Post 3: Customer Experience (LADY GAGA)

Lady Gaga tickets went on sale today at 10 a.m., seven months before she even comes to Austin, TX. At 10:02 a.m., her floor tickets were sold out. None of my friends who tried buying floor tickets were able to purchase them, not even those who clicked the button at exactly 10:00 a.m. What that means is they were all sold out by the time their requests went through, or they clicked ‘purchase’ before the internal e-system made it possible to buy tickets, OR all the floor tickets went on pre-sale and they were already all sold out before today.

In any case, there’s a great demand for Lady Gaga. And it’s no surprise. She’s already a case study in 360-marketing within the music industry. She loves her fans – a great synonym for "consumers" – and she makes it known; she makes these statements very often and very publicly. So it really isn’t a surprise at all that her “best” seats have a price point of ~$177. That seems a little ludicrous doesn’t it? Perhaps. But for all that she “gives” to her fans in terms of extravagant costume changes and set pieces and choreography, I think a lot of them are willing to give back a little more.

Anyways, what I wanted to get at is that I actually went to see her last month when I was in the SF Bay Area. She came to San Jose and I went and it was really, really awesome.

The experience was a blast and most of it was largely due to the fact that Lady Gaga has created a very experiential marketing experience for her fans (remember, these fans are also the consumers of her product/brand). What I mean by experiential marketing, according to Bernd Schmitt is that she utilizes a combination of the five different marketing appeals, which are Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate.

Take that first appeal: SENSE, the umbrella term that refers to touch, sight, taste, sound, and smell. Visually speaking, her set production was exquisite and her costumes very intricate and elaborate. Gaga’s known for having very expensive shows and I definitely saw that with my own two eyes. And I saw the Gaga brand in all of it. The now iconic mechanized orbiting rings, the pianos on fire, the massive shoes that look painful to walk in. Aurally, her sound was so theatrical and so lively that I could feel the bass drum downbeats pulsating through my entire body. It was phenomenal.

FEEL is marketing that appeals to consumers’ emotions and feelings. That said -- and it’s really cheesy to say this but -- I felt a little more attached to her as a fan after the fact. It’s as if I took a two-hour journey with her throughout the concert and got to know her better in a more intimate setting. Listening to her music through headphones doesn't even compare to seeing her live. It’s kind of like instant messaging compared to a real live conversation. The latter in both cases is infinitely better. In any case, her music was joyful, danceable – and I (and the rest of the venue) felt so joyous that all I (we) could do was dance.

RELATE – how do I even talk about that. Gaga’s got such a strong relation with her fans. I mean, she made it apparent throughout the entire show that she puts on these extravagant shows for all of her fans. More specifically, she likes to connect even further with her gay fans. She explicitly stated throughout the show that she is an advocate for gay rights, which prompted lots of cheering from the crowd. I mean, this is more than relate-marketing since she has made herself a member of the community.

All that said, the experience was one of my favorites while I was out in the Bay Area. Although I was not on the floor, I did have pretty good seats in the bottom sections. The tickets cost $175, which is a little too pricey for my taste. But since I did not pay for my ticket, I would to say that this was incredibly worth it. And I think that if anyone has the funds to go and even remotely enjoys listening to Lady Gaga just a little bit that they should absolutely definitely go.

Post 2: Personas

When I first heard the word “Persona” in my marketing class, I thought of the 1966 Ingmar Bergman film about two women who eventually sort of become the same person by the end of the film (no worries, I didn’t spoil anything). It’s one of my favorite movies ever – EVERYONE SHOULD GO OUT AND WATCH IT NOW.

So when my professor first said this word in my class, I was replaying those wonderful cinematic images in my head. But personas, which I understood previously to be a sort of mask that people wear in the world (kind of like a “we aren’t who we really say we are” kind of thing), take on a sort of different meaning when placed in the context of marketing. Yes, it’s still the creation of a new “character,” so it’s similar in that regard. The difference, though, lies in the motivation behind creating such a character.

According to Karen Chen of Procter & Gamble, companies create personas that represent a strategic target. “Prime prospects” is what she calls them. They have specific personality traits, they fit within a specific demographic, and they have certain lifestyles that differentiate themselves from other consumers. This information allows marketers and designers the opportunity to dig up motivations or involvements that lead to insight, which ultimately leads to the creation of a product or service solution.

Now, I’ve been given the opportunity to create a persona for myself, which IS AWESOME. So let’s go. What makes Dave Dave (That’s my middle name. I’m avoiding using my first name because if I do, my blog will be picked up by Google, it will show up in search results and I’m not sure that I’m ready for that)?

So, Dave marks “two or more races” when he fills out his census form. Though he was born outside the US, he has spent most of his life within the states and thinks himself very American. He is 20 years old, but when people ask him how old he is, he replies by saying “I’m in my early twenties.” He feels like he’s much older than he really is.

Since he’s in college, he doesn’t really have an income, but he has taken part-time jobs and loans to pay for his entire education. On top of all that, he interns as he is very driven and ambitious. This drive does have a downside though: he has a tendency to put aside his passions to pursue his career goals. He loves film more than anything, but has not had time to watch as much as he’s wanted to in the past couple of years. He says it’s cause he just doesn’t have any time. When he does, he forgoes the mainstream movies and goes for the indie or foreign films. Though he understands it may come off as pretentious, he’s genuine when he says that he prefers to watch something less formulaic and more stimulating.

He thinks of himself as forward-thinking, but is somewhat of a laggard when it comes to technology due to his lack of income. If he could, he would want to be an early-adopter.

He is health-conscious. He does not lift weights, but he runs regularly. Though many of his friends “look down on him” because he does not run in nature, he does not care because he likes to count the number of miles that he runs and the time it takes him to do them. Unfortunately, he does not have the money to buy a Nike+ Sensor.

Dave is also a vegetarian, not for any moral or religious reasons but because he feels healthier and lighter when he does not eat meat. Although, he does admit that he eats fish every now and then because there have been times that his body will be sore for 2-4 days after a long run. He thinks it’s because he doesn’t get enough protein in his diet.

He likes listening to entire music albums and not just singles. Of course, he owns an mp3 player. He likes to play video games, but not x-box or playstation or wii or anything. He prefers old school N64. He enjoys watching tennis and soccer, and only watches football because of the experience and not because he actually likes watching the game.

I could continue but I feel like if Dave were to divulge any more, he would start feeling a little self-centered (clever little excuse to stop writing, eh?). Dave's also generally a very private person.