experience economy

The basic idea of the experience economy was in my head soon after I got to ID, but I am only now reading it firsthand. The 1998 HBR article seems to be an excellent blueprint for creating a design consultancy - I would be very interested to know if any consultancies explicitly used this method, or if Pine and Gilmore had done work with any of those consultancies.
In particular, it seems that the consultancies are elevating research (possibly education - maybe this is the generalization we're building now at ID) from a service to an experience. I like to oversimplify such things in the form of an earnest, text-heavy, 50-s style advertisement:

"Does your company lack knowledge in a particular field, or are you having trouble with a particular process? Call us - not only will we enable you to build what you want to build, but we'll make you rock stars in the process and give you the opportunity to tell all your buddies at the golf course that you are working with some of the world's most talented people.

Compare this to the alternatives of the painful learn-it-yourself approach, or the humbling experience of asking for help, or the (acutally I'm not sure what it's like) experience of getting BCG to drop by, and it's clear they've found a great opportunity space. Next experience to offer:

"So your company/city/ruling party has collapsed. It's no time to venally try to hang on to power - come to the Transformation Institute and relax in the sun while taking in the latest ideas from others in your situation while we all work together to plot the next venture/revolution."