A colleague of mine recently gave a presentation in which he mentioned a consumer shift away from materialism to experientialism.  Although this wasn’t a new thought, wandering around a mall on any given Sunday was enough to make me doubt this supposedly fundamental shift in consumer thinking. However in support of this theory I found a paper written by Leaf Van Boven of the University of Colorado’s department of psychology. His paper, Experientialism, Materialism and the Pursuit of Happiness got me wondering if there was anything to be learned from a digital marketing perspective. Van Boven clearly demonstrates that consumers experience greater levels of happiness with experiential purchases over material purchases. One of the reasons given for this was that experiences have more social value.  Van Boven states,

“That people enjoyed their experiential conversation more than their material conversation highlights a final reason why experiences foster social relations more than material possessions.”

Unless you’re a travel company or similar this could be bad news but Van Boven also points out a number of ambiguities.  Using bicycles and kayaks as examples, he demonstrates that these could be looked at both as material items or vehicles for experiences. Marketers have been exploiting this particular ambiguity for years, McDonald’s tagline from yesteryear “We love to see you smile” wasn’t selling burgers, it was selling a good time.  However  today’s audiences are significantly more sophisticated, and demand authenticity. It’s important that brands find a way to position themselves on an experiential continuum, but today they need to do it in a way that is believable and in tune with their customers’ thinking. And that got me thinking, how does Web 2.0 and the new customer dialogue fit into all of this - if at all?  

Social media is out of its infancy and into a stage more akin to a rebellious teenager.  It’s demanding and unforgiving and notably, a graveyard for brands. Agencies and clients are justifiably nervous and yet that old adage - if you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough, absolutely holds true in this emergent technology. What a few brands have worked out, is that people don’t visit social media sites in order to connect with a brand, they go there to connect with other people.  The brand therefore needs to find a role in this where they can either participate in conversations naturally, or at least get talked about. Brand experience could be just the ticket - a way of providing social currency to on-line mavens and connectors.  No one talks about Red Bull the drink, but they sure as hell talk about Red Bull Crashed Ice.

Similarly, no one much talks about our client BP online, but last  year we managed to get the internet buzzing about BP Explorer, a site where visitors could take control of a live robotic vehicle over the web.  The site's now down but a quick search will bring up a number of blog posts - like this one. By creating social currency in the form of creative that users want to pass on, a brand becomes relevant in a social media context.  And that’s not something to underestimate.  Social media is not “the next big thing”, it’s well and truly arrived and already playing a critical role in consumer perceptions and behaviour. Smart brands will continue to develop innovative creative, along with on-line tools and premium content as a way of creating social currency. In so doing they will certainly create relevance, if perhaps not loyalty.  That’s another post entirely.