Mastercard Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Raja Rajamannar is quite clear on his opinion of current marketing practices. “The strategies to get the right consumer insights are totally flawed,” he said. “Every single aspect of marketing has to be reinvented.” In a CES panel on “Revolutionizing Customer Engagement,” Rajamannar and Netflix Vice President of Consumer Products Josh Simon described their partnership efforts to create experiences that engage the fanbase. The discussion, led by influencer.com Chief Executive Ben Jeffries, first focused on why traditional marketing strategies are failing.

Rajamannar asked the audience a simple question: Who has a longer attention span, a human or a goldfish? It turns out that the goldfish wins, with a 9-second attention span. Humans used to have a 12-second attention span, but that’s now degraded to 8 seconds, “because of all the consumer messages we see every day.”

“Consumers see between 3,000 and 10,000 ads every day,” he said. “Advertising is dead. Businesses talk about a frictionless, seamless experience but then serve stupid ads that disrupt that experience.”

He added that marketing theories and practices were all devised more than six decades ago when there was no Internet, social media or mobile phones. “All consumer decisions are subconscious, driven by emotion,” he noted. “We’re losing a boatload of money on ads and loyalty programs.”

Simon reported that it’s been “really exciting” to see how Netflix fans gravitate to interacting with TV shows and movies. He gave the example of Jennifer Lopez throwing herself a “Bridgerton” birthday party, and “Squid Game” costumes selling out for Halloween.

“In my world we’re trying to come up with ways to fuel the connection and bring fans closer through experiences and merchandise,” he said, pointing out that they now market fictional brands featured in “Stranger Things,” such as Scoops Ahoy ice cream and Surfer Boy Pizza. “It’s about giving fans a chance to get closer.”

Rajamannar described how the iconic “Priceless” campaign drove Mastercard from its position of the 87th brand to current No. 11, without the marketing spend going up.

“We took a big bet in moving to an experience-based marketing strategy,” he said, outlining all the consumer-centric experiences created around the campaign including fragrances and restaurants. He also noted how two very popular Netflix shows in India really impacted the culture, which sparked his interest in partnering with the streaming content company.

Simon explained that Netflix sees live experiences as part of the same storytelling process of creating shows “We’ve created 40 different performance concepts and had 170 launches in 100 cities around the world, that seven to eight million people have attended,” he said. “We build experiences grounded very closely to the show’s IP with the intention of bringing them on the road.”

He pointed to the “Bridgerton” Queen’s Ball, where 90 percent of the attendees showed up in regency attire, an event whose popularity led to a line of “Bridgerton” wedding gowns. In London, a stage play of “Stranger Things” sold out. “The next step is Netflix House, which is a handful of live experiences in one venue,” he said. “It’s building an infrastructure that allows us to move at the same pace as culture.”

Rajamannar explained why creating experiences is a powerful new direction for marketing today. “Brand loyalty is dead,” he said. “But you can have brand preference or even an affection for the brand. Earning and keeping trust is extremely critical and it’s not an overnight event — it’s a process.”

Related:
How Quantum Marketing Will Change Our Lives — For Good, Raja Rajamannar, TEDxNashville