Today, customers take functional features and benefits, product quality, and a positive brand image as a given. What they want is products, communications, and marketing campaigns that dazzle their senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds. They want products, communications, and campaigns that they can relate to and that they can incorporate into their lifestyles. They want products, communications, and marketing campaigns to deliver an experience. The degree to which a company is able to deliver a desirable customer experience - and to use information technology, brands, and integrated communications and entertainment to do so - will largely determine its success in the global marketplace of the new millennium.

The progression from traditional marketing and branding toward experiential marketing can be illustrated nicely with recent campaigns by the Coca-Cola Company designed by Desgrippes Gobe, an international brand image creation firm. For the Tour de France 1996, Coca-Cola used a simple product presence approach through the pervasive, ubiquitous use of its logo. In Euro 96, unique graphics were created to incorporate the Coca-Cola icons into the European soccer sports event. In the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Coca-Cola presented a total experiential approach in its Olympic village and other events centred on the theme of “refreshment for the whole world”.