Bernd Schmitt, the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business in the Marketing Division and executive director of the School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership, is leading an online video lecture series this week on FT.com.
The series focuses on experiential marketing. Schmitt explores and analyzes hot “experiential” brands like Samsung and Apple in five video installments that appear alongside suggested reading lists, links and a discussion forum. Viewers can post questions to Schmitt at askft.com. The interactive lecture series is the second online executive education course produced by FT.com in partnership with a leading business school.
“Experience is one of the hottest topics in marketing management today,” Schmitt says in the first video. Leading the viewer on a walkabout through his apartment, he points out popular brands like Red Bull, Herbal Essences and Evian. “Managers feel it is no longer enough to have just great functional features, benefits and quality; you need to provide a great experience for your customers.”
Schmitt is widely recognized for his unique focus on the customer experience. In Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands (Free Press, 1999), he outlines an integrated marketing approach that moves beyond the functional features and benefits of a brand. He has published more than 50 articles in marketing, management and psychology journals, in addition to appearing on BBC, CNBC, CNN and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
Schmitt will answer questions in a live Q&A session on Monday, October 2, at 8 a.m. In addition, viewers can fill out an online quiz and enter to win a place in the School’s three-day executive education course Experience Marketing: Setting Your Brand Apart with Superior Customer Experience, which will be taught by Professor Schmitt in April.
Columbia Executive Education’s courses provide a powerful combination of theory, practical knowledge and application. Since 1951, more than 48,000 executives from Global 1000 companies in over 100 countries have benefited from the program’s unique results-oriented approach to executive education.