4 Dimensions of Experience
There are various methods available for determining and categorising experiences. We can talk about the senses, consider whether our customer is active or passive in the experience, or if it is transactional or situational.
But if we are not careful we overlook the fact that experience is more readily defined in terms of old and new when we consider it in everyday life. The teenagers first job is a new experience. The mother with 3 teenage children is experienced in parenting. Essentially we are talking about familiarity.
Below is our theory of the 4 dimensions of experience, expounded the idea of familiarity in experience.
Context is the container within which content is placed. For example, a trip to the cinema will have the cinema complex and the action of going to the cinema as the context, and the choice of movie as the content.
Both content and context can either be old or new in terms of familiarity. So, new content in a new context means there is unfamiliarity and what is therefore experienced is exposure. The hall mark of exposure is firsts: The first trip abroad, the first job, the first time to the movies. The new industry of ‘experience days’ is largely based around exposure. Consumers will pay large amounts of money to do something that they have never done before. The most powerful education also often takes place here.
If we go back to our movie analogy, we will undoubtably reach the place where we go again to the movies but watch a different film. The context is old – the act of going to the cinema. However, the content – the film that is being watched for the first time – is new. When the environment is controlled or familiar in this way, then the experience is an experiment.
The opposite of an experiment will be old content in a new context. A piece of music that, whilst the score remains the same, is performed differently by each composer and orchestra will be the experience of expression. The popular meme of mashups is taking old content but creating something new through their expression. Our work with children and teenagers in one country will be different in another country because our framework, although it remains the same, is expressed differently in each culture’s unique societal issues. Brand extensions like Coke Zero is simply the content of Diet Coke, in the context of the male market.
Finally, old content in an old context is the equally valid experience of extension. Extending an experience by re-experiencing it is a form of nostaligia. The service industry thrives on consumers wanting to relive a pleasant dinning experience or haircut. New is not inherently better than old, it is just different. Any children’s TV program will use extension as they repeat the same segments identically, like Blues Clues or the Teletubbies.
As we think about familiarity, we see new ways the businesses, charities and organisations can interact with their audience. A concert is a perfect example of a performer employing the four dimensions:
- Expression. The recent hit will be performed but in a new tempo or with new instruments.
- Experiment. A new song is performed that the crowd is not familiar with but the experience of hearing a totally new song is very memorable.
- Extension. Of course, a famous number will be sung exactly as it is remembered as the audience partake in mass-karaoke.
- Exposure. Whist many of the audience will have attended a concert before, there will be those who are attending their very first. This will have a special place in their hearts and the performer now gains a life-long fan.