Are You Experienced? Marketing Parks And Recreation In The New Millennium - an increasing interest in, and availability of, recreation facilities

Parks & Recreation, Sept, 1999 by Ellen O'Sullivan

* Trips to traditional shopping malls have declined from 2.6 per week in 1994 to today's 1.7.

* Minnesota's Mall of America attracts 40 million people a year, more than Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and the Grand Canyon combined.

* Ontario Mills, an outlet store in California containing 214 stores, an indoor zoo, two ice rinks, and a motion-simulation theater, has an average shopper/visitor time of 3.5 hours. Average visitation time at a conventional mall is just over an hour.

* Feature-film production is up 80 percent in the past 10 years.

We've definitely made the move from product to experience.

Elements of Experience Marketing

How does experience marketing differ from the more traditional marketing approaches? Lovelock and others adjusted the traditional marketing 4P's to reflect the growing impact of the service economy in the 1980s. Now, as we stand on the brink of another new economy, similar modifications to the basic concepts of marketing need to be made. Experience Marketing, by O'Sullivan and Spangler, modifies those traditional marketing P's, which results in the creation of the following:

* Parameters -- Includes myriad elements inherent within the experience itself and answers such questions as: What are the feelings before the experience? What inner or psychic needs are being addressed? How do the roles and relationships with the provider influence the outcomes for the participants?

* People -- O'Sullivan and Spangler maintain that people are a central element of experience marketing. After all, if there are no people involved, there is no experience. This element of marketing revises the traditional target market descriptors to include the 4C's of People: core, culture, choice, and change.

* Peripherals -- This P of marketing combines the traditional P's of price, place, and, to a certain extent, product. It addresses such things as place, price, packaging, policies and procedures, public image, patterns of demand, and popularity life cycle.

* PerInfoCom -- Promotion as we know it doesn't work in the experience economy, so a new term that combines the elements of a personalized, information-filled form of communication was created. Some of the new options within this P include positioning, lifestyle marketing, events and sponsorships, and interactive marketing.

Impact for Parks and Recreation?

The emergence of the experience economy spells both good and bad news for parks and recreation. The good news is that our field has been ahead of the curve, since we have always been in the business of providing experiences. A walk in the woods, Fourth of July fireworks, a child's first dive off of the high board. The downside of this economic equation is that now everybody, and we do mean everybody, has in some way, shape, or form gotten into our business. Car dealers offer playgrounds to create a hassle-free shopping experience for parents. The Rainforest Cafe is more than eating; it's a quick trip to the out of doors. Hotels have special-event weekends, and Nike sponsors summer camps.