Experience gift
As experience gifts ( english event poison, experience toxic ) are gifts designated that are not material in nature, but in which the sharing of common experiences and individual memories is paramount. This characteristic distinguishes them from classic gifts. Typical adventure gifts are, for example, action-packed activities such as bungee jumping and driving a Ferrari , or culinary experiences such as crime dinners and candlelight dinners.
The word itself represents a compound that is made up of the terms experience and gifts.
Cultural and economic importance
There have always been private adventure gifts. From the perspective of cultural sociologists such as Gerhard Schmied, however, the ever wider spread and commercialization through an "experience gift industry" can be seen as a relatively new phenomenon of an adventure society that is looking for ever more unusual variety, or as an expression of a post-materialistic attitude towards life that is nothing practical and useful for the Household needs more and places little value on material status symbols.
However, adventure gifts are associated with a higher social (e.g. disappointment) risk, which also depends on the degree of social distance on both sides.
Various providers around the world sell adventure gifts in various categories, including sports and wellness offers. Depending on the product, the experiences can either be undertaken alone, in pairs or in a group.
Experience gifts are also becoming increasingly important in the context of company incentive systems for employees and in customer relationship marketing . This is also due to their high social visibility, which is sometimes more important to the recipients than a monetary bonus.
history
The British company Red Letter Days (derived from red-letter day "a special day that you have to mark yourself in red"), which was launched in 1989 by the Englishwoman Rachel , is considered a pioneer of the concept of giving away individual, tangible experiences Elnaugh who wanted to give her father's birthday cards to a cricket match . The company had to be wound up in 2005 due to insolvency, but was continued by new owners.
In the years that followed, companies were founded by various providers worldwide, including international providers. In the USA, the terms event gift or experience gift have been used for around 1998.
The first experience gift provider in Germany was Mydays, founded in Frankfurt in 2003 . A global network of providers from all over the world, the Global Experience Alliance, has existed since 2008 . There are also platforms on which you can register as a donor for event gifts e.g. B. can register for weddings or anniversaries.
The success of the wave of adventure gifts prompted manufacturers of luxury products, which are typically used as end-of-year gifts, to launch campaigns that stylize the purchase of their products or the gift-giving moment itself as an event and emotionalise it through corresponding accompanying activities.
Categories of adventure gifts
- Sport and action: Typical adventure gifts in this area are extreme sports and adventurous experiences of all kinds, such as playing paintball , base flying , a visit to the high ropes course or white water rafting .
- Dinner and culinary delights: In addition to a romantic evening for two at a candlelight dinner or an eventful crime dinner, international cooking courses, whiskey seminars or beer brewing courses can also be attended.
- Driving experiences: These include driving a racing car yourself, completing a motorcycle training course or going on a tour in a tank or in a dog sled .
- Flying and falling: The offers in this area range from parachute jumps to flying a helicopter or airplane to balloon rides .
- Wellness: The adventure gifts also include numerous wellness and beauty offers. Mainly massages of different kinds, wellness offers especially for women or men as well as cosmetic treatments are represented here. Floating weightlessly on the water in a floating shell is another popular wellness offer that is available from most adventure providers.
- Culture and lifestyle: This category offers a wide range of offers, such as participation in a goldsmithing course, a professional photo shoot or a city tour. Other experiences in this field, for example, painting lessons, body painting or picking up an own CD .
- Short breaks and overnight stays: Short breaks such as city trips, musicals with overnight stays or spending a night in an igloo or tree house also form a category of their own for many providers.
literature
- Nina Andres: Gifts with a difference: ideas for people who already have everything. Bassermann, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3809430049 .
- Matthias Hannemann: The adventure partner. In: brandeins.de, 2008.
- Anna Noebels, Loreen Lauschke: Find the ideal gift: the practical guide. ISBN 978-3847660576 .
- Gerhard Schmied: Contributions from inclination and duty: gifts as communication media. In: Alfred Bellebaum, Robert Hettlage (ed.): Our everyday life is full of society. Social science contributions. Springer Verlag, Viernheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-531-18605-4 , pp. 105–123.
Web links
- Global Experience Alliance : Global network of experience providers
- Adventure gifts tested on n-tv , November 29, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nadine Oberhuber: Adventure gifts are trendy , on faz.net, without a date.
- ^ Carin Witter: Buying gifts as an instrument of customer relationship marketing. Diss. Paderborn, p. 34, 2019.
- ↑ JK Goodman, S. Lim: When Consumers Prefer to Give Material Gifts Instead of Experiences: The Role of Social Distance , in: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 45, 2018, No. 2, pp. 365-382.
- ↑ Pons online dictionary: translation "red-letter day"
- ↑ “December to Remember” Campaign Returns for Its 20th Year , lexus.de, November 1, 1999.