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In-Depth Information
From a traditional marketing to an experiential marketing
For several decades, marketing and consumer researchers have conceived the consumer as a
rational economic actor, the ''homo economicus'' philosophy. As a result, the cognitive and
behaviourist models have dominated marketing research for decades (Batat 2011). Schmitt
(1999) uses the term ''traditional marketing'' to refer to these cognitive approaches, which
views consumers as rational decision makers who are mostly concerned with functional
features of products and services and maximising the utility gained from consumption. However,
this conception has been criticized, for instance human beings' rational behaviour has been
fi ercely questioned (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982). Another frustration with those theories
has been their lack of consideration for the psychological dimensions of experiences. In 1970,
Baudrillard had already exposed that consumption practices are social activities in which
consumers produce meanings and exchange symbols. Since Baudrillard's work, marketing
and consumer behaviour researchers have developed a rich research stream on aspects of
aestheticism, symbolism and hedonism in everyday life (c.f. Levy 1959; Sheth 1980; Westbrook
1987; Lipovetsky 2003).
In 1982, Holbrook and Hirschman produced a new approach that revolutionized academic
approaches within consumer research. The authors theorized the consumer experience as
subjective and personal, often emotionally charged. They introduced the concept of hedonic
consumption, which was defi ned as designating 'those facets of consumer behaviour that relate
to the multi-sensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of one's experience with products' (Holbrook
and Hirschman 1982: 92). In this perspective, the utilitarian functions of products were not
denied but the symbolic meanings and emotions were also established as important dimensions
of product evaluation.
Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) consequently proposed that considerations of the hedonic
component would provide a better understanding of consumers that traditional consumer
behaviour models had yet not addressed. This aspect was portrayed as particularly important in
products for which 'the symbolic role is especially rich and salient: for example, entertainment,
arts, and leisure activities encompass symbolic aspects of consumption behaviour that make them
particularly fertile ground for research' (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982: 134).
In their original article Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) suggested that most variables used
in traditional marketing should be reconsidered to establish the grounds of an experiential
perspective (see
Table 9.1
).
According to the experiential perspective, the consumer becomes an active economic
actor involved with his consumption experiences. The role of companies is to assist their
customers in the production and the achievement of their experiences. O'Sullivan and Spangler
(1998) proposed that the key concepts of the experiential marketing approach could be
categorized as:
1
the nature of user involvement (physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual);
2
the extent of user's co-participation in the product's offer;
3
the relevance of the product or service's symbolic values;
4
the product or service's multi-functionality; and
5
the central role placed on the experience.
The consumer tends to immerse him/herself and explore a multiplicity of new meanings of his/
her life (Firat and Dholakia 1998). It is this full immersion within an original experience that
provides unique unforgettable pleasure for consumers (Carù and Cova 2006).
