Experience Reinvention Test
Ask what legacy formats cannot do, then design a distinctly better experience
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 95%
The Experience Reinvention Test asks what established category operators cannot do because of their venue size, infrastructure, economics, or traditions. The team then uses the challenger’s different constraints to create a perceptibly different experience. Smaller playing areas, for example, can support simultaneous games, music stages, food, and social activity in a festival format. Adjacent models such as Topgolf can demonstrate how play, hospitality, and entertainment combine. The objective is not novelty for its own sake; each addition should reinforce accessibility, sociability, or excitement and make the new category feel intentionally designed rather than like a cheaper imitation.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain while the hosts compared a proposed pickleball festival with conventional sporting events and Topgolf.
Core principles
- 01New categories should not inherit old formats automatically
- 02Physical constraints can become design opportunities
- 03Adjacent experiences reveal useful format combinations
- 04A challenger must create a noticeably different experience to win
How to run it
- 1
Expose inherited conventions
List the assumptions copied from established competitors about venues, schedules, audiences, and participation.
Pro tip Ask why each convention exists and whether that reason still applies.
Watch out Familiarity alone is not evidence that a convention is necessary.
- 2
Find structural freedoms
Identify what the product’s scale, format, or economics allows that incumbent formats prevent.
Pro tip Pay attention to density, simultaneity, mobility, and social participation.
Watch out Do not confuse cost cutting with experience innovation.
- 3
Borrow from adjacent experiences
Study hospitality, festivals, games, and entertainment formats that solve similar audience needs differently.
Pro tip Borrow mechanisms rather than surface aesthetics.
Watch out Too many unrelated additions can dilute the core activity.
- 4
Prototype the contrast
Build a small version and test whether users describe it as meaningfully different and better.
Pro tip Observe dwell time, participation, social interaction, and return intent.
Watch out If users cannot perceive the difference, the reinvention is not strong enough.
In the wild
An organizer uses compact courts to run several matches simultaneously while bands perform, restaurants serve food, and visitors rotate between watching and playing. The format feels more like a festival than a conventional stadium event.
→ The category gains a distinctive, social experience that established stadium sports cannot easily reproduce.
Common mistakes
Recreating the incumbent cheaply
A smaller imitation preserves the old experience while highlighting the challenger’s lower scale.
Adding unrelated entertainment
Music, food, or hospitality should strengthen the core experience rather than distract from it.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for challengers whose product format permits combinations or experiences incumbents cannot easily support.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when customers primarily value standardization, compatibility, or familiar rituals.
From the transcript
“I keep thinking about what you can't do in other sports that you could do here, right?”
“What if we did like a pickleball festival where like you had bands, everything else, a part of it because you could, because of the…”
“We need to craft a very different experience to win, is one of the principles I believe in this problem.”
From the episode
CMO for the Day: Marketing Pickleball