Experience marketing as a Wundt(erful) Experience

In recent years, events that focus on experiential marketing take place in the world. In these shows, consumers find themselves in a very crowded place. Many multimedia instruments are used to attract the attention of participants to the marketing show. High volume music eye-catching videos from the stands discomfort consumers. A lot of activities take place at the same time and these create cacophony of noise and attack the senses of people.

This paper aims to discover the value and role of design in these organizations and also to find the better ways of serving the consumers.

In a survey, two focus groups including 90 physicians were conducted with a prerequisite that they must have attended the major organizations about their professions. The physicians were asked to choose the most appropriate facial express that describe their feelings when they walk onto an exhibit floor? More than 50 % of the physicians selected the 3rd expression which means “ I feel over-stimulated by all the commotion and sights and then have to decide which direction to head first”

“Focus group results for physicians who attend medical conventions”

Some of the dynamics between complexity and arousal in live environments have been described by psychologists in the context of behavioral and environmental psychology. Wundt, a late-nineteenth-century German psychologist, theorized that when faced with varying levels of intensity, individuals prefer moderate levels of intensity and will always seek to maintain this level. He demonstrated through experiments that increasing intensity improves pleasure for individuals up to a point at which any further intensity creates decreasing pleasure. He mapped this concept, and the resulting bell curve became known as theWundt curve.

“Wundt demonstrated through experiments that increasing intensity increases arousal and consequently pleasure for individuals up to a point at which any further intensity creates decreasing pleasure.”

Berlyne theorizes that individuals always want to maintain an optimal level of pleasure, in an environment that provides sub-optimal arousal, whether it is uninteresting or downright boring, those individuals will be motivated to increase their level of complexity and arousal.

Reference: Stephen Mapes, Design Management Review Spring 2007



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