The esthetic of most Disney experiences, on the other hand, seeks to hide all things fake: no one gets to see behind the curtain. Parking lots smoothly flow into shuttle buses, welcoming booths, and turnstiles. Façades seamlessly integrate into one another, lest a guest detect the trickery in the dimensional downsizing. Mickey Mouse never takes off his mask, lest we see the pimply faced kid inside. It's the fake fake that Huxtable and other critics decry, Disney not being true to what they deem it really is.
Or is it real fake fake? Other critics laud Disney for creating wholly immersive environments, consistent and engaging within themselves. One writes, “From whatever angle, nothing looks fake. Fabricated, yes—fake, no. Disneyland isn't the mimicry of a thing; it's a thing … I'm convinced the genius of Disneyland isn't its fancifulness, but its literalism.”26 On the subject of Disney theme parks, many people (including we coauthors) disagree. But one thing remains clear: an esthetic experience must be true to itself or risk coming off as fake to its guests.
Experiencing the Richness
Companies can enhance the realness of any experience by blurring the boundaries between realms. While many experiences engage primarily through one of the four realms outlined earlier, most of them cross boundaries. British Airways, for example, stages a primarily esthetic experience: personnel pamper guests in an environment where they don't have to do anything for themselves. But Robert Ayling, successor to Sir Colin Marshall as CEO, had the company continually working on enhancing in-flight entertainment systems and integrating them with the overall flying esthetic. Ayling believed that more people would see movies in the air than in cinemas. “Long-haul airlines,” he said, “will increasingly be seen not only as transport systems but as entertainment systems.”27 Virgin America has gone one step further, creating an animated cartoon to review safety instructions with passengers and installing mood lighting to alter the cabin ambiance during different times of the day.
American Express often mixes esthetic and educational elements in the Unique Experiences (AmEx's capitalization) it offers those enrolled in its Membership Rewards program.28 In one such offer, Images of the Rain Forest—Photo Safari in Costa Rica, the company invited card members to join “celebrated nature photographers Jay Ireland and Georgienne Bradley for an unforgettable five-day photography workshop in Costa Rica's flourishing rain forest” and tempted them with the following description: “Surrounded by wildlife, you'll learn techniques and professional secrets that will enable you to capture astounding images. From cuddly Three-toed Sloths to majestic Great Egrets and comical Red-eyed Tree Frogs, you'll have countless opportunities to shoot professional quality images of exotic animals. You'll also enjoy enchanting views of the canals from the balcony surrounding your hotel, and be served first-class meals in the comfortable jungle setting. No matter what your photographic experience, this adventure promises to be unforgettable.”
To make retailing more unforgettable, most store executives and shopping mall developers talk about making the shopping experience more entertaining, but leading-edge companies also incorporate elements from the other experiential realms. For example, to engage the locals and tourists at the six-block retail and entertainment district Bugis Junction in Singapore, design firm CommArts of Boulder, Colorado, mined the historical trading culture of Singapore to create what cochairman Henry Beer calls “an esthetically pleasing built environment designed to connect the project deeply to the resident culture of Singapore.” Seaside architecture, sails, chronometers, and kindred elements fulfill the dominant motif, while bright signage informs and educates guests on the history of the native seafaring merchants known as the Bugis people. Similarly, for the Ontario Mills retail project, CommArts laid out streets and neighborhoods that provide a distinctive esthetic experience drawn from the rich heritage of Southern California. Unlike a traditional mall, Ontario Mills is not anchored by large department stores selling goods but instead by businesses staging large experiences—a thirty-screen AMC movie house, a Dave & Buster's arcade and restaurant, a Rainforest Cafe, and the Improv Comedy Club & Dinner Theatre. One of its wings houses Steven Spielberg's Gameworks, and another features a Build-A-Bear Workshop. As Beer related to us, “Competition for the retail dollar demands that we create a rich retail theatre that turns products into experiences.”
The richest experiences encompass aspects of all four realms. These center on the “sweet spot” in the middle of the framework.29 Consider the world's largest flower park, Keukenhof, located in the South Holland region of The Netherlands. The park's success results not from any one element but from the collective multi-realm experience it allows each visitor to enjoy traversing through the seventy acres of tulip fields, landscaped gardens, and indoor flower show pavilions. Featuring more than sixteen thousand varieties of flowers (including one thousand varieties of tulips alone, with more than six million bulbs hand-planted each year) and eighty-seven varieties of trees (twenty-five hundred in all), the venue deserves its reputation as “the garden of Europe.” The Dutch so meticulously manicure the garden that it offers a great place to just hang out and behold the flowers. (Some claim Keukenhof is the most photographed place on earth.) This esthetic value is enhanced through the placement of more than one hundred art statues as well as a half-dozen “inspirational gardens” that create a special sense of intimacy through the use of enveloping hedges, wooden fences, and walls. The escapist value of walking the fifteen kilometers of footpaths gets an uptick through the careful placement of a handful of elements designed to encourage visitors to interact with one another, such as a maze featuring three-meter-high shrubs and an elevated tree house in the center from which one can look down, see the pattern, and shout out (correct or incorrect) instructions. Small educational signs display the names and other horticultural information for all the varieties of flowers so that guests can learn about the varieties (taking notes for ordering bulbs and seeds later in the flower shop); tours and other programs provide lessons on the Dutch bulb-growing industry and the history of the Keukenhof chateau. For entertainment, guests periodically encounter small musical acts and eventually find their way to a pavilion featuring a water show, in which a fountain gyrates to synchronized music. These and other elements combine to create a truly compelling experience, drawing from all four experiential realms.
To design a rich, compelling, and engaging experience, you don't want to incorporate only one realm. Instead, like those who designed Keukenhof, you want to use the experiential framework depicted in figure 2-1 as a set of prompts that help you creatively explore the aspects of each realm that might enhance the particular experience you wish to stage. When designing your experience, you should consider the following questions:
What can be done to enhance the esthetic value of the experience? What would make your guests want to come in, sit down, and just hang out? Think about what you can do to make the environment more inviting and comfortable. You want to create an atmosphere in which your guests feel free “to be.”
Once your guests are there, what should they do? The escapist aspect of an experience draws in your guests further, immersing them in various activities. Focus on what you should encourage guests “to do” if they are to become active participants in the experience. Further, what would cause them “to go” from one sense of reality to another?
The educational aspect of an experience, like the escapist, is essentially active. Learning, as it is now largely understood, requires the full participation of the learner. What do you want your guests “to learn” from the experience? What interaction or activities will help engage them in the exploration of certain knowledge and skills?
Entertainment, like the esthetic, is a passive aspect of an experience. When your guests are entertained, they're not really doing anything except responding to (enjoying, laughing at, etc.) the experience. What entertainment would help your guests “to enjoy” the experience better? How can you make the time more fun and more enjoyable?
Addressin
g these design issues sets the stage for service providers to begin competing on the basis of an experience. Those that have already forayed into the world of experiences will gain from enriching their offerings in light of these four realms—as the means both to enhance current experiences and to envision whole new ones.
Consider ski resorts. The locale of the mountain drives the quintessentially escapist nature of the skiing itself. Almost all resorts offer lessons to provide educational value. In addition to lodges for après-ski experiences, many resorts have incorporated “ski-to” places as mid-mountain havens where guests can take a break from skiing, kick back—say, on comfortable Adirondack chairs—throw off the goggles, and catch some rays. But few resorts recognize the one place where the entertainment element is inherently part of the skiing experience and seek to enhance its value: the ski lift! It's the place where people relive their runs, tell jokes and stories, and look below at fellow skiers. The commodity mindset mistakenly thinks the ski lift merely performs the function of transporting people from the bottom to the top of the mountain. An experience mindset—leveraging the four realms—would look for ways to add fun to the lift experience, perhaps mimicking hotelier Ian Schrager, who often turned his hotel elevators into unique experiences.
Schrager deserves credit for kick-starting the renewed interest in design in the hotel and lodging industry. Before Schrager, hotel lobbies offered little esthetic value and served largely as places for guests to meet other parties before leaving the premises. Schrager turned his lobby spaces into hip lounges that kept guests from wanting to wander away. And thanks to Starwood's Westin Hotels and its “Heavenly Bed,” almost every hotel chain has reinvented its beds to address the age-old problem of getting to sleep in a strange place, enhancing the escapist value of a stay. The in-room experience has also seen vast improvements in offering greater entertainment value with the introduction of flat-screen televisions. What opportunity awaits to improve the educational experience? Perhaps reinventing concierge services, given that guests now have access to a great deal of information via in-room Internet access or their own handheld devices.
Similarly, medical providers should rethink the educational element of treatment, lest the ever-increasing availability of information online further frustrate doctors and patients as they communicate past each other. And what hospital or doctor's office wouldn't benefit from fundamentally rethinking the “waiting room” paradigm in order to increase the esthetic value of the welcoming experience? What medical procedure wouldn't be received by patients more positively if certain escapist rituals were introduced to help patients prepare for surgery? (Take a cue from refractive eye surgeon Roy Rubinfeld of Washington Eye Physicians & Surgeons in Chevy Chase, Maryland, who joins staff and patient in a shot-glass toast of carrot juice before entering the surgery room!) The suggestion of adding entertainment value to the experience should not be construed as wanting to turn every doctor into Patch Adams; in moments of life and death, however, it often pays to lighten up. (Recall Ronald Reagan's comment in the hospital after being shot: “I forgot to duck.”)
Consider finally the big business of professional sports. Many franchises have had new stadia built to improve the esthetic value of the fan experience. Scoreboards offer greater entertainment. League websites are replete with searchable and sortable statistics that fans actively explore to learn how their teams and favorite (or fantasy) players are doing. Successful teams not only pack in the crowds at live games but also generate revenues from electronic broadcasts and online subscriptions. To no one's surprise, the New York Yankees lead the way, not only with its new Yankee Stadium but also with its YES cable network. What's next in creating new revenue streams? Consider how new escapist experiences might be welcomed by diehard fans. Teams generate revenue from ticket sales for home games as well as advertising sales on broadcasts of away games enjoyed from home. Maybe there's a third-place opportunity for sports. Couldn't some teams charge fans to come to a facility designed explicitly for watching away games? On occasion, teams allow fans to watch away playoff games in home arenas. But these venues are built for taking in live events and not mediated action. Like LAN parties, third-place arenas for away games could mix some of the excitement of being together with other fans with access to certain technological interactions with games that simply are not available from home. The design of such experiences should aim to offer distinctive new places for experiencing away games.
When all four realms abide within a single setting, then and only then does plain space become a distinctive place for staging a new or improved experience. Occurring over a period of time, staged experiences require a sense of place to entice guests to spend more time engaged in the offering. Time-conscious consumers and businesspeople want to spend less and less time with providers of goods and services, who seem all too willing to oblige. Think of fast-food chains and corporate call centers striving to minimize the seconds per service transaction. The obvious destination: not spending any time with customers, who learn to spend their time elsewhere. That is the prevailing attitude in banking, for example, an attitude that led directly to widespread commoditization.
So where will your customers spend their hard-earned time? In places deserving of more time, where people can simply be, go and do, learn, and enjoy. To understand the nature of such places, consider what turns a house into a home, and turns any space into a place. In Home: A Short History of an Idea, Witold Rybczynski, professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, examines five centuries' worth of designed environments, from the Middle Ages to Ralph Lauren Home Furnishings. Among the multiple cultures that Rybczynski examines, he calls particular attention to the desire and ability of the Dutch during their Golden Age to successfully “define the home as a separate, special place.”30 For the Dutch, “‘Home’ meant the house, but also everything that was in it and around it, as well as the people, and the sense of satisfaction and contentment that all these conveyed. You could walk out of the house, but you always returned home.”31 In such Dutch homes, furnishings strictly revolved around the use of each room, thereby defining the sense of place. Outside the home, gardens and other landscaping—however modest, given Holland's relatively small size—skillfully signaled the passage from the plain space outdoors to the distinctive place indoors. Such welcoming formed the basis for communing with family and friends.
The sweet spot for any compelling experience—incorporating entertainment, educational, escapist, and esthetic elements into otherwise generic space—is similarly a mnemonic place, a tool aiding in the creation of memories, distinct from the normally uneventful world of goods and services. Its very design invites you to enter, and to return again and again. Its space is layered with amenities—props—that correspond with the way the space is used, and it is rid of any features that do not follow this function. Engaging experiences bring these four realms together in compelling ways. We've already mentioned edutainment as one combination of realms aimed at achieving a certain experiential aim:
Consider, too, the five other dimensions of an engaging experience that emerge from combining realms:
The terms vary in how trippingly they fall from the tongue (although edutainment flows smoothly, primarily through familiarity and repetition), but each maps out rich territory for understanding how to set the stage for compelling experiences.32 Holding attention, changing context, fostering appreciation, altering states, having presence, and creating catharsis—these lie at the heart of orchestrating compelling theatrical performances. When every business is a stage, these states need to be mastered.
CHAPTER 3
The Show Must Go On
FOR HIS OLDER BROTHER NICKY'S birthday, Conrad purchased a rather unusual gift. Feeling Nicky had become too stuffy and set in his executive ways, Conrad contracted with Consumer Recreation Services (CRS) to stage a rather elaborate experience. No present needed unwrapping as Conrad simply handed his brother a CRS-furnished card, inviting Nicholas Van Orton to p
articipate in “The Game.” Once he accepted the offer, Nicky found himself involved in a world all its own, with intriguing characters drawing him into seemingly life-threatening situations, curiously assimilated into his day-to-day routines. Every time he thought he had it figured out, a new twist emerged until the events finally spiraled into a fast-paced climax. To pull off “The Game,” CRS had to put on a well-orchestrated show. No company, not even Disney, has mastered such intricate experience orchestration—staging rich, compelling, integrated, engaging, and memorable events—as well as CRS, the fictional business depicted in the movie thriller The Game, starring Michael Douglas as Nicholas and Sean Penn as Conrad. But the day has arrived when this type of staging will form the bulk of real commercial activity.
How so? To quote a line from the Broadway musical Rent, “Real life's getting more like fiction each day.” Look around. So-called reality TV dominates the airwaves. The significance of this new genre of television programming lies in how it mirrors the vast array of experiences consumed in the marketplace. Consider the parallels: The Bachelor (e-Harmony, match.com), HGTV shows galore (home improvement and decorating), Fear Factor (extreme sports), The Amazing Race (adventure travel and ever-new forms of tourism), Iron Chef (cooking schools and foodie festivals), Man Versus Food (competitive eating), The Biggest Loser (fitness centers and diet programs), Extreme Makeover (cosmetic surgery), Nanny 911 (life coaching), and, of course, American Idol (karaoke, Guitar Hero, and American Idol auditions!). Watch old footage of game highlights from the National Basketball Association, and compare its matter-of-fact action to today's sport, with its colorfully decorated floors, lavish pregame light shows, and poster-boy personalities. The NBA first gave us Dennis Rodman. The NFL followed with “T.O.” and “OchoCinco,” bedfellows in the personification of real-life fiction, tweeting their day-to-day lives. All major sports leagues find their in-stadium events having to compete with the at-home viewing experiences enabled by new television technologies. Furthermore, streaming video now makes it possible to display every everyday event at ordinary places—from repair shops to maternity wards—on the World Wide Web, where they can be viewed by anyone anywhere in the world. (Perhaps real life is less like The Game than The Truman Show—the film in which Jim Carrey plays a real person who unknowingly lives in a made-for-TV world.)
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