Doing so requires awareness of which senses most affect customers, focuses
on those senses and the sensations they experience, and the corporate redesign
of the good to make it more appealing. Automakers, for example, now spend
millions of dollars on every model to make sure that car doors sound just so
when they close. Publishers greatly enhance the covers and interiors of books,
and magazines with a number of tactile innovations (embossed lettering.
scratching, bumpy or ultrasmooth surfaces) and sight sensations (translucent
covers, funky fonts, clear photographs, three-dimensional graphics). Even
presentation markers aren’t just coloured anymore; Sanford scents them as
well (liquorice for black, cherry for red, etc.).
(Pine and Gilmore 1999: 18)Even quite simple goods are being designed that can feed back to the senses. For
example, ‘radar’ baseballs make it possible to know how fast a ball was thrown,
and generate social interaction since the catcher has to relay the speed back to the
thrower.
The third purchase is the growth of packaged experiences which rely on theming
contexts, so as to produce enhanced sensory experiences. This packaging can range
all the way from the increasing outsourcing of children’s parties from the home
to companies, to the most elaborate virtual environments, which are virtually self-
contained ethologies.
Companies that want to stage compelling capacities should... determine the
theme of the experience as well as the impressions that will convey the theme
to guests. Many times, experienced stagers develop a list of impressions they
wish guests to store away and then think creatively about different themes
and storylines that will bring the impressions together in the cohesive
narrative. Then they winnow the impressions down to a manageable number- only and exactly those which truly devote the chosen theme. Next they focus
on the animate and inanimate cues that could connote each impression,
following the simple guidelines of accentuating the positive and eliminating
the negative. They then must meticulously map out the effect each cue will
have on the five senses – sight, sound, taste and smell – taking care not to
overwhelm guests with too much sensory input. Finally; they add memorabilia
to the total mix, extending the experience in the customers’ mind over time.
Of course, embracing these principles remains, for now, an art form. But those
companies which figure out how to design experiences that are compelling,
engaging, memorable – and rich – will be the ones leading the way into the
emerging Experience Economy.
(Pine and Gilmore 1999: 61)
The fourth purchase is on objects that will produce kinaesthetic experiences, on
the grounds that these experiences are usually the most compelling and the most
memorable. What is fascinating is the speed with which this kinaesthetic purchase
on the world is now expanding its grip, as knowledge of movement becomes
72 Part I