"For successful restaurants, aesthetics is no longer an afterthought. Customers are paying for memories, not just fuel. What's true for restaurants is true across the economy. New economic value increasingly comes from experiences."

So writes Virginia Postrel in a telling article, "The New Trend in Spending," appearing in today's New York Times' "Economic Scene."

Vance Packard wrote about the selling of experience in The Hidden Persuaders, a bestselling screed on advertising's manipulation of emotions published in the 1950s and republished several times since. More recently, Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore's The Experience Economy and Bern Schmitt's Experiential Marketing make a more seasoned case for the same phenomena.

What's significant about the historical moment in which we live is that efforts to sell consumers on "the intangibles" finally seems to be gaining traction. It will dominate design practice and marketing in years to come, as physical commodities become more dear and the cost of creating experiences declines.

According to Postrel, design of experience is squarely in the economic driver's seat, at least so far as consumer spending is concerned. Providing experiences is good business. Here's the rest of Postrel's thesis:

"Americans have not stopped buying stuff, of course. (Indeed, there's a whole industry devoted to organizing our pantry-like closets.) But the marginal value of tangibles versus intangibles has shifted. That many manufactured goods are also getting cheaper only intensifies the trend.

"Products as well as services increasingly distinguish themselves through aesthetics, adding emotional value to practical use. This trend confounds those who equate "quality" with function.

"Hence a recent Dilbert comic strip satirizes a product designer who declares: "Quality is yesterday's news. Today we focus on the emotional impact of the product."

"In fact, the trend toward emotional value is exactly what psychological research would predict. Particularly as incomes rise, people find that additional experiences give them more pleasure than additional possessions."

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