Experience has become the watchword for all brands. Today, we no longer sell products or services but experiences. Luxury brands have well understood this, and the experience is at the heart of their offers and strategies.

American researchers at Cornell University have shown that the experience provides more happiness and sustainability than possession.

Indeed, material possessions offer a temporary happiness, quickly tarnished by weariness (all the more so in our current system of intensive consumption). Possessions can even bring frustration, because you always tend to compare yourself to others (isn’t my neighbour’s latest phone better than mine?)

Experiences last both a moment and a lifetime. Their volatile nature makes them unique and touches us more deeply than a possession. An experience is lived and felt differently by each person, and becomes a story, a memory to be shared, a strong moment that can remain anchored for life in our memories. Proust’s famous Madeleine.

The brands have understood this, particularly in the luxury sector. Owning an object is no longer an end in itself, today’s consumers are no longer looking for an experience to live and share (“being” rather than “having”).

We see it through the ads of the major luxury brands, which no longer even show the object to own but an atmosphere, a universe that projects us into the experience to live.

Similarly, points of sale are increasingly being staged to provide a unique and memorable experience.

LVMH group is even extending the concept of experiential luxury by investing in luxury tourism. With the acquisition of Belmond hotels, the group offers a new horizon for its prestigious brands and will be able to offer very high-end hotels and travel experiences in order to live unique experiences !

Experiences that make us happier in the long term. And it’s even better if they’re shared !

Because understanding the lived experience is at the heart of the philosophy of Repères, we have developed new approaches to measure a consumer’s emotional activation in response to a stimulus or to understand the emotional stories associated with a brand. To know more about it is HERE