Every Business a Stage

I mentioned the Experience Economy in my last post, in the quote from trendwatching.com, and I wanted to go back to that idea. The Experience Economy, as defined by authors B. Joseph Pine and John H. Gilmore in their 1999 book The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage is simply the next step after the Service Economy, a continuum that started with the Agrarian Economy way back when farming was the way of life. It seems that what consumers want even now is An Experience along with their purchase. The concept “staging of experiences” earned a Businessweek Best Idea of 2005 and seems to still have some steam.

So, the question of the day is: Are you providing an experience for your customers when they purchase your products or services? How do you describe the experience surrounding your product or service? If you used to provide an experience but have moved on, to what did you move?

In case you’re curious, Gilmore wrote in 2003 that the next economic stage will be a Transformation Economy, in which “businesses will charge not just for experiences but for the demonstrated outcomes based on those experiences.”

What form might this next economy take in the beauty industry?