Why EXPERIENCE should be the key focus for business

For three days at this year’s Lift Conference, Brian Solis and Emakina shared their common vision on the most important focus for business today: the EXPERIENCE.

Emakina has been a main partner of the Lift Conference for many years. Not only does Emakina share Lift’s vision and insight into what the future will bring, it also shares its Geneva offices with the conference group. Since 2006, Lift has been one of Europe’s key events on innovation and digital technologies. It is well known for its special blend of inspiring presentations by some of the world’s leading  speakers, its truly interactive workshops, its exhibitions of interactive media projects, its prototypes open to participants… and its legendary cheese fondue.

Emakina.CH Managing Partner Arnaud Grobet has had a longstanding personal and working relationship with Brian Solis and he felt Brian would make a major contribution as a speaker at this year’s  event.

Brian is the principal analyst at Altimeter Group and an award-winning author. He began his participation at this year’s Lift conference by sharing his thoughts on EXPERIENCE with guests invited to a private Emakina luncheon.

He pointed out that most executives and entrepreneurs neglect the value of designing experiences from the onset. They talk, build and sell by capitalizing on EXPERIENCES, but they usually miss their true value.

Brian made it clear that EXPERIENCE is everything. EXPERIENCE is human. EXPERIENCE is sensory. That’s why the future of branding is EXPERIENCE ARCHITECTURE. It’s personal. It’s culturally and contextually relevant. It’s aspirational.

Later in the day, on Lift’s main stage, Brian continued to explore the topic at a round table entitled “The Wild Promises of the Digital Customer Experience.”

All of us at Emakina, including our two Group CEOs Brice Le Blévennec and Karim Chouikri, share Brian’s vision of Experience Design.

In this context, Brice raises the question “What future for agencies?” in a very interesting article originally published in Inside Magazine. The answer is probably an agency’s ability to design and implement remarkable Experiences. Experience for customers, but also for employees.

At Emakina, we feel very strongly that “if you are not an Experience, you are not a brand”. That is why in 2014 we launched the Brand Experience Score©.

According to Manuel Diaz – President of Emakina France – “We have entered a new era, the era of Experiences. To stand out and attract the attention of the consumer, brands today must offer unique Experiences. Brands that truly understand they will be judged on their experience/price ratio rather than their quality/price balance will be the winners of tomorrow.”

In his latest book, Brian raises many important questions, such as: “Do you know how your customers experience your brand today? Do you know how they really feel? Do you know what they say when you’re not around?” At the same time, he also provides many important answers. It is a book you should buy and read again and again.

Without defining experiences, brands become victims of what people feel and share. In a world where everyone is connected to both information and one another, customer Experience is your brand.

Today, great products are no longer good enough to win in business. Creative marketing and excellent customer service are no longer  enough to succeed. Success and the future of business is experiential and this is the time to learn how to create and cultivate meaningful experiences.

After delivering his ground-breaking message at Lift16, Brian met a group of students at l’Ecole CREA the next morning to discuss the future of Digital and Marketing.

Later in the day, at the Lift Prototyping Lab, the Agency arranged an interview between Brian and Geraldine Jacot of Radio Television Suisse, where they discussed Experience design in different industries and other subjects.

You can listen to Brian’s answers on RTS programs during the following weeks on nouvo.ch. You can also follow him on briansolis.com and many other channels across the web.

“And now close you eyes for a moment and think about the last time you truly had a great experience with a company as a consumer, an experience that captured your heart, mind, and spirit.

What about it was special? That je ne sais quoi that makes something special.”

Brian Solis