According to Steve Heyer CEO, marketers and media agencies should start changing the way they do business or else their corporations are headed to a collapse. Heyer's notes on this were given long ago, yet they prove true now. Perhaps his most memorable words on them were given in 2003, during a notable address of his peers.
The man occupies a top position in Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. His words from some years past were eventually continued in subsequent interrogations regarding them. He claimed that he is not marketing rooms in hotels but entertainment and lasting memories.
Heyer's emphasis was on the marketing of an experience. Memorable experiences, in other words, would be the products. Technically, what is being offered has not really changed: it is simply the way of looking at it that has.
In the 2003 speech, he proposed to marketers and media leaders to become more customized and personalized in delivering their services and products, and aim for the empowerment of consumers. This is precisely what one now observes in businesses: customization. This is a theme most strongly supported by digital products and companies nowadays.
The latest developments have also spelled difficulty for people in entertainment. The development of applications capable of ripping sound from CDs, for instance, led to music producers suffering. Suddenly no-one wanted to pay for songs any longer, opting instead to get them free, off the Net.
The music industry momentarily went into chaos, which is a scenario referred to in Steven Heyer’s keynote address. In his 2003 speech, the CEO turned to music executives and reminded them of the changing ways of producing and reproducing music due to the empowerment of consumers. Heyer insisted that even those in television had to look out for how the new circumstances could affect them.
Steve Heyer argues that modern marketing efforts should focus on the creation of cultures, not products. In the interview explaining his marketing strategy for Starwood Hotels, he furthered explained that they are now a company engaged in distributing entertainment and unforgettable experiences. This would thus place the onus of drawing in consumers on the entertainment value of the hotels in question, as opposed to their actual ability to "house" people in need of a place to stay temporarily.
In order to achieve the goal, Heyer has brought in Victoria's Secret, partnering with it to promote the hotels through the fashions shows being hosted for the lingerie line. Only certain persons in the Starwood hotels are allowed to attend the runway shows. Here we see the application of Heyer's concepts.
Heyer has also spoken out against slapping on brands in films. He found it reprehensible for its lack of contextual significance. To him, such random inserts would serve little purpose, either for the film or for the company.
A look at Coca Cola's roster of past chiefs shall show Steve Heyer CEO on it. And with Coca Cola, he demonstrated contextual placement of brands into TV programs. He managed to get Coke cups on the table of the judges for a certain talent competition aired on TV, ensuring contextual visibility.
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