Retail experience through experiential marketing

Abstract

The economic development is seen to be entering into a new stage of experience arena,surpassing the traditional sales methods and by focusing on product sales and service offering.There is an increased acknowledgement of the fact that the experience a product is able toprovide is helping to bring it closer to the consumer and will in creating an impression in theconsumers mind. It is also being observed that market share is not the only indicator of aproducts success – the share in the minds of the people that the product is able to capturethrough which market share can be gained is also becoming increasingly important. And thereis a change in trends where many brands are trying to establish this.Consumers are growing more and more indifferent and cynical towards advertising. Marketersare faced with the challenge of finding new ways to capture the consumer's attention.Experiential marketing is one such effort in trying to capture the consumer's attention. Thisrelatively new approach is based on the idea that the target audience should be involved in anactive experience of brand values. Instead of putting out print or television advertisements, abrand environment is created in a public space and potential consumers are involved with theeffort. Experiential marketing is about taking the essence of a product and amplifying it into aset of tangible, physical, interactive experiences which reinforce the offer.Rather than seeing the offer in a traditional manner, through advertising media such ascommercials, print or electronic messaging, consumers "feel" it by being part of it. Experientialmarketing is not about one-off events, sponsorship, sampling or general field marketing.Experiential marketing describes marketing initiatives that give consumers in-depth, tangibleexperiences in order to provide them with sufficient information to make a purchase decision.Experiential marketing may not be reaching the large number of people like a TV advertisementdoes. However, it is reaching those who are more likely to buy the product and this increase thereturn on investment. This is also seen to be a better form of marketing for both the consumersand producers.