When There Is Not A Venue is There a Way?
The article is part of Grey Swan Guild’s Wave II series of points-of-view themed under the umbrella “Catching our Collective Breath” in our guild’s continuing mission to make sense of the world.
How did 2020 Give us Permission to Experiment with Experiences In The Digital Economy?
If we thought we lived in a digital world at the beginning of 2020, there’s no doubting that fact now. COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown measures around the world have driven more people online, not only to research and buy but also to network, meet, and socialize.
We are on the verge of a massive new wave in how business is conducted online. From the consumer and buyer’s journey, to the way businesses interact, engage and provide ‘surprise & delight’ value. And, this wave will either wash you out to sea, or you can ride and master the wave. If you’re ready, of course.
Online has become an integral and fundamental aspect of everyday life and businesses. Today, we’re not only seeing a greater focus on digital transformation of businesses making the ‘jump’, but also a rapid shift in the digital landscape with a multitude of new user demographics, purchase behaviours, device usage, digital platforms, digital assets and a refined digital ecosystem.
This brings us to 2021, where it can now be considered the year of experimenting with the digital experience.
Digital experimentation is the reliable process of understanding the impact of new digital experiences, campaigns and features — and it’s shaping the cultures of the world’s most successful brands. This is redefining the customer journey, but also how the business creates remarkable experiences worth remembering.
Today, it’s about how to drive certainty in uncertain times with minimal risk. Companies have already risked a lot, with little gain in many sectors, implying that they must experiment further.
It’s not just about trial and error, either. Experimenting with digital experiences implicitly means that there is already a clear digital strategy going forward — it’s just a matter of testing the tactics and expressions of the strategy. It’s a methodical ‘test’ of assumptions. The digital experience is how you are able to deliver personalized, remarkable, audience experiences that are worth remembering. Now you need to test this and experiment with it.
If we go back 12 years or so, and tracking the performance of companies throughout the recession of 2008, McKinsey & Company found that customer experience leaders faced only half the drop in business compared to customer experience laggards. Their time to recovery was actually two years faster. And leaders saw 3x higher returns for shareholder returns versus laggards. Today, we’ve seen a similar effect in the COVID-19 economy, where modern business models are recovering quicker than traditional legacy business models (Sloan Review/MIT).
We’re not out of it yet, either. Nor have we really even mastered this massive opportunity and capability. Only one in five businesses were prepared for the shift in online, giving them five years of growth in three months from the COVID-19 economy.
The digital experience is finally coming of age, from an age of the ‘basics’ — websites, social media, ecommerce, etc. to now we have the ability to truly elevate these into something remarkable and more human-focussed in the digital environment.
No, I’m not talking about Second Life, Virtual Reality or even Augmented Reality for that matter. None of these elements are what creates a comprehensive remarkable digital experience. Yes, they can certainly add to it, but they are not in fact the centre of the experience, at least at this point, they are simply a tool in enabling this — they are not the strategy.
No, where have we seen this shift more dramatically than in ‘events’ and ‘entertainment’?
Where there is not a venue, is there a way?
It would seem not, at least according to the old-school/legacy model of the ‘experience economy’.
Amongst the many shifts and pivots of 2020, we’ve seen massive declines in the ‘experience economy’ industry segments. In 1998, when the concept was introduced by by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, and seemed limitless, yet today it’s recently since fallen on hard times due to COVID-19. At the time, this was predicted as the most essential and fundamental way of harnessing and expressing ourselves, through the things we do and want to do. Billion dollar industries have been created as a result.
Now we have to redesign this.
… To continue to read and finish Doyle’s article on digital leadership, experiments and experiences, travel to our Grey Swan Guild website articles area:
https://www.greyswanguild.org/post/where-there-is-not-a-venue-is-there-a-way
About Doyle Buehler:
Hello, my name is Doyle Buehler, I run a strategic digital marketing consultancy Dept.Digital where we are Creating Real-Time, Connected & Adaptive Digital Challenger Brands in this disruptive digital economy. I design, develop & deploy high performing digital foundations for businesses to transform how they deliver their value.
I’m author of the book on digital strategy called #Breakthrough, which takes challenger businesses on their business-changing digital expedition, and I’m your CEO — Chief Expedition Officer helping you plan, navigate & deliver in the digital darkness of online.
I guide Digital Challenger businesses in navigating and leveraging the disruptive digital economy by showing them how to create certainty, clarity and competency in digital so the world really knows who you are and the impact that you create.
Make your clicks count online — take the digital scorecard assessment.
Please connect with me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doylebuehler/
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