With The Experience Economy, Pine & Gilmore explore how successful companies -- using goods as props and services as the stage -- create experiences that engage customers in an inherently personal way. Why does a cup of coffee cost more at a trendy cafe than it does at the corner diner or when brewed at home? It's the value that the experience holds for the individual that determines the worth of the offering and the work of the business. From online communities to airport parking, the authors draw from a rich and varied mix of examples that showcase businesses in the midst of creating engaging experiences for both consumers and corporate customers. Make no mistake, say Pine & Gilmore: goods and services are no longer enough. Experiences are the foundation for future economic growth, and The Experience Economy is the playbook from which managers can begin to direct new performances.

This eye-opening but muddled volume tells companies to remain true to self or, at least, to appear genuine, arguing that in a world increasingly filled with deliberately and sensationally staged experiences... consumers choose to buy or not buy based on how real they perceive an offering to be. Everything that forms a company's identityÑfrom its name and practices to its product detailsÑaffects consumers' perceptions of its authenticity. Juggling philosophical concepts, in-depth case studies and ad slogans, Gilmore and Pine (The Experience Economy) run into trouble with a chapter called Fake, Fake, It's All Fake, which eviscerates the entire idea of authenticity: Despite claims of 'real' and 'authentic' in product packaging, nothing from businesses is really authentic. Everything is artificial, manmade, fake. The argument is unexpected and perhaps brilliant-yet rather confusing, since most of Authenticity argues that businesses should strive to not only appear authentic but to be so. The book's bullet points, charts and matrices add to the tangle, as the authors' early advice (your business offerings must get real) becomes a demand for furrowed-brow soul-searching. Still, the prose is snappy and conversational, and the book is densely packed with insights and provocations, and may inspire some executives to consider how consumers see their company.

In the naive past, advertising's goal was to place its product in front of as many consumers as possible. Lenderman's uneven book presents the new paradigm: experiential marketing (XM), a corporate form of viral marketing that connects the consumer and product in unique one-on-one situations that engage them with the brand in positive-and what the author terms "authentic"-ways. Through eight chapters that expound on Lenderman's (and others') 2004 IXMA Manifesto (International Experiential Marketing Association), the Creative Director of GMR Marketing provides scores of examples of XM's revolutionary approaches to marketing, many of which are employed by big name companies from Proctor and Gamble to Disney to leading car companies. Instead of the car company logo hanging over the concert stage, how about having new models outside where consumers can get in and breathe in that new car smell? While the book's train of argument wanders as it goes from one campaign to the next, the XM approach is fervently presented as the absolute antidote for dispassionate consumers. Companies looking for new and sophisticated ways to grow and connect their brand with consumers will find this book helpful, as several of its ideas can be adapted and implemented with little capital outlay. Publisher's Weekly

According to Tisch, ever-increasing consumer expectations mean that service-based industries have to go beyond the realm of good service to provide an experience that's truly exceptional-and thus, truly memorable. It's a simple premise that needs a rigorous treatment; unfortunately, this effort from Loews Hotels chairman and CEO Tisch (along with business writer Weber) suffers from a lack of ideas and analytical muscle. Tisch (The Power of We) makes some obvious statements, largely pertaining to people's desire for comfort, choice and individualization in their consumer experiences, and then sets about repeating them. The idea that "people want to know that patronizing your business ... won't add to their stress and anxiety....and can offer some respite" gets hammered home early and often. Practical examples of his techniques come by way of a number of businesses, including Loews hotels; as such, anecdotes can read like press releases (on disregarding the rules: in "Loews Hotels ... every housekeeper, bellman, engineer, and desk clerk knows that he or she is permitted-no, expected-to go outside the standard procedures when necessary...to provide that guest with a moment of unexpected satisfaction and delight"). Tisch's latest has a solid subject and some genuinely useful techniques that get lost in a bloated, redundant text.

Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands
Marketers are discovering that customers are not just rational decision-makers. Customers want to be entertained, emotionally affected, and creatively challenged by "experiencing" products and services. These phenomena provide the outlines of a type of marketing and management driven by experience. "Experiential marketing" will replace the traditional approach to marketing and business. In Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, and Relate to Your Company and Brands, Schmitt looks back on the old days of advertising that are still the model for what has informed both the advertiser and the consumer. Rather than referring to the old model that was developed in response to the industrial age, and focused on functional features and benefits, experiential marketing seeks to create an experience through "experience providers" or "ExPros." Experiential marketing intends to give the customer a holistic experience; not only to buy the product -- but to identify with it.

Renowned marketer Bernd Schmitt introduces a new marketing paradigm‹customer experience management Everyone has stories about terrible customer service‹whether they were treated poorly by an airline they often fly, or received lackluster service at a pricey hotel. Despite the fact that almost every company ostensibly embraces customer relations, most of them aren't doing a very good job of it. In The Customer Experience, legendary marketer Bernd Schmitt follows up his groundbreaking book Experiential Marketing by introducing a new and visionary approach to marketing called customer experience management (CEM). CEM is based on the idea that companies can better use their technological resources to maximize the sensory and emotional aspects of the customer's experience, especially now that so much of commerce takes place online or from remote locations like ATMs. Schmitt offers strategies for putting his theories into practice and demonstrates how CEM will oust other in vogue marketing schemes such as customer relations management (CRM) by reworking both the static company image and the way the consumer fundamentally interacts with the company. A profound and provocative treatise on the future of marketing, based on Schmitt's years of marketing experience, The Customer Experience will transform modern marketing to maximize the customer's sensory and emotional experience.

The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business
The phrase "information overload" had become a commonplace even before the Internet changed the way we think about knowledge distribution. In our newly digital world, where cell phones, palm devices, and email are ubiquitous, the most precious commodity of all is attention. Companies that can't command the attention of their customers and employees will suffer in what Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck have named "the attention economy" of the 21st century. Drawing from a globe-spanning research project and grounded in specfics drawn from the struggles of today's corporations, Davenport and Beck's compelling book makes a powerful case for their revolutionary model for measuring and managing human attention, our most valued and personal resource.

"Third places," or "great good places," are the many public places where people can gather, put aside the concerns of home and work (their first and second places), and hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation. They are the heart of a community's social vitality and the grassroots of a democracy. Sociology professor and author Ray Oldenburg portrays, probes, and promotes these great good places -- coffee houses, cafes, bookstores, hair salons, bars, bistros, and many others both past and present-and offers a vision for their revitalization.

Eloquent and visionary, this is a compelling argument for these settings of informal public life as essential for the health both of our communities and ourselves. And its message is being heard: Today, entrepreneurs from Seattle to Florida are heeding the call of The Great Good Place -- opening coffee houses, bookstores, community centers, bars and other establishments and proudly acknowledging their indebtedness to this book.

"Brandscaping" - the creation of a three-dimensional microcosm representing the brand is increasingly becoming a characteristic part in the architecture of retail areas, shopping centers, and showrooms. Rising to the challenge from E-commerce and the global competition for customers, companies, project developers, architects and interior architects are reacting with complex concepts which present the brand image, the encounter with the product as an object of desire, as a microcosm, an experience to be perceived the senses. Using the latest technology and features from the entertainment industry, these real and tangible "brand landscapes" lay value on generating an emotional impact, and range from standard shop systems to monumental theme parks. "brandscaping" presents 15 international projects from the fields of architecture and interior architecture, including Volkswagen AutoStadt, Wolfsburg, Niketown in London, the City Mall Sevens, Düsseldorf, the shopping center at Leipzig railway station, the Showroom Qiora New York, the shop concept Superga in Italy and the Migros supermarket chain in Switzerland. Concluding the volume is a documentation of the discussions which took place between image designers, architects and interior architects during a workshop.

Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People
Leading brand designer Marc Gobe reveals cutting-edge marketing strategies to engage today's increasingly cynical consumers on deeper, emotional levels. The author argues that marketing executives have ignored at their own risk the powerful emotional dimension of branding. Supported by case histories from Gobe's high-profile client list, the book analyzes and responds to major upcoming demographic and behavioral shifts in consumer populations and distribution channels at the retail and e-tail level. The book introduces a groundbreaking branding paradigm that utilizes high-impact sensory experiences to facilitate intense, emotional relationships with the consumer. Emotional Branding proposes innovative ways to create powerful and effective branding programs for meeting the challenges and opportunities of the new emotion-based economy.

If you're responsible for your company's advertising budget or its branding efforts, you need to read this pithy, iconoclastic book by marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries. The authors, best known for their acclaimed The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, begin with a blistering indictment of the advertising industry: Its products -- such as TV commercials and magazine campaigns -- are outrageously expensive, of little interest to most consumers, and can rarely be linked to an actual increase in sales. Even buzz-generating campaigns like the Energizer Bunny ads, Nike's "Just Do It" commercials, and Budweiser's "Whassup?" TV spots (the most honored in advertising history) have been unable to prevent significant losses in market share. Advertising, the Rieses conclude, is simply not able to fulfill its most basic mandate -- the creation of brand loyalty. As an alternative to conventional advertising, the authors prescribe public relations -- and offer dozens of ideas based on the success of products (Krispy Kremes, Starbucks coffee, the Ford Mustang) that have achieved national recognition without ad campaigns. Krispy Kreme, for example, persuaded a local celebrity to be the first customer to sample a glazed doughnut at the opening of its Phoenix store; the resulting free media coverage was far more effective than expensive advertising. Although the Rieses acknowledge exceptions to their rule (Altoids and Absolut vodka are the most obvious), their argument is persuasive. This book is a quick, enjoyable read, and its core message could very well save your company substantial sums of money while earning it the most elusive of holy grails -- sustained customer loyalty.

To survive in today's cold, dispassionate world of technology, branding guru Paul Temporal and IT expert K.C. Lee contend companies must get closer to their customers and give them warmer, more personalized experiences. That process, in turn, involves utilizing the "hi-tech hi-touch" branding techniques that form the core of this instructive work. "The key to standing out from the crowd is still the development of a powerful brand image, but the nature of branding has itself been forced to change. What is emerging from this metamorphosis is a new kind of brand experience for the consumer, offering hi-tech and hi-touch brand interaction." Drawing from marketing principles of the past and present, Lee and Temporal provide an accessible primer on the branding essentials of the future.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand Branding
Dubbed by many the "marketing buzzword" of the late nineties, everyone knows that building your product or service into a bona fide brand is the only way to cut through the clutter in today's insanely crowded marketplace. The only question is, how do you do it? The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the definitive text on branding, distilling the complex principles and theories espoused in other tomes into twenty-two quick and easy-to-read vignettes. Pairing the brand-blazing strategies from the world's best - like Coca-Cola, Xerox, BMW, Federal Express, and Starbucks - with the marketing savvy of author Al Ries and his daughter Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding builds on the success of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and provides the expert insight you seek on business's hottest topic.

"Why We Buy" is a witty and surprising report on our evolving shopping culture. This is a book about us, from moms and dads to seniors and mall rats, and what we do, and don't do, in stores, restaurants and showrooms. Why We Buy is about the struggle among merchants, marketers and increasingly knowledgeable customers for control. With humor, insight, anecdote and lots of hard data, retail anthropologist Paco Underhill leads the reader through a journey into shopping heaven and hell. For those in retailing and marketing, Why We Buy is a remarkably fresh guide, offering concrete and usable advice on how to adapt to the changing customer. For the general public, Why We Buy is a charming, funny and sometimes disconcerting mirror of who we really are.


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The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Why did crime in New York drop so suddenly in the mid-'90s? How does an unknown novelist end up a bestselling author? Why is teenage smoking out of control, when everyone knows smoking kills? What makes TV shows like "Sesame Street" so good at teaching kids how to read? Why did Paul Revere succeed with his famous warning? Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has been studying trends like these for years and has written several articles for the magazine that have developed into his new book, The Tipping Point. According to Gladwell, the Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.

There's visual design. Web design. Interaction design. Marketing. Branding. But increasingly, none of these are sufficient by themselves. Because you're trying to design something too big to fit in any of those boxes: an experience. In this book, Nathan Shedroff takes on the daunting task of showing how to design experiences. The result is an experience in itself, an extraordinary visual book with something to inspire you on virtually every page.