Converging Industries Through Experience: Lessons from Edutainment

Education and entertainment are two of the four realms of experience defined by Pine and Gilmore (1999), but may be the objective of the experience itself. In particular, the literature has extensively analysed entertainment experiences as important examples of hedonistic consumption, while education has been viewed as that part of the economy belonging to 'high culture' (generally differentiated from popular cultural) which is consumed in the pursuit of functional benefits. Despite these specific characteristics, the two areas share the importance of the individual's immersion into the experience. Only if the contact with the environment in which the experience occurs (or better with all the elements of the environment) is close and direct, will the individual be able to assimilate the entertainment or educational input and appreciate the experience to the full, so gaining maximum value. This depends in part on the fact that both entertainment and educational experiences are part of the broader world of the services, in which typically and traditionally the physical context plays a critical role in determining consumer attitudes and behaviour. On the other hand, however, the crucial importance of the context depends on a number of peculiarities of entertainment and education. Indeed, in these two cases, the borderline between the element with which the consumer interacts and the context in which the interaction takes place is so indistinct that the two concepts almost become one. In these types of experience, it is difficult for the consumer to identify precisely when the experience begins and when it ends (Is the experience of a concert just the duration of the performance, or does it begin as the members of the audience prepare at home to attend the concert and end with their memories?). Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish the importance of the social environment of an experience in forming the individual context (Is the presence of other colleagues at a scientific seminar just a secondary variable, or does it, too, generate value for the learner?). Or again, what is the role played by staff in an individual's interaction with an experience? (Do the staff at a theme park merely help the visitors, or do consumers see them as actors in their own right?) These difficulties in defining an entertainment and an educational experience are the result of the central position of the emotions, even pre-determined emotions, and the intense involvement of the individual in the course of the experience. Therefore, the individual's immersion in these experiences is critical both for researchers who want to understand the significance and for those interested in the managerial implications and opportunities to exploit to the full the economic returns from the underlying investments. If, on the one hand, entertainment has recently been indicated as one of the most significant areas of western economies (Wolf, 1999), on the other, business schools, for example, are interested in discovering how to use new technologies to design and deliver on-line courses which overcome the traditional barriers to training (time and space) with direct and immediate interaction. It is precisely the more recent economic trends that have proposed the convergence of entertainment and education as a new area of value both for the consumer and for the economic players, institutions and companies involved. The ultimate aim is that the learning experience is enriched if the the learner is immersed in an entertainment experience. However, in order to understand the logic and identify the best levers, we must focus our attention on the ways in which these two traditionally distant economic fields can be integrated.