Carnival Thoughts on User Experience
I am currently enjoying the most amazing holidays to date: carnival with friends in Salvador, Brazil. It's an incredible experience: the colors, the people, the music, the party. But if I sober-up for just a second, that's precisely the interesting point: the "experience". Let me take a moment to analyze why I am throwing important amounts of money into this entertainment holiday and not in the least unhappy about it.
So when is it that something becomes more than just that thing, when are we talking about an "experience"? After some thought, I settled for three main criteria that - in my opinion - are required for a successful "experience": logistics, exclusivity and awareness.
Efficient logistics are sine qua non for any good experience or service for that matter, so I won't dwell on them. If I use the Salvador carnival as an example, then the logistics would be the functional cabs, omni-present security, fine food and lodging (and outstanding coffee). The basic stuff just has to work or you get disgruntled consumers real fast.
Exclusivity is more interesting: the service must present some appealingly different characteristics. Something consumers will notice and later talk and boast about. Something to be remembered or recognized for. In the case of Salvador carnival, it's not difficult to come up with such a list:
Perhaps the most interesting point is the final one: the awareness. In my case, many individuals were very vocal about how the Salvador carnival is the best and biggest party in the world. I was made very aware that this "service" is the "crème de la crème". This increased my readiness to open myself to the experience and participate as actively as possible.
Thus I do think that awareness can positively increase the consumers' participation and attention levels. If this feeling is shared by many consumers and their increased participation enhances the service, then we have a virtuous circle: the quality of the service is effectively increased by the global awareness.
So what are the implications of successfully providing an exclusive service to consumers aware of this fact? Well, then starts the "experience" business. And profits can be huge as consumers are suddenly purchasing non-tangible feelings attached to the service. The service has become greater than the sum of its parts.
Let's quickly do a behind-of-the-envelope profit computation for the carnival "Nana" bloco experience (see bloco definition here). We paid 850 Reais for the "Nana" bloco: approx. 470 USD. Being conservative, I'd estimate that the bloco was 250 meters long and 15 meters wide and that each participant had 1 square meter to him/herself. This puts the bloco revenue at 1.76 Mio. USD. We have two main cost drivers: government taxes (street usage, police security, doctors, etc.) and the customized truck. Assuming a customized truck costs 1 Mio. USD and the band needs 1 new truck each year and they only do 1 bloco per day (total of 5), this puts the truck cost per bloco at 200'000 USD. Let's assume the government taxes 33% of what remains. This puts the profit for the band and organization committee to approx. 1 Mio. USD per bloco. This is a conservative figure and I haven't even considered sponsorship revenue. Not bad for 5 hours of easy singing and guitar scratching!
Do I feel pissed off that I paid close to 500 USD for 5 hours dancing-shoving-kissing on Brazilian streets? Not at all: it was a great experience! In fact, paying a steep price further increased my awareness of the exclusive and unique experience I was making. If anything, it became desirable.
Let me end this somewhat longer blog post by tying it back to the title. Why "user experience" and not just "experience"? Well, with 101senses, we're launching an ecommerce business. Hence users will mostly experience us through our virtual platform; our "user experience". This is why it is so crucial for us to provide an outstanding user experience: we truly want consumers to "experience" us more than they "service" us.
So when is it that something becomes more than just that thing, when are we talking about an "experience"? After some thought, I settled for three main criteria that - in my opinion - are required for a successful "experience": logistics, exclusivity and awareness.
Efficient logistics are sine qua non for any good experience or service for that matter, so I won't dwell on them. If I use the Salvador carnival as an example, then the logistics would be the functional cabs, omni-present security, fine food and lodging (and outstanding coffee). The basic stuff just has to work or you get disgruntled consumers real fast.
Exclusivity is more interesting: the service must present some appealingly different characteristics. Something consumers will notice and later talk and boast about. Something to be remembered or recognized for. In the case of Salvador carnival, it's not difficult to come up with such a list:
- The great location
- The colorful costumes
- The joyful music (hashe, foho, samba)
- The caiprinhas and cachacas
- The very sexy crowd
- The tradition of free-kissing
- The madness of partying with millions of people during an entire week
Perhaps the most interesting point is the final one: the awareness. In my case, many individuals were very vocal about how the Salvador carnival is the best and biggest party in the world. I was made very aware that this "service" is the "crème de la crème". This increased my readiness to open myself to the experience and participate as actively as possible.
Thus I do think that awareness can positively increase the consumers' participation and attention levels. If this feeling is shared by many consumers and their increased participation enhances the service, then we have a virtuous circle: the quality of the service is effectively increased by the global awareness.
So what are the implications of successfully providing an exclusive service to consumers aware of this fact? Well, then starts the "experience" business. And profits can be huge as consumers are suddenly purchasing non-tangible feelings attached to the service. The service has become greater than the sum of its parts.
Let's quickly do a behind-of-the-envelope profit computation for the carnival "Nana" bloco experience (see bloco definition here). We paid 850 Reais for the "Nana" bloco: approx. 470 USD. Being conservative, I'd estimate that the bloco was 250 meters long and 15 meters wide and that each participant had 1 square meter to him/herself. This puts the bloco revenue at 1.76 Mio. USD. We have two main cost drivers: government taxes (street usage, police security, doctors, etc.) and the customized truck. Assuming a customized truck costs 1 Mio. USD and the band needs 1 new truck each year and they only do 1 bloco per day (total of 5), this puts the truck cost per bloco at 200'000 USD. Let's assume the government taxes 33% of what remains. This puts the profit for the band and organization committee to approx. 1 Mio. USD per bloco. This is a conservative figure and I haven't even considered sponsorship revenue. Not bad for 5 hours of easy singing and guitar scratching!
Do I feel pissed off that I paid close to 500 USD for 5 hours dancing-shoving-kissing on Brazilian streets? Not at all: it was a great experience! In fact, paying a steep price further increased my awareness of the exclusive and unique experience I was making. If anything, it became desirable.
Let me end this somewhat longer blog post by tying it back to the title. Why "user experience" and not just "experience"? Well, with 101senses, we're launching an ecommerce business. Hence users will mostly experience us through our virtual platform; our "user experience". This is why it is so crucial for us to provide an outstanding user experience: we truly want consumers to "experience" us more than they "service" us.