Kesä-heinäkuun elämyspersoona

IT-alalta elämystalouden asiantuntijaksi päätynyt Joe Pine on julkaissut lukuisia elämystalouteen liittyviä kirjoja, joista on tullut maailmanlaajuisia bestsellereita. Hänen uusin kirjansa käsittelee aitoutta, jonka Pine soisi olevan osa jokaisen yrityksen strategista suunnittelua. Suomen Lappi on ainoa laatuaan maailmassa, hyödyntäkää ainutlaatuisuuttanne! Pine kehottaa.

Having previously worked in the IT business, how did you get engaged in the Experience Economy?

It actually came out of my work on Mass Customization, which I began investigating as a strategic planner for IBM in the late 1980s. In writing a book on the subject, Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (1993), I realized that customizing a good automatically turned it into a service, and then later after it came out, I was asked into what it turned a service, and the answer was an experience! Once I said that, I began searching the subject deeper and deeper, and realized that it meant that experiences were indeed a distinct economic offering, and that we would therefore shift into an economy based on experiences, supplanting the Service Economy.

Your book the Experience Economy, published in 1999, has become a bestseller all over the world. How does it feel like being a pioneer in the Experience Economy?

Well, I am not so sure I would say I am a pioneer. I didn't invent the Experience Economy; I discovered what the true pioneers were doing to engage their guests - people like Walt Disney, of course, but also Ian Schrager, Robert Stephens, Chip Conley, John Yokoyama, Mark Scott, and Matti Korva.

Your new book deals with Authenticity. Why did you write it? What is the main thesis of the book?

My partner Jim Gilmore and I discovered that whenever experiences came to the fore, issues of authenticity follow closely behind. (Disneyland, for example, has been a lighting rod for cultural critics decrying its inauthenticity ever since it opened in 1955.) We eventually realized that authenticity is the new consumers sensibility -- the primary buying criterion by which people choose who to buy from and what to buy. And they no longer want the fake from the phony; they want the real from the genuine.

The main thesis of the book is, therefore, that the new business imperative is to render authenticity - to manage customers' perceptions so that they view your offerings, your brands, and by extension your business as authentic.

How does your view of authenticity take into account the different aspects of sustainability?

Consumers tend to believe that all aspects of sustainability are intimately intertwined with authenticity, that the more sustainable the offering the more authentic it is. It's a primary way of appealing to one of the five genres of authenticity that we identify: influential authenticity, where people tend to perceive as authentic that which exerts influence on us or others, that calls us to a higher purpose and gives our lives meaning.

Are there differences between different business sectors as far as rendering experiences and authenticity is concerned?

One thing to be clear about is that it is not only experiences that need to be rendered authentic; consumers desire authenticity across all economic offerings, whether a commodity, good, service, experience, or transformation. Even in the business-to-business world this desire exists, for individual purchasors and decision-makers here are still human beings who desire the real - and who also know that eventually a consumer buys the output of that value chain, and increasingly trace it back through all the suppliers.

That said, yes, there are differences across sectors and especially individual businesses. Any one company can implement authenticity differently - and, in fact, not only can or should but must, for copying how someone else does it would kill its authenticity!

There are some logical affiniites for certain industries and certain genres of authenticity. Natural authenticity is endemic in the personal body care industry, for example, because such products touch our bodies. Movies, plays, and themed environments generally appeal to referential authenticity, which taps into human history and our shared memories.

Why do you think companies should make an effort to render authenticity?

If they don't make an effort, then the chances that people will perceive them as fake or phony will go up tremendously over time. Authenticity has to be at the table for all major strategic decisions today, and certainly in all design and marketing efforts. The risks are too great to leave it up to chance.

How do you notice that somebody has had a memorable experience?

Well, there are many ways, often subtle - a smile, a nodding head, a contemplative look, an excited conversation - but the only material way to tell for sure is that the person bought or otherwise took away an item of memorabilia to remember it by!

You have visited Finland and Lapland several times. How do you see our position in the world’s experience industry map?

You know, we actually did a World of Experiences map as part of the invitation for our 2005 thinkAbout event in Keystone, Colorado. We identified the top 250 experiences around the world, and sure enough Lapland is on it! #186 - Santa Claus Village. (Be neither happy nor sad about that placement - the list was in alphabetical order!)

But certainly it is a place - particularly thanks to LEO - from which the world can learn much about experience staging. You have great natural resources, but such a remote location and small population, from which you have done much.

How authentic do you find Lapland?

Absolutely so! Of course, I come from Minnesota in the United States - the place where so many Finns who emigrated there located, including my wife Julie's maternal great-grandfather, who came from Orijärvi - so in many ways it feels like home, just as Minnesota felt like home for those who went there from Lapland.

It is also very much an unspoilt place, one that accomodates tourists without changing what it is.

What is your advise to the Finnish tourism industry to keep up with the global competition?

First, read my books. Second, apply the concepts in my books. Third, rake in the money.

I often tell companies that they are competing against the world for the time, attention, and money of individual consumers - but the tourist industry already well knows that it competes against the rest of the world. So it needs to learn from that world, staying abreast of the latest, new experience principles. It then should bring them back to Finland, not copying what anyone else is doing, but extracting out those principles and seeing how they could best be applied to your situation, in your locale.

Secondly, understand the great natural resource that you have there in Finland. No, not the snow, nor the Arctic Circle, nor even Santa Claus per se - but authenticity. The terroir of the place, the heritage of the culture, the strength of the people. You are unique, like no place else in the world. Use that uniqueness!

What is the best and most unforgettable experience you’ve had yourself? Why?

I would say playing golf at Pebble Beach - I remember in particular a specific tee shot on the par-3 8th hole, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, that was just about perfect. It combines my passion for golf with one of, if not the, most beautiful place on earth.

One of our previous interviewees researcher Mika Kylänen thinks dreams are an essential part of the Experience Economy, and asks you, Joe, what was your childhood dream? Mention at least one.

To become a baseball player for the New York Yankees! Alas, it was not to be - but I do follow them religiously, often listening to or watching the baseball games over the Internet when in Europe or elsewhere.

What would you like to ask the next Experience Person of the Month?

When did you realize you were living in an Experience Economy?