PART II ‐ PLANNING EXPERIENTIAL BRANDING
13 E XPERIENTIAL COMPOSITION
13.3 Experience types – Pine and Gilmore’s four experience realms
13.3.5 Is “Entertainment” always entertaining?
The above examples serve to illustrate experiences of the four different realms, however the terminology used by Pine and Gilmore to describe the four realms might not be practical as will be illustrated by the following example.
As an alternative to the terminology each of the four realms may rather be named based on the
“active/passive” and “absorption/immersion” dimensions of the two axes, from which the realms are created. The Silvan “Gør det selv skolen” example illustrates how parts of a staged marketing
experience that is “supposed to be” in the entertainment realm is not necessarily entertaining the
guests.
The Silvan “Gør det selv skolen” campaign invites people to join classes where they learn how to deal with different basic craftsmanship challenges. The participants have to sign themselves up for each of the free, themed courses that take place in the local do‐it‐yourself center ‐ an example of a theme could be how to put up tiles (Silvan.dk)(Freddy Lauridsen 2007). The Silvan staff assumingly teaches the participants how to put up the tiles in two tempi, first by showing and instructing them how to do and secondly letting participants try it themselves under supervision of the staff. In the first phase of this experience the instructor will be telling and illustrating how the tiles are to be put up while the participants remain passive, listening to the instructor without being directly situated in the action where the tiles are put up. This is an example of an experience phase with passive
participation and absorption which would be characterized as entertainment according to the four experience realms of Pine and Gilmore. In the second phase the participants are supposed use what they just learned by putting up tiles themselves, hence they are moving into the experience
environment and are actively doing the work. The fact that the participants are actively participating and are immersed means that this phase of the experience is categorized to be in the Escapist realm.
So even though this experiential marketing initiative provided by Silvan is about educating their customers the main phases of the experience would have been characterized respectively as entertainment and escapist, opposed to the natural fit between the educational theme of the experience and the term of the educational realm. Further it is questionable how entertaining the participants find the first phase and if they perceive the second phase as escapist. Therefore the terms for the four realms will be replaced by passive;absorption , passive;immersion , active absorption and active;immersion – terms that are based solely on the axes. While the
passive;absorption and active;immersion realms presented above are characterized as the “main phases” of the Silvan the two remaining realms can be indentified from the experience as well.
An example of active;absorption is a situation where a participant is asking questions after the instructor has explained what to do, or if the instructor asks the participants questions to check whether they have understood what he explained. This activates the participants as they are now mentally activated in the experience, but they are still not immersed since they have not entered the experience where the action of putting up tiles is taking place. As is the case for passive participation;
absorption this particular example will most likely only engage the two senses (sight and hearing) again, but that will not always be the case.
The passive; immersion realm can be described as when the participants are in the experience, putting up tiles but are interrupted by the instructor who steps in to further explain a technique. The
participant is immersed in the experience as they are situated in the experience where the action takes place, but they are passive since they are only listening to the instructor. Here the participants can smell the mortar, touch the materials while listening to the instructions.
To sum up the Silvan case the active;immersion phase will be commented further on in the following.
This realm is where the Silvan students are in the experience and are actively trying to fit the tiles on the wall creating both a mental and physical state of activeness for the participant. All senses are activated and this is possibly the phase that will create the strongest impression on the participant.
Since the possible “taste” of mortar dust in the air will probably generate a negative impression to most, it is important for the staging company to eliminate such cues to avoid negative association to the event.
This last realm, which has the biggest potential for affecting the participants can however not stand alone. Merely placing participants in front of a bare wall with the needed tools and materials for them to use, will most likely not form the basis for a positive experience.
Pine and Gilmore argue that experiences should contain elements of all of the four realms and that the richer experiences “… center around the sweet spot in the middle of the framework” (Pine and Gilmore (1999) pp. 39). To illustrate how the “weakest” realm in relation to building brand equity – passive participation;absorbtion – is essential to an event, we look to the argumentation of Schmitt describing how companies should take care not to overwhelm participants. By including this realm in the experience, even though it may not intuitively aid strongly in the bulding of brand equity, the company provides participants with a “breathing hole” in which they are not bombarded with sensorial stimuli.
Further, we argue that the company should evaluate the individual case to determine the optimal inclusion of the four realms e.g. in terms of what mix of the realms best matches the characteristics, needs and expectations of the target group.
In the above sections we have argued that the four experience realms presented by Pine and Gilmore are useful for determining the mix of experience elements that will make up the event content in an experiential branding strategy.
To further characterize elements for planning of the event content, Schmitt presents five different experience types which he term Strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs), which can be utilized in the planning and structuring of events.