Categories: Articles

ClickZ Explains Why It's The Experience Not The Product

I just finished passing this article by ClickZ to many clients, co-workers, peers and even some of my competitors. I think ClickZ’s Mark Kingdon really knocked it out of the park with his latest article, Sell Experience, Not Products, published on March 15th.
And while it’s easy to best define the experience versus the product by using Apple and the iPod’s marketing as an example, just check out this paragraph and then I urge you to grab your own copy of the article:
“Last year, I bought an iPod at an Apple store. It was more beautifully and luxuriously packaged than a Rolex watch. Opening the box, I felt as if I’d bought something truly wonderful. What I bought wasn’t a product, but a total experience that was seamless from beginning to end. Here’s what makes the iPod exceptional (and enables Apple to command a premium for the product).”
It continues:
“Holistic marketing. Every detail of the marketing mix is synchronized beautifully and obsessively. The advertising, Web experience, product, store, and packaging all feel connected. Each is beautiful on its own. That’s why opening the box feels like a rite of passage.”
Is your product or service a “rite of passage” for your customers?

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.