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.