Innovative Experiential Marketing Ideas for Food and Beverage Companies

Understanding consumer experiences is therefore a core task for consumer research. But, consumer and marketing research on experience is still emerging. Experience, as a concept and as an empirical pheanomenon, is not as established as other consumer and marketing concepts such as choice, attitudes, consumer satisfaction, or brand equity. This needs to change. In his Presidential address at the 2009 Association for Consumer Research 

Conference, Chris Janiszewski presented a passionate plea for an increased study of consumer experiences (Janiszewski, 2009). “So what is our opportunity In what substantive areas do we, as a discipline, have a special interest and a competitive advantage?” he asked. The answer is ‘consumer experience Where do we have a differential advantage with 

respect to our interest, our expertise, and our areas of application? I contend that it is not in the ‘utility of choice’ (expected utility), but the ‘utility of consumption’ (experienced utility or subjective value).” Most importantly, he argued that, “Benefits are not in the products. Benefits are in the consumer experience.” The study of experience is benefitted by the fact that 

Multiple disciplines conduct research

on the effect of experience. For example, consumer behavior has three core specialization areas: information processing, behavioral decision theory, and consumer culture theory; as we will see, they have all provided consumer insight on experiences. Researchers in the two other main disciplines of marketing — marketing models and marketing strategy — have also contributed to consumer experience research and to experience marketing. Moreover, the 

study of consumer behavior and marketing, and thus work on experience, is open to contributions from adjoining disciplines — for example, psychology, linguistics, economics, management, and sociology (MacInnis and Folkes, 2010). Finally, many experience concepts and ideas have come from management and practical writings. In this monograph, I will therefore cast a wide web, reviewing and discussing experience research conducted in 

various disciplines and in sub-disciplines of marketing. I will begin with an exploration of the experience concept itself. What do we mean by “experience”? What are consumer experiences, and how are they different from other, established constructs in ourWebster’s Third New International Dictionary (Gove, 1976, p. 800) The term “experience” has been used in various ways. The various definitions may be placed into two categories: some of them 

Refer to the past referring to knowledge

and accumulated experiences over time) and others refer to ongoing perceptions and feelings and direct observation. In the English language, as in many Romanic languages (French, Spanish, and Italian), there is only one term to refer to both. Other languages use two separate lexicalized items — for example, erfahrung and erlebnis (in German); or keiken and taiken (in Japanese). The experience term, with its multiple meanings, is also used in the 

business vocabulary. Some of its usages in marketing refer to experience in the sense of accumulated knowledge (e.g., “experience curve”); other usages seem to refer to direct observation or the necessity thereof (e.g., “experience goods”). In this monograph, which is focused on experience marketing, I will use the term to refer to experiences in the here and now  perceptions, feelings, and thoughts that consumers have when they encounter 

products and brands in the marketplace and engage in consumption activities  as well as the memory of such experiences. What is the exact nature of these experiences? What are the key characteristics of experiences in general and, specifically, of consumer experiencesnegative and existential ones such as anxiety and despair). In current marketing research, affect and emotions are considered important experiences that guide consumer 

Decision making Moreover Kierkegaard

stressed that experiences are subjective. For him, subjectivity is the unique relation that a person has with the outside, objective world. Subjectivity also includes the consciousness of a self which has a past, a present, and a future. For Kierkegaard not only objective mattershave truth. A subjective experience also has truth for an individual. Alluding to a popular aphorism, one might say, “Experience is reality.” Marketers must closely consider and understand this 

subjective reality, and the truth that it holds for an individual. Philosophers and psychologists in the phenomenological tradition, for example, Husserl (1931) and Brentano (1874/1973), argue that experiences are “of” or “about” something; they have reference and intentionality. They are private events that occur in response to some stimulation. They are often not self-generated (as some thoughts and cognitions) but induced. Following such phenomenological 

insights, marketing scholars have focused not only on internal consumer processes  that is, the consumer psychology of experiences  but they have also paid attention to the stimuli that evoke consumer experiences. Finally, American philosopher John Dewey (Dewey, 1925), belonging to the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, argued that knowledge (classifying, analyzing, and reasoning) is only one part of an individual’s experience with the world. In 

Conclusion

addition to intellectual determinations, resulting from knowledge, individuals also have sensory perceptions, feelings, and actions resulting from experiences. As we will see, Dewey’s ideas led marketers to propose that there are different types of experiences that can be empirically distinguished and measured.research, Holbrook and Hirschman felt that information processing neglected important consumption phenomena that involve fantasies, 

feelings, and fun  including playful leisure activities, sensory pleasures, daydreams, aesthetic enjoyment, and emotional responses. Following the philosophical insights described earlier, the authors argued that this experiential view is phenomenological in spirit and regards consumption as a subjective state of consciousness. In contrast to the information processing perspective which stresses product attributes, utilitarian functions, and conscious and verbal 

thought processes, Holbrook and Hirschman’s (1982) experiential view emphasizes the symbolic meaning, subconscious processes, and nonverbal cues resulting from consumption. In their experiential view, affect plays a key role, and not just as an influence on attitude and arousal but in terms of the full range of possible consumer emotions (e.g., love, hate, fear, joy, boredom, anxiety, pride, anger, lust, and guilt). Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) pointed out