Consumer demand is still weak. And many people are saying marketing has run out of tricks in the face of this combination. As if in substantiation, we seem to be running a dearth of new hit products. And advertising does not get the response it used to.
  
Part of this is because of market maturation. Part of it is the shift  from thing to experiences. Yet at the same time, the market for experiences has not grown as much as people had hoped. Sports, for example, is the typical experience product, but it is a shrinking market.
  
To some degree, this is because experience marketers have continued to think simply in terms of supply and demand. Event marketing is the same way. In festivals, for example, people have tended to think of the spectators and the participants alike as consumers to be attracted by the spectacle. But in fact, spectators and participants are important parts of the product, and they are often a key determinant of the product's value.
  
Given this realization, one of the core issues for marketing has to be that of how to involve consumers as participants in creating exciting-experience products.
  
Aoyama Yoshiyuki
Juntendo University