Winning and Retaining Customers:

Differentiation Strategy

Experiential Marketing

Letting People Experience Features and Benefits of a New Product or Service

Experiential Marketing Defined

Experiential marketing gives customers in-depth experiences with products in order to give them enough information to make the purchase decision. Experiential marketing refers to actual consumer experiences or interactions with products for the purpose of driving the sale of that product – i.e. marketing – not merely the consumer seeing an idealized experience in a TV, print, or radio ad. Experiential marketing is the difference between telling people about features or benefits within the confines of the thirty-second TV spot and letting them experience it and get their own "a-ha!" event.¹

Why Experiential Marketing?

Creative experiential marketing, when applied correctly, will lead to greater impact for the consumer, increased effectiveness for the advertiser, and even cost savings relative to traditional advertising or marketing techniques.

 Case in Point  IKEA Hotels

Given the commoditized status and lack of differentiation of many hotel chains like Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn, Red Roof Inn, etc., imagine if a particular chain partnered with IKEA to decorate their rooms with simple, clean and comfortable bedroom furniture. This fact alone would give that hotel chain a significant point of differentiation. The hotel chain also gets the economic benefit of furniture at prices that are even better than wholesale prices on generic furniture.

IKEA gets significant "consumption-experience level" exposure to target customers at a fraction of the expense of TV ads. Consumers get to experience IKEA furniture "in action" which undoubtedly would give them enough first-hand experience information to make future purchase decisions. Finally, some creative "consumer insights research" opportunities can even be built in, such as allowing visitors to select from among differently decorated IKEA hotel rooms and tracking such decisions to gather which items are most popular or even how to make IKEA's in-store bedroom sets more appealing. In summary, both the hotel and IKEA achieve "experiential marketing" which drives greater marketing effectiveness (i.e. hotel chain differentiates themselves from others; IKEA lets customers actually experience their products prior to going to a store), delivers a more impactful experience to customers, and even reduces costs for both parties.¹