Memorable Customer Experiences: A Research Anthology

Citation

Aslanbay, Y. (2011), "Memorable Customer Experiences: A Research Anthology", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 94-95. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761111102029

Experiential marketing is now seen as one of the best ways of developing brand awareness in a crowded market space. This edited book is an enriching experience itself, as a journey to the world of brand experiences through a compilation of 16 studies of 26 researchers from different countries. Although the studies are self‐contained, they construct a comprehensive outlook to experiential marketing, contributing both theoretically and practically. Editors Lindgreen, Vanhamme and Beverland, effectively ground the book around six main parts. The authors of each part are in italics in the following review.

“Conceptual foundations” of experiential marketing is discussed to question how traditional marketing practices must transform in the pursuit of an integrated brand strategy, granting a ground for memorable experiences. Lanier and Hampton bring a post‐modern approach against the marketing narratives that assume there are multiple marketing logics with their own assumptions. The authors underline the inevitability of a blend of all logics. The findings of a qualitative study over the consumers and producers of ten experiential contexts support their assumptions. Kilian, emphasising the strong influence of enriched customer experience on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, proposes a conceptual framework for brand experiences. The author states that the brands successful in differentiating the experiences offered turn out to be a “third place” in the lives of consumers.

“Brands” world and “brand communities” as effective mediators of brand experiences are probed through case studies. Beverland analyses Morgan Motor Company as a brand that supplies consumer experiences, easing self‐authentication and authoritative performances. Revealed by interviews with stakeholders, the author has implications for brand managers about ways of enhancing brand authenticity. Lindgreen and Beverland examine the sources of authenticity for a brand. They underline the significance of authentication for a competitive positioning, basing on the data collected by Trappist breweries, through interviews with stakeholders along with observation of the production place. Loewenfeld and Kilian highlight the rising role of brand communities in creating memorable customer experiences. The authors introduce the findings of an online survey conducted over both brand community members and non‐community members. They offer a framework of three options for brand community management, while also proposing criteria and steps for successful brand communication management. The unique experiences of consumers in a specialized journals stock store, Mag Nation, is deconstructed through ethnographic research carried out by Healy, Beverland and Oppewal. The authors find that consumers use the store as a place for self‐creation.

Constructing successful customer experience is debated around “design of customer experiences”. Honebein and Cammarano, focusing on balancing the emotional and rational customer experiences to create customer delight, introduce the memorable experience model. The model illustrates four possible memories that customers can form, depending on the effectiveness and interaction of emotional and rational experiences: delighted, dissatisfied, dysfunctional, and directed. Basil and Basil present the results of online reviews of upscale dining experiences through Michelin three‐star restaurants. They add the experiential dimension over the rational explanations of customer expectations in the existing luxury products literature. Wooliscroft and Wooliscroft introduce three case studies of memorable hot chocolates in Belgium. They demonstrate how theatrical co‐production and the associated surprise factor for a low involvement product makes the experience memorable.

Concentrating on “management of customer experiences”, Babin and Borges describe a framework that will be useful for understanding the means of creating shopping value over retail memories. They point up the importance of being noticeable, performance, being exciting and becoming valuable for building memorable experience. La Tour, Carbone and Goan contribute to the issue by discussing how the new “science of mind” may have implications for researching and framing the nature of the customer experience. By conferring the characteristics of well‐managed experiences in Las Vegas, they identify how hospitality organizations can systematically manage their customers' experiences. Analysis of Go and Govers over the largest tour operator TUI Travel plc's packaged tour innovations, focus on creating memorable customer experiences as well. As a response to the threat of disintermediation, their approach fills the gap among tourism development strategy, tourism delivery, supply and tourist demand specifications.

The “methodological issues” for assessing customer experiences in the existing literature are questioned by two studies. Finn and Wang probe the self‐reported emotional measures and the assumption that service providers can measure the emotions making up memorable service experiences. By the data collected from online retailers, they find out that most of the variance in customers' responses comes from the emotional set of individual customers that has nothing to do with the service provider. By an experimental approach applied as a visit to a virtual museum, Vanhamme analyses the surprise‐delight relationship. The slightness of difference between the satisfaction of surprised and not surprised consumers in a dominant experiential component leads the author to investigate the possible explanations of this finding from a marketing and a methodological perspective.

The book closes up with “critique of experiential marketing”. Brown argues that experiential marketing is not a novel tool of today's business but has been in action since beginnings of organized trade. The author also questions the viability of experience management by calling attention to the frequent difference between what firms expect and what consumers live. Finally, Holbrook takes a critical position against the properness of experiential marketing in every situation. Especially, he underlines the potential of falling into the trap of commercialization in educational field.

Building brands and their value is a long‐term effort. Therefore making the experiences of customers memorable is vital for marketing strategies. Overall this book is written for all people interested in brand marketing. I recommend this book to marketing professionals for not only tapping into the exciting world of successful customer experiences but also for grasping constructive hints about brand management. Academics and students may also benefit from the book either as a supplementary reading material or in class exercises.