With an increasingly competitive market, the economy, which was previously based on the provision of services, has shifted towards offering consumption experiences that create real emotional bonds between consumers and companies.
As an example of this transformation, we can consider that in the past, the economy was based on the commercialization of commodities, such as coffee beans. It then evolved to the sale of products with higher added value, moving from selling just coffee beans to selling ground coffee. A significant transformation occurred, and the market realized that by adding services to the sale of products, there would be greater value generation and customer loyalty. In this scenario, the simple sale of ground coffee evolved into the sale of ready-to-drink coffee in places like coffee shops, restaurants, and snack bars. However, since every service can be copied, the need to differentiate companies from their competitors led to the union of products and services being transformed into consumption experiences accompanied by rituals and environments full of symbolism, allowing for high interactivity with the consumer. For example, we can mention the Starbucks coffee shop chain, which offers a ready-to-drink coffee consumption experience within a unique context easily recognized by the consumer.
Given the intangible and interactive nature of a service, understanding the factors related to consumption experiences is of utmost importance, as is the intelligence behind the design crafted for such experiences. All of this requires a series of concepts and methodologies that have favored, in recent years, the development of a new branch of science, Experience Design [1]. This approach has broader limits than traditional development and strives to go beyond the creation of service products. In fact, it seeks to think about moments of engagement between people and brands, considering the ideas, emotions, and memories that these moments generate.
Following the abductive thinking of Design, where prototypes are built based on premises adopted from observing consumer behavior and tested until the conception of a final product, Experience Design aims to design interaction situations between the consumer and the products and services offered, stimulating their senses in a fun and challenging way [2]. For this, various parameters must be considered by the designer: sensory and cognitive stimuli, duration, interactivity, intensity, scope, and meaning attribution [1]. This makes it possible to establish measures of effectiveness such as consumer engagement time, emotional involvement during the experience, repurchase, and recommendation [3], which contributes to the development of prototypes and their testing. Examples of companies that carry out campaigns focused on experiences include Coca-Cola with its differentiated vending machines [4] and Volkswagen with the Fun Theory campaign [5].
However, Experience Design goes beyond the consumption relationship. It speaks to a new way for companies to insert themselves into society. Therefore, the more relevant the experience, the more meaning it will have for each individual in their relationship with themselves, with the brand, with other people, and with the planet. Thus, the study of this branch of science becomes increasingly important for the construction of innovations that enchant and engage consumers with the products and services offered by companies, as well as bringing a new experience capable of inspiring society to transform, through the expression of their brands.
References:
1. PINE II B. J.; GILMORE J. H. Welcome to experience economy. 1998. Harvard Business Review. 95-106. Available at: http://hbr.org/product/welcome-to-the-experience-economy/an/98407-PDF-ENG. Accessed on: 05/12/2011.
2. FREIRE, K. Reflections on the concept of Experience Design. 2009. Strategic Design Research Journal. 2(1): 37-44.
3. PULLMAN, M. E.; GROSS, M. A. Ability of experience design elements to elicit emotions and loyalty behaviors. 2004. Decision Sciences. 35(3): 551-578.
4. COCA COLA. The Coca-Cola friendship machine. 2011. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3QLLTFDX8. Accessed on: 05/12/2011.
5. VOLKSWAGEN. The fun theory. 2009. Available at: http://thefuntheory.com/. Accessed on: 05/12/2011.
