Experiential Consumption

Experiential ConsumptionFoundations, more European views

and recent ideas

AD 640 Marketing TheoryPresentation

Ezgi Merdin 1Ezgi Merdin - Bogazici University -

Marketing PhD

OutlinePIONEERS:• Holbrook, M.B. and Hirschman, E.C. (1982) The experiential aspects of

consumption: Consumer fantasy, feelings and fun. Journal of Consumer Research 9(2), 132–140.

and Supporting Article for Comparison:• Bettman, J. R. (1970) “Information Processing Models of Consumer

Behavior”, Journal of Marketing Research 7 (August) 370–376REVISITING AND CRITICIZING THE CONCEPT:• Caru , A. and Cova, B. (2003) “Revisiting consumption experience: A more

humble but complete view of the concept.” Marketing Theory 3(2), 267–286.

ON SUSTAINABLE EXPERIENCES:• Gentile, C & Spiller, N and Noci, G. (2007) “How to Sustain the Customer

Experience: An Overview of Experience Components that Co-create Value with the Customer”, European Management Journal 25 (5) pp. 395–410

2Ezgi Merdin - Bogazici University - Marketing PhD

Fantasies, Feelings & Fun(Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982)


1. Environmental Inputs

Information Processing Experiential View

4Concepts for Effective Marketing Management in Nonbusiness Organizations

Goods with higher symbolic meaning, like entertainment, arts, leisure activities. Increased attention of research on singers, fashion, concerts etc. High level of interest and involvement like arts.

•Nonverbal-multisensory stimuli

•Syntactic aspects of message content: structure and style

Ezgi Merdin - Bogazici University - Marketing PhD

2. Consumer Inputs



•Subjective time resources, psycho-temporal expenditures

•Pleasure principle, hedonic response, immediate pleasure or gratification & primary process

•Right-brain, emotion, arousal, attention, interest, excitement


2. Consumer Inputs



•Exploratory behavior, overt search, esthetics, stimulus complexity and hedonic value.

•Subcultures, sensation seeking / creativity / religious world view / type A-B personality


2. Consumer Inputs

Methodological Problems


Task definition problems:• need to develop better measures of hedonic response and pleasure• problems of reliability and validity due to situational fluctuationsInvolvement problems:• Construct validity of psychobiological measures• Discouraging convergent validities of brain indicesSearch activity problems:• Esthetic stimuli should be designed in a wide range• There must be a measure of subjective uncertainty• It should be the intervening variable that mediates stimulus complexity

effect on hedonic response


3. Intervening Response System



•Subconscious and private processes, imagery, daydreaming•Latent content

•Pleasure principle, hedonic response, immediate pleasure or gratification & primary process

•Right-brain, emotion, arousal, attention, interest, excitement


2. Consumer Inputs

Methodological Problems


• Belief in indirect methods to overcome sensitivity barriers to retrieve the subconscious

• Use of quantifiable projective techniques on large samples for statistical tests


Information Processing Models(Bettman, 1970)

Models and Cues:The models consider• a memory consisting of an array of cues• various simple processes that operate on cues• a network or a discrimination net for combining the cues

Finally cues fall into 3 basic categories:• choice object attributes (color, price, weight...)• external environmental attributes (husband preference, word of mouth...)• internal cues, cognitive variables (perceived degree of risk)

Source: Bettman, 1970



For testing, some questions from the model were then asked to the consumers until enough cues for specified. So the models were run on the data collected by protocols and approved for match. The measures include % of correct predictions and Turing’s test.

Problems:• External cues are very general and afford a low level of explanation• Process of determining cues is very subjective• Attitudes and social elements are not present in the model explicitly but some of the components

represent them implicitly.

But still author argues individual consumers are modelled quite well.

Source: Bettman, 1970


Revisiting Consumption Experience (Caru & Cova, 2003)

• “A more humble but complete view of the concept” • bringing a critique to the issue of experience and consumption v. consumer

experience.

• Relationship as the new core of marketingIn 1990s, relationship became the heart of the marketing discipline in place of the transaction, as a solid and innovative concept to come over mid-life crisis of marketing in 1980s.As an extension, notion of experience entered the field of the consumption, (by Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982) but not without its conceptual problems.



• Definitions of “experience”Outside of management scienceEncyclopaedia Universalis: “we learn a lesson from an experience”

“we were changed by the experience”Scientifically, there is scientific experiment on objective facts.In philosophy, it is personal trial that transforms the individual.In sociology and psychology, it is a subjective and cognitive activity of

the individual to develop. It is related deeply with its aesthetic form. There are “peak”, “flow” or “epiphanic experiences”.

In anthropology and ethnology, it is a way of living culture, involving an intensity of personal feeling, that can be described only orally, subjectively and by interpretation.



• Definitions of “experience”In management scienceHolbrook&Hirschman: with important emotional significance, founded

on the interaction with stimuli which are products or services.There are extraordinary experiences leading to a transformation of the

individual.Firat&Dholakia: “Consumption is an act of production of experiences and

selves or self-images... sensed emotionally as well as through reason.”

immersion: became a key concept. “The postmodern consumer is said to take pleasure in being immersed in McDisneyfied banalities...”

experiential consumption v. functional consumption: especially with the growth of services, the good that is purchased is an experience rather than a material object. And the consumers are feelers as well as thinkers.



• Time dimension of “experience”Arnould et al (2002) explains 4 major stages of experience:

• Thus, consumption experience cannot be reduced solely to shopping experience.• Thus, the postmodern (millenial) consumer is simply not what the rational model of

marketing wanted him/her to be! (Bettman model?)

16

Pre –consumptionexperience

Searching, planning, daydreaming, foreseeing or imagining

Purchase experience Choice, payment, packaging, encounter

Core consumption experience

Sensation, satiety, satisfaction/dissatisfaction, irritation/flow, transformation

Remembered consumption (nostalgia) experience

Stories, arguments with friends, classification of memories



• Experience typologies:ex. Csikzentmihalyi’s experience typology (1997)

17

Max psychic energyPeak – epiphanic-

extraordinary experiences



CRITIQUE 1• This overemphasis on peak or epiphanic experiences is criticized. Immersion

into flow has become the reference for the concept of experience.• Consumption experience v. Consumer experience

There are three more categories of experience in addition to consumer experience: family experiences / friendship experiences / citizenship experiences SO: each consumption is not a market consumption experience. BUT marketing is only interested in the market context, thus consumer’s experience with the supplier and other consumers only. This excludes: reciprocity relations like gift giving and re-distribution relations like public services.



CRITIQUE 2Actually, each consumption experience is not memorable or unforgettable. This brings us to a dead-end in experience marketing?European romanticism:Romantic roots of experiential consumption date back to 18th century, favoring intense pleasures and high arousal v. mediocrity of everyday life.This meant further move away from pure functionalism of responding to needs.“culturally biased north American vision of experience anchored in Romanticism”American society took these romantic values and led to a fear of boredom, every moment had to evoke strong emotions, thus led to dangerous entertainment etc...



SUM OF EUROPEAN CRITIQUESAgainst the ideology of obligation to be happy.The obligation of filling up all free time with astonishing experiences led to disappearance of the contemplative time. Every minute cannot be saturated by activity. Joy of taking a walk.To avoid finishing in a dead-end similar to “relationship marketing” , take phenomena of experience full-breadth, from ordinary to extraordinary, both commercial and non-commercial.


Sustaining Consumption Experience (Gentile et al, 2007)

“A research article on how the right environment and setting for the desired Customer Experience should be created.”

Transaction-based Continuous concept ofCustomer Relationship Customer Experience (rational – economic) (emotional & irrational customer behavior)

Experience is the new competitive battleground, advantage.

LITERATURE• Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982: brought neglected variables like emotion• Pine & Gilmore, 1999: the Experience economy

commodity goods services experiencesCompanies need to provide the right environment and setting for the desired customer experiences to emerge.



Definition of Customer Experience:

“The Customer Experience originates from a set of interactions between a customer and a product, a company, or part of its organization, which provoke a reaction (LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Shaw and Ivens, 2005). This experience is strictly personal and implies the customer’s involvement at different levels (rational, emotional, sensorial physical and spiritual) (LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Schmitt, 1999). Its evaluation depends on the comparison between a customer’s expectations and the stimuli coming from the interaction with the company and its offering in correspondence of the different moments of contact or touch-points (LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Shaw and Ivens, 2005).’’



Multidimensional Customer Experience:Building on the insights of Pinker’s psychological concept of modularity of mind: sensation, cognition and affect, authors dimensionalize customer experience :

23

Sensorial Component sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, aesthetical pleasure, beauty

Jamba Juice bars, Lush stores

Emotional Component Affective relation with the company Barilla, Kinder Surprise

Cognitive Component Creativity, problem solving, revising assumptions

Barbie (young woman doll)

Pragmatic Component Usability and after-sales Apple iMac, Whirlpool

Lifestyle Component Affirmation of values and beliefs by adopting lifestyle and behaviors

No logo products

Relational Component Relation with other people as well as ideal self, consuming together or creating a community, social identity

Disneyland, Ducati, haute couture



Utilitarian v. Hedonic Valuefunctional v. experiential



Method and SampleA total of 2368 units were taken as the sample, 200 for each subset of companies determined according to the type of knowledge embedded (tacit v. coded) and durability (non- medium- long).Firm side was retrieved by secondary sources and direct interviews and customer perceptions were gathered by questionnaires.

RESULTS1. Utilitarian v. Hedonistic Value Overall the experiential features are perceived by customers almost as much relevant as the functional ones, indeed 7 products out of 12 have been classified as ‘‘balanced’’ and 2 products have been reported to be ‘‘hedonic’’: Harley Davidson and Smart.



RESULTS2. Experiential Components

• the value associated with the sensorial component is substantially high (above the mean) across all the considered cases;

• the value associated with the relational component does not vary sensibly across products and it is lower than expected.



RESULTS3. Commitment/Involvement Matrix

• The analysis of the scores reported in association to the emotional, cognitive, pragmatic and lifestyle components suggested the definition of two variables that could account for the differences of relevance reported for the four components.

• Customer involvement: the level of importance a customer attributes to an object, an action or an activity and the enthusiasm and interest

• Customer commitment: the effort in terms of resources the customer makes to use the product



RESULTS3. Commitment/Involvement Matrix

• absent or superficial: low involvement interpersonal relationships that are temporally limited to the time spent while using the product (e.g. PS)

• collecting practices; relational component is more intense, low commitment level clubs for Swatch and Swarovski);

• profound: high-involvement/high-commitment, communities of customers.



CONCLUSIONS• A relevant part of the value proposed to customers is linked to experiential

features • Living a positive Customer Experience can promote the creation of an

emotional tie between a firm’s brand and its customers • This does not imply that customers neglect the importance of functionalities:

the functional value (or utilitarian value) obtains almost always (except in two cases) a score near the experiential (hedonic) one.


Experiential Consumption

Documents

Transcript of Experiential Consumption