. The advert was banned in Italy because it was considered immoral. In England, however, the advert snatched the Eurobest Award. It is important to note that a message that provokes consumers can prompt them to act too.

A campaign that made people act in a certain way was the Oreo TV commercial. I am sure the commercial is still fresh in your mind. In the commercial, a boy asks his father to eat the Oreo cookie the right way. The father agrees but asks his son not to tell his mother that he had broken the statuette in the living room. The then boy asks his father not to tell anyone how to eat Oreos properly. According to the boy, the correct way of eating Oreos is: "Twist it, lick it, dip it into milk and then eat it." The commercial broadcasted nationwide became popular among Indonesian children, and a ritual of eating Oreo cookies was born.

Well, marketers, if you wish to make your products stand out, encourage consumers to use your products and strive to make them your loyalists. So perhaps it would be better to adopt the experiential marketing approach.

The writer is a lecturer at the School of Psychology for post graduates, University of Indonesia.