According to Steve Heyer CEO, marketers and media agencies should start changing the way they do business or else their corporations are headed to a collapse. These are bold words that were spoken by this visionary business leader almost a decade ago and people continue to refer to them today. He said these things to a good number of the most influential persons in the industry a number of years in the past.
Steve Heyer is a person of great importance in the business world, not least because he is one of the chiefs of Starwood Hotels. His words from some years past were eventually continued in subsequent interrogations regarding them. The trick, according to him, was to focus on selling fun, not a bed or a room.
In this approach, what is being sold is the experience itself. He said that the hotels had to work on selling experiences worth remembering. Heyer's innovation was in the lens through which he approached the subject.
Another of the points he made was that businesses had to face a powerful trend towards customization in goods and services. Nowadays we see that Heyer was right. And this is most apparent in the computer and digital industries.
The entertainment industry is also suffering from certain digital innovations impinging on their channels. Just for illustration, when software for musical piracy was introduced, the support from consumers was so overwhelming that the music industry almost immediately saw a setback in profits. Internet users indiscriminately downloaded the latest and most popular hits for free.
The musical industry suffered huge losses, as noted by Heyer in his 2003 speech. Heyer told people in music production that they now had to adapt to this new setting, as it could no longer be stopped. He also addressed TV executives and warned them to prepare and adapt to “the changing media consumption habits of younger generations”.
To him, the postmodern cultural product was what made sense, where consumers bought because they wanted the culture. An experience that is not easily replicable is the primary product Heyer is looking to market for Starwood. This marketing tactic would lead to emphasis being placed on the entertainment possibilities of each hotel.
To this end, Victoria’s Secret has been called on to partner with the hotels to produce The Limited Victoria Secret shows for exclusive viewing in the hotels. To tempt customers, the shows have been marketed as exclusive events. This is a clear example of marketing an experience.
Heyer has also spoken out against slapping on brands in films. He found it reprehensible for its lack of contextual significance. He also said this practice neither improves storylines nor enhances marketability of products.
Steve Heyer CEO is someone who knows what he is doing: he even used to be chief of Coca Cola, one of the biggest businesses in the world. And with Coca Cola, he demonstrated contextual placement of brands into TV programs. He managed to get Coke cups on the table of the judges for a certain talent competition aired on TV, ensuring contextual visibility.
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