Human Experience & Marketing Domains

We have been talking about the marketing mix as a strategy to address getting products/services/ideas in front of consumer and in their hands. The marketing mix has provided us with a great baseline of information. However, to win consumers' attention and trust, marketers must think less about what advertising says to its targets and more about what it does for them. Rather than conceive marketing campaigns with a beginning, a middle, and an end that hammer home a points, marketers must think about advertising - as well as the offerings it promotes - as a sustained and rewarding presence in consumers' lives.

No matter how worthwhile your message, competing for attention by yelling louder or putting more stuff in front of people across an array of media platforms (t.v., internet, print, etc.) is not a sustainable strategy because the amount of money put into marketing will never generate a positive return. To counter the marketing mix we are going to first start by considering the person. What experiences are our customer segments having? If human experience is a medium for advertising, how can marketers engage consumers there in ways they will welcome? Let's look at the four domains that all of us live our lives in

Jeffrey F. Rayport outlines four domains of human experience:

1. In the "public sphere" people move from one place or activity to another, both online and off.
2. In the "social sphere" they interact with and relate to one another.
3. In the "tribal sphere" they affiliate with groups to define or express their identity.
4. In the "psychological sphere" they connect language with specific thoughts and feelings.

Advertising in the public sphere typically engages consumers during moments of downtime when they're moving between one point or activity and the next and have attention free for new inputs. Traditionally, advertising in public has taken form in billboards advertising fast food on interstates, signs in bathroom stalls, or ads integrated into the free version of apps. This does not engage the human experience of the moment.

Effective public-sphere ads follow one or more of four principles:

1. They are relevant in context.
   • The online shoe retailer Zappos placed ads in the bins used to move possessions, including shoes, through U.S. airport security.
2. The help people reach personal objectives.
   • IKEA has integrated advertising with a range of transportation solutions for customers at it Brooklyn, New York, store. The company provides a branded water taxi and shuttle bus to customers to go to and from Manhattan. It's advertising conceived as problem solving.
3. They are branded interventions.
   • Following Hurricane Sandy, Duracell dispatched rapid response trucks emblazoned with the brand into devastated areas to serve as mobile charging stations, provide people with web access and give away its own batteries.
4. They provide engaging, refreshing, or compelling experiences.
   • From 2006-2010 Charmin placed temporary public restrooms featuring its products in Manhattan's Time Square during the holiday season, increasing brand awareness and building goodwill with shoppers desperate for a clean place to relieve themselves.

Some Good and Bad Examples of Public Sphere Advertising.

Advertising in the social sphere helps people forge new connections or enrich existing ones. It can turn social interactions themselves into carriers of ad messaging. The ads must be relevant to the context, align with social goals, address a social problem, and facilitate interaction in innovative ways.

Diageo

The best I have seen this performed was by London-based beverage giant Diageo. Diageo devised labels for its Brazilian-market whiskey that turned the bottles into a conduit for custom video. Timed to hit the shelves on Father's Day, in August, the labels enabled a gift giver to scan a code and upload a video message for Dad to the cloud. Dad could scan the code with his own phone to receive the recorded good wishes.

Walmart Shopycat

The system uses semantic intelligence to interpret users' comments - noting, for example, that an individual did or didn't like a book or movie - and make tailored recommendations.

The tribal sphere is the domain of more focused social engagement. Literally, this is the social sphere on steroids. Here marketers can use or help create consumers' identification with groups. Advertising that leverages tribal affiliation must suit the character and values of those involved; address desires for identity, self-expression, and membership; provide a social signal or status marker; and empower the individual.

Oakley

Oakley, maker of high-performance sunglasses, goggles, and apparel, relies heavily on tribal positioning. Not only do customers wear branded Oakley products; they also display the logo separately with decals on their cars. The brand name detached from the product signals inclusion in a tribe dedicated to extreme sports and athletic excellence.

Yelp

Yelp is a website populate exclusively by user generated reviews of offline venues ranging from restaurants to cultural institutions. Today it hosts well over 34 million reviews and claims roughly 85 million unique visitors a month. The leading producers come from the "Elite Squad", whose members are invited to social events at restaurants, nightclubs, and museums and are celebrated as being elite reviewers.

Obama 2008 Presidential Election Campaign

I believe the best example of this in politics in my lifetime was the Obama 2008 Presidential election campaign. From seemingly nowhere, Obama arose on the national scene as a candidate young people loved to say they identified with.

The Psychological Sphere is the domain of language, cognition, and emotion. Ads optimized for this sphere are designed to insert words, phrases, or emotions into a consumer's psychological processes, where they serve as shorthand for complex concepts, inspiring action or triggering positive feelings. For these ads to be successful, they should provide new ways to articulate ideas, engender habit formation, guide reasoning, and elicit emotion.

Psychological-sphere ads typically operate in one of four ways:

1. They use language to establish a cognitive beachhead for a brand.
   • Nike - Just do It - Lead to action.
   • Apple - Think Different - Motivator.
   • Budweiser - Whassup? - Created new term.
   • Taco Bell - Yo Quiero Taco Bell - Created catchphrase.
   • Verizon - Can you hear me now? - Created catchphrase.
2. They seek to create habits.
   • Nike - Just Do It - Every single day get out and run.
3. They guide cognition.
   • Economist - Think Differently
   • Google - Don't Be Evil
4. They connect a brand with a mood or an emotion.
   • Life is Good - I hate the shirts and they still resonate with me emotionally.

Additional Reading

• SoulCycle Wants You to Join It's Tribe on FastCo

Vocabulary

• Please refer to reading for vocabulary. The 4 domains are the vocabulary.

Student Activity

Each student will be assigned one of four groups:

• Public
• Social
• Tribal
• Psychological

You are an advertiser working with Aldi. Design an promotion to focus on your assigned area. How can you engage in the human experience with your ad?