Experience Economy

I’ve been hitting bars about three nights a week for over a decade, except for two years in a dry state. It has continued across cities, be it Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, or even outside India. When people reach a new place, they Google top spots—monuments, markets, nature, food, and more. I Google ‘cool bars around me’. Imagine my plight—getting into IIM Ahmedabad only to spend two years in a no-bar state.

One might worry that I am a compulsive alcoholic. Now comes the fun part; I don’t even drink. In fact, till a few years back, I hadn’t even sipped alcohol and even post that it hasn’t been my drink of choice. It ranks number 3; post chocolate shake and diet coke. Since having chocolate shakes in bars might not seem the most macho and also the gazillion calories, I stick with Diet Coke and pour it into a glass meant for scotch (on the rocks). The choice of not starting to drink or smoke was made by me at the age of 17, post watching a Bollywood flick, ‘DevD’. I could so see myself as that hopeless romantic protagonist who loses his entire life drowning sorrows of losing a girl with an endless stream of liquor.

I get Experiencing Pleasure from ‘self-love’ and chocolate-based dishes (brownies, cakes, shakes, doughnuts, etc.). To cut calories from chocolate, I’ve been drinking litres of Diet Coke daily for over a decade.

I get my addictive dopamine from spontaneous encounters or craving pleasure. According to the Pareto principle, the highest craving NPV in the shortest time comes from offline interactions—mainly at bars—where the vibe and inebriation help smoothen conversations and make me sound more interesting.

Recently, on one such night, I was at a bar. I arrived around 11 and was on a call. Once I was done with the call, I saw two girls sitting at a table by the terrace wall. I was standing by the bar and the table was around four tables away from me. One of them had her back towards me, and I couldn’t see her. What caught my eye, even from afar, were her flawless looks and stunning smile. Secondly and more importantly, she was wearing a really cute hairband. This is an underrated accessory that I haven’t seen a lot of girls wear, especially in Delhi.

As I have stated in one of my standups and the dating matrix, “subtle compliments are a good way to test the waters, and also women like sharp observation skills and precise compliments instead of generic compliments like “You’re so beautiful”. Avoid blanket compliments—women will see through them, and you’ll likely seem insincere. Another thing to avoid is the infamous “Can I buy you a drink?” line. Buying her a drink isn’t chivalry—it risks making you that guy spending for attention. You may actually turn them off because you look desperate. If you compliment her, be quiet – let her respond. If you ask her a question, be quiet – let her answer. Start off the conversation lightly, casually, and relevant to the situation you’re both in. If she responds, great – move ahead with the conversation, and if she balks or ignores you, move on.”

And I just got the perfect opening line: a subtle compliment yet a sharp observation. I went up to her with this compliment with all permutations of her responses running in my head as in Delhi (Capital of validation ‘enthusiasts’), the worst she’ll say is not just NO. From a dry thanks to calling the bar manager and filing a lawsuit for harassment (the mind always wanders to the worst-case scenario), everything was on the table. But, something completely off the script happened here.

As soon as I reach her table, look into her beautiful eyes and compliment her headband, I hear an excited voice from my back rhetorically asking, “That’s a pickup line, right?” As I turn around who is this veteran in the arena; I notice an impeccable beauty with perfectly crafted sharp facial features, unblemished skin, and the really cute aforementioned excited voice. Her face definitely had a resemblance to Nora Fatehi’s face and the whole appeal was quite irresistible.

Now I had to play the dumb blonde who didn’t anything about picking up even clothes, let alone such glamorous girls (GG). So I used the same line I used in my standup about a bar interaction in 2012, that I am a rudimentary engineer et al. One of them is a yoga teacher (hairband one), and the other one is a brand consultant. But the conversation wasn’t quite picking up. Then something changed the rest of the night for the best.

I told them that I talk and write about modern-day dating and draw insights into its various nuances. They promptly invited me to join them and sit at their table. The rest of the night just flew away in fun-filled conversations, laughter, and lots of insights (how to differentiate infatuation from love, chemicals in romantic interaction, etc.). I didn’t even realise that it was the bar closing time and everyone around us had already left.

Anyway, coming to the MBA concept of ‘Experience Economy‘. Post the agrarian economy, industrial economy, and service economy, the next economy that follows is the experience economy. It is based on the belief that a brand intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable experience. Advanced experience businesses can charge for the value of the transformation they provide, like education, if it is shared in the value created by its graduates.

A day-to-day example that all of us would have experienced is at the movies. I always use to wonder as to why they charge us more than twice for a can of soft drink at a cineplex. Turns out, they are charging for the experience of enjoying the soft drink while watching your favorite flick in the acoustically perfect surround sound auditorium.

Customers can participate actively or passively in an experience. At the movies, for example, one participates with their presence and it falls under the passive form of experience. During active participation, a consumer plays a key role in creating the event or interaction that generates the experience. At IIM Ahmedabad, we got marks for class participation to make learning more active and enriching.

The charge levied for experience economy is one of the reasons I don’t like going out for dates as explained in the post about the importance of a landing page. On average, the bars/ cafes/ restaurants charge three to four times the MRP of even packed items. All this is justified in the name of the experience economy. What logic does it make to pay exorbitantly if the experience is having each other’s company? Why are we paying an outsider for that? And if the company sucks, it will suck irrespective of the place.

The experience economy concept can be applied to modern dating to reveal key insights. A question that often pops up is ‘what kind of guys/girls do you fall for?’ And most of the time, you are left wondering how it isn’t about the hot looks or the money or even the brains, it’s about the experience you have in their presence.

So if you are on a date with someone whom you want to impress, you need to make the experience as fun and active as possible. You want to build an affinity towards you, give them what they want. What they want, it turns out, is an experience—something memorable, something with which they can connect. Yes, you might have the best of degrees and flawless looks, but what do you have to offer your date? Can you fulfill a need they didn’t ask you to, or maybe even one they didn’t know they had, somewhere within their interaction with you? Can you cater to their subconscious’s unfulfilled needs/ desires?

That brings me back to GG. So is this it? Does the meaningless bar spree finally come to an end? Do I finally have my Nora?

Well, the reason the conversation wasn’t taking off was that they both got recently committed. In fact, one of them even called her guy a Christmas miracle. It reminded me of the MVP muse’s drawing. The conversations were mostly me handing out insights on dating alongside some compliments as according to my pre-requisites, they perfectly fit my TG and their LTV is quite high. But it was about their experience, for them it was a fun/ funny interaction and they had nothing to lose. The shelf life of such encounters is mostly one night. I didn’t hear from them post that night, so I am back to my place of closure. The only love that has stayed with me across the years: Heartfelt Writing.

Later,

Sidhant