Samsung has shunned the cash register to drive sales through experience. The 40,000 square foot Samsung Experience store in the Meatpacking district is organized into lifestyle areas where products casually fill out the space. Samsung also runs classes and lectures that bring in the fans as well as people who want to put their toe in the brand water. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11099014/samsung-837-nyc-walkthrough
You can’t buy anything there – except coffee and donuts. But you can experience Samsung products. Does this latest trend sound familiar? Where else do you create amazing environments with your product and service – that an attendee can’t purchase?
Think trade show exhibits:
- How about ROI? Maybe we need to throw out ROI – for a moment at least and rethink the rationale for exhibiting. What if the rationale is to make your exhibit a gathering space for your company fans – kind of a branded town square. Provide education and other value-added services that build your relationship with your customers. Sometimes warm and fuzzy beats ROI – in the long term anyway.
- Think of the largest fan zone for technology: The Consumer Electronics Show. Here many of the larger brands have long adopted the Exhibit-as-Experience concept. Hardly able to move in the crowded exhibit space, you feel part of a brand community – maybe without even interacting with anyone from the exhibiting company. Yet it was cool and memorable.
Put down the selling and pick up the long-term view. It certainly isn’t a store, its more than ad – it is an experience.
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