Psychological and economic analysis of experience economy

The phenomenon of "experience" consumption is not a new thing. The famous futurist Toffler predicted in his book "Future Impact" published in the 1970s: Human society will be in a state of decline after the competition in "services" , the next thing needed is "experience". Marketing expert Philip Kotler soon also proposed that the "experience" of education and tourism will gradually become prominent and become an economic feature.

When it comes to the experience economy, one must mention the book "Experience Economy" co-authored by American scholars B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore in 1999. They believe that experience It is the beautiful feeling produced in a person's consciousness when he reaches a certain level of emotion, physical strength, intelligence or even spirit. It is an event that allows everyone to participate in it in a personalized way. Consumers are willing to pay for this kind of experience. Because it is beautiful, rare, belongs to me, cannot be copied, cannot be transferred, and is fleeting. Every moment of it is "only".

From the perspective of economic form, the experience economy is the fourth economic stage after the product economy, commodity economy, and service economy. Its most distinctive feature is that companies provide an experience that makes customers immersed in it and unforgettable. experience. If we say that in the era of product economy, people are satisfied with the functions of products, in the era of commodity economy, people demand the characteristics of products, and in the era of service economy, people consider the benefits brought by products. In the era of experience economy, people pursue unique feelings and are eager to participate, Experience the process and make it unforgettable. It can even be said that the experience economy is a product that conforms to the trend of the "people-oriented" era.

Experiences are separated from services, just as services are separated from goods. In a service economy, people’s desire is for more and better non-material enjoyment. Nowadays, people prefer to obtain personalized experiences from consumer goods and services. People's consumption is shifting from "tangible consumer goods to spending money to buy feelings." The feeling mentioned here is the experience mentioned by the author in "Experience Economy". Consumption tends to be personalized and diversified, and the pursuit of excitement has become a characteristic of the new generation of consumption. It can be predicted that this trend will intensify and even become mainstream.

B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore proposed an analytical model in "Experience Economy". They considered two aspects: the degree of human participation (horizontal axis, negative and positive ), indicating whether it directly affects the performance; the second aspect is the form of connection (vertical axis, absorption and entry), which makes the consumer and the event a whole. The above combination divides the experience into 4 forms: entertainment (active participation) /absorption), education (passive participation/absorption), escapism (active participation/immersion), aesthetic (passive participation/immersion), these four forms and their mixed applications can constitute a rich space for experience creation.

As a new economic form, the fairy tale world created by Disney, the future technology created by Sony, the customer participation design created by Dell, and the joy marketing created by McDonald's are all classics in the experience economy; The loyal fans of Harley motorcycles tattoo the Harley trademark on conspicuous parts such as their arms as an honor, taking this experience to the extreme. Of course, the experience economy has also benefited these companies a lot, establishing their insurmountable differentiation advantages.

Psychological phenomena are one of the most complex phenomena in the universe. They have been of concern to people since ancient times. In human psychological activities, consciousness is the highest level of psychological development. Only people have consciousness. Psychology is The science that studies the occurrence, development and activity patterns of human psychological phenomena. When people study psychology from different angles, animal psychology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, child psychology, social psychology, physiological psychology, etc. are formed. Different disciplines, and as people apply the results of psychological research to solve various problems encountered in practical human activities, improve people's work standards, and improve people's quality of life, many branches of applied psychology have been formed. The experience economy is where companies use many principles of applied psychology to tailor a variety of goods and services for customers from the perspective of satisfying customer experience, so that customers not only enjoy the functions brought by goods and services during the consumption process Satisfaction and an unforgettable inner feeling for customers.

In basic psychological research, human psychological activities are divided into four aspects: cognition; emotion, emotion and will; needs and motivation; ability, temperament and character. Cognition refers to the process by which people understand external things, including psychological phenomena such as feeling, perception, memory, representation, thinking, speech, and imagination. Need is an imbalanced state within the human body. Motivation is the internal driving force that pushes a person to engage in certain activities and move toward a certain goal. When a person realizes his or her own needs, this need becomes the motivation for the person's activities. Emotions and emotions are attitudes and inner experiences toward external things that arise along with the process of cognition and will. They are a reflection of the relationship between objective things and the needs of the subject. Will is the psychological process in which people's thinking and decision-making are reflected in actions. Ability is the psychological condition necessary to complete a certain activity smoothly and effectively. Temperament is the sum of the dynamic characteristics of psychological activities, that is, personality characteristics expressed in the speed, intensity and stability of mental activities. Character is expressed in the attitude towards things. and habitual behavioral patterns. Applied psychology is a variety of applications centered on the four aspects of basic psychology.

Professor Schmidt, an expert in American experiential marketing, proposed another model from a psychological perspective. Schmidt regarded different experience forms as strategic experience modules. Like brain modules, they have their own intrinsic structure. and principles. He believes that based on the concept that the brain is composed of modules with different functions, experience can be divided into five forms: feeling, emotion, thinking, action and association. Each of them has its own unique composition and processing procedures, which constitute experiential marketing frame.

The former Soviet psychologist Vasilyuk and the American psychologist Maslow have both studied experience. Vasilyuk’s experience refers to the time when people spend one time or another (usually A special internal activity and work to restore lost mental balance during difficult) life events and situations. Maslow proposed the theory of "peak experience", which refers to people's emotional experience at peak moments, that is, "the highest joy that comes from creative freedom or self-realization."

Pine pointed out, "Experience is actually the beautiful feeling produced in a person's consciousness when he reaches a certain level of emotion, physical strength, intelligence or even spirit." It is the subject's perception of the object. Inner reflections produced by stimuli. Since the subject has great individuality, subjectivity and uncertainty, different subjects will experience differences in the same object. Experience is an event in which each person participates in a personalized way. Any experience is actually the result of the interaction between a person's own mental state and those planned events. The same subject will also experience different emotions for the same object at different times and places. The same object will have corresponding differences in visual perception, emotion, thinking, association, action, etc. at different times and places. This difference will inevitably affect Experience activities.

Generally speaking, psychologists believe that human consciousness consists of two aspects: perceptual and rational, and four different functions, namely, feeling, intuition, emotion (the above are perceptual factors) and reason (rational factors). If the above two aspects of psychological factors can work in a balanced manner, then a good experience can be achieved.

The first is feeling. Feeling is a simple level of psychological process. The human brain’s subjective response to the individual attributes of objective things. According to the attributes of feeling, it is generally divided into vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. , it belongs to the right hemisphere function.

The second is intuition. The right hemisphere also has another function, which is intuition. Intuition is the opposite of logical thinking and is often expressed through impulsive behavior.

Third, emotion is another important factor that affects human behavior. The right hemisphere is in charge of human emotions, happiness, fear, anger, sadness and love.

Fourth, the rational thinking function is based on rationality and logic and is usually considered to be the activity of the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is specifically responsible for analysis, reasoning, calculation and other logical thinking processes. Reason and logic can produce powerful persuasiveness, thereby influencing purchasing behavior.

Experience economy is the fourth economic form after product economy, commodity economy and service economy. Compared with the first three economic forms, it has its own unique characteristics:

Experience It is a beautiful feeling that arises in a person's consciousness when he reaches a certain level of emotion, physical strength, and spirit. It is not an economic output in itself and cannot be fully quantified, so it cannot create objects that can be touched.

Under general rules, the production cycle of the agricultural economy is the longest, generally in years, the cycle of the industrial economy is in months, the cycle of the service economy is in days, and the experience economy is in hours. Units, some even in minutes.

The agricultural economy, industrial economy and service economy are seller economies. All their economic outputs stay outside the customers and have no relationship with them. This is not the case with the experience economy, because any experience is It is the result of the interaction between a person's physical, mental and mental state and those planned events, in which the customer is fully involved.

The agricultural economy is characterized by the demand factors for its economic supplies - products, the industrial economy is characterized by the demand factors for its economic supplies - commodities, and the service economy is characterized by the demand factors for its economic supplies - services. The demand factor is services, and the experience economy provides its economic goods - the demand factor of experience is outstanding feelings. This feeling is personalized and there is an essential difference between people and between experiences, because there is no No two people can have the exact same experience.

Any experience will leave a deep mark on the experiencer, for days, years, or even for life. A polar expedition, a bungee jump, a sailing trip, a canyoning trip, a raft surfing, all of these will make the experiencer's memories of the experience go beyond the experience itself.

The cost of making a cup of coffee at home is only 20 cents, but in a coffee shop with flower-decorated corridors, classical soft music and famous paintings, the price of a cup of coffee may exceed 10 yuan. You also think it’s value for money; while the output value of a farmer’s two acres of land for one year is only a few thousand yuan, and American billionaire Dennis Tito and South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth, who have entered space tourism, value their space experience A whopping $20 million was paid. This is the experience economy, a huge profit economy with low input and high output.

In the era of experience economy, the results of consumption behavior have relegated to the second place, and the consumption process has risen to the first place. The atmosphere, services and consumer participation of the consumption place even exceed the value of the product itself.

As the product economy, commodity economy and service economy continue to become commercialized, customers are willing to spend less and less time purchasing products, goods and services. While customers are reducing their consumption time in the form of commoditization, they are willing to Spend your time in the consumption process of the experience economy model that can bring you pleasant feelings.

The experience economy is actually the conscious purchase and consumption of time by consumers. It is the latest way and concentrated expression of time consumption, and is the highest form of time consumption so far. Joseph Pine said: "If you charge for items and tangible things, you are engaged in manufacturing. If you charge for activities you perform, you are engaged in services. Only when you charge for consumers and you You only enter the experience industry when you charge for the time you spend together.”

Due to the improvement of the quality of life, people are becoming more and more stingy with their time. People increasingly want to spend time in places that can provide more enjoyment, and even extend this feeling to every moment of consumption, rather than just getting last-minute satisfaction. For those consumption methods in the traditional sense, such as simple purchasing behaviors, people will try their best to solve them quickly or even avoid them altogether.

Regarding the consumption of time, the length and content of each social stage are different. In the agricultural society, people could say, "This winter is so and so"; in the industrial society, people said this month, and in the late industrialization period, they said today is so and so, but now, people will say this hour. On the Internet, people can even say, how was I doing last minute.

We can see that within the same period of time, the higher the degree of material and spiritual satisfaction enjoyed, the greater the value of time consumption. Here, we can put forward the concept of consumption value rate, that is: the ratio of the degree of material and spiritual satisfaction of people in the consumption process to the time consumed in the consumption process. This concept can measure the degree of social development from a consumption perspective. With the progress of society, time is becoming more and more condensed, and the feeling of consumption is becoming more and more concentrated. Like labor productivity, society is becoming more and more developed, and the consumption value rate is getting higher and higher. The development of human society is not only a process of gradually increasing labor productivity, but also a process of gradually increasing the rate of consumption value.

In the future society, whoever can create a higher consumption value rate for consumers per unit time will win the competition.

Pine and Galmore, the authors of the book "Experience Economy", believe that companies should always think about what special experiences they can provide to customers, and propose five specific steps to realize the experience economy:

1. Set a theme: If there is no theme for the experience, consumers will not be able to grasp the main axis, and it will be difficult to integrate the experience and leave long-term memories. The theme should be very simple and attractive. The theme is not a mission or statement hanging on the wall, but a concept that can drive all designs and activities.

2. Create an impression: The theme is only the foundation. Enterprises must also create an impression in order to create an experience. Shaping an impression relies on positive cues. Each clue must be tempered and consistent with the theme. Different impressions of tourists form different experiences.

3. Remove negative clues: Since all clues should be designed to be consistent with the theme, other information that conflicts with the main subject or causes interference must be removed to avoid detracting from the visitor's experience.

4. Add souvenirs: The price of souvenirs is related to the value of the memory experience, and its price exceeds the value of the physical object. Souvenirs allow memories to follow consumers and awaken their experiences.

5. Include five sensory stimulations: Sensory stimulation (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch) should support and enhance the theme. The more sensory stimulation involved, the more likely it is that the designed experience will be successful.

The experience economy is not a new concept. In the cases often mentioned in the book "Experience Economy", the companies such as Disney, Harley, British Airways, IBM, etc. are not newly established companies. The experience economy model can be used not only in business operations, but also in some special commemorative activities.

A typical representative of the experience economy is ParentClub China. ParentClub is essentially a community, but the community’s unified action method is the experience economy, which is a newer type of community experience economy.

ParentClub uses the parent-teacher association club as a practical platform and online and offline parent experience as a practical form to promote universal parent education, upgrade parent consumption experience, and establish a responsible community with partners , community of interests and community of development.

***The establishment of the parent-teacher club complies with the inherent requirements of the changes in the consumption style of the new generation of parents, and demonstrates the transformation of the business model from operating products to operating customers, in order to upgrade user experience and lead the community experience economy ( Community is an experience, a unique experience of finding an organization, and a time and space experience in which a group of people take consistent actions to achieve the same goal) provides new ideas and new solutions.

The Parents’ Association Club is all centered on user experience and is a time and space entity that manages parent experience.

Online time and space helps parents experience international parent education and one-stop solution to the new identities and new challenges faced by parents. Offline time and space helps parents experience the fun, love, growth and joy of community life (acting in concert).

Editor: Amida