Some new ideas need an introduction

Strategy & Leadership

ISSN: 1087-8572

Article publication date: 1 August 2002

285

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2002), "Some new ideas need an introduction", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 30 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2002.26130daa.001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited


Some new ideas need an introduction

Some new ideas need an introduction

The first article in this issue of Strategy & Leadership is about "customer experience places," a strategic marketing concept new to most managers. Because it is a truly innovative business idea, many readers may have four or five immediate questions before they even read the article "Customer experience places: the new offering frontier," by James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II:

  1. 1.

    What are experience places? The authors' thesis is that companies can revitalize their marketing by creating experience places – absorbing, engaging locations, whether real or virtual – where customers can try out offerings, as they immerse themselves in an enjoyable learning process.

  2. 2.

    Is this just another article about experience marketing? No, this article is not about "experiential marketing" – that is, giving marketing promotions more sensory appeal by adding imagery, tactile materials, motion, scents, sounds, or other sensations.

  3. 3.

    Are experience places an important new strategic marketing tool about which everyone needs to know? An initial reader reaction might be, experience places may be an excellent gimmick for companies in the entertainment business, but are not suitable for other industries. In fact, many types of corporations – retailers, industrial firms, even business-to-business companies – have established experience places and use them as a key part of their marketing programs.

  4. 4.

    Is the experience places concept relevant to marketing objectives in general? The authors attribute the current crisis in marketing to the mindset that companies continue to broadcast messages at customers, despite the fact that today most people have become relatively immune to commercial enticements. Instead, a better way to reach customers is to offer them an opportunity to participate in an experience from which they can learn and which they can enjoy, a new offering frontier.

  5. 5.

    What is so strategic about this approach? Top managers should carefully investigate the authors' location hierarchy model to learn how to design a series of related experiences that flow one from another, creating demand up and down at every level of the organization. These various real and virtual experiences can generate new forms of revenue and drive sales of whatever the company currently offers. Think of the potential strategic advantage such experience places confer on companies introducing customers to new products.

Some other learning adventures you will find in the pages of the Strategy & Leadership "experience place" that you are now holding in your hand are:

  • How leaders of multi-business groups can add value. Stewart Early and Bruce McBratney provide CEOs and group executives with a framework for thinking about group strategy, a menu of roles the group executive may play, a guide to the differentiating competencies for the group executive and a list of pitfalls to avoid when counseling and developing group executives.

  • Weird ideas that work: an interview with Robert Sutton. Alistair Davidson interviews Robert I. Sutton, author of Weird Ideas That Work: 11½ Practices for Promoting, Managing and Sustaining Innovation about his unconventional approaches to managing innovation.

Enjoy!

Robert M. RandallEditor

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