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Experiential Marketing and Sporting Events
... Subsequently, active involvement of supporters in activities, such as assisting people in wheelchairs at games, working at charity matches, donating funds to charitable campaigns promoted by the team, among others are useful tools to drive team identification. This is associated with the idea of creating memorable experiences (Bodet, 2016). More specifically, when supporters identify closely with a team, a sense of connectedness ensues (Mael and Ashforth, 1992), and they begin to define themselves with the club (Meyer, 2014). ...
... Therefore, it seems hazardous to consider experiential marketing as a managerial solution for sports clubs. We therefore agree with Bodet's (2016) study and argue that as with all marketing approaches, experiential marketing will work better when combined with in-depth strategic analysis, which takes into consideration the characteristics of the sport entity and its sociocultural context. ...
Purpose
This study attempts to provide a better understanding of the effect that CSR practices may have on brand love. It also analyzes the importance of making supporters be aware and involved in such initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
This study focused on the Real Madrid Foundation, which is the most followed charitable sport institution worldwide. Data was collected through an online survey that was available online from January through April 2016. Participation was solicited among supporters of Real Madrid on fan sites. This produced a total of 402 completed questionnaires. Additionally, the Managing Director of the Real Madrid Foundation was interviewed
Findings
CSR activities carried out by the team positively influence fan commitment towards the club. Keeping supporters updated about such initiatives through social networks also help to increase the bonds between the club and its followers. Moreover, the fans’ use of the club’s website and their involvement in the club’s CSR activities may have a positive impact on the love the supporters profess towards the team’s brand. This claim, however, must be treated with some caution since it did not prove to be statistically significant.
Originality/value
This study suggests that developing a web site is not enough to get brand love from supporters. Experiential marketing does not seem to have statistical impact on brand love either. Conversely, CSR actions and the use of social networks to keep followers updated about the social initiatives carried out by the team do provide new opportunities to achieve an emotional attachment towards the club. Therefore, positively affects brand love.
... Our results also highlight the importance among supporters of building consumer-brand relations and being active in the creation of their own brand experience, instead of being solely common spectators; these finding are in line with the previous literature. 70 , The results emphasized the role of active fan participation with the club. 71 as this helps to increase the bonds between the club and the supporters, 72 given that individuals internalize the values and beliefs of the community as their own through membership in a social group. ...
The Real Madrid F.C. was one of the few major European football teams
that avoided financial losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore,
the team improved its performance on social media and in terms of web
traffic achieving the number one spot for both indicators. This exploratory
study sets out to shed light on the strategies used by the club. The
methodology uses a content analysis of professional and academic journals,
official websites, surveys and managerial reports as well as in-depth
interviews with academics, team managers, and fans. Findings reveal that
nurturing existing relationships with sponsors and building new sponsorship
agreements were key factors to survive in times of crisis. Our research
also illustrates the importance of enabling supporters to build consumerbrand
relationships and be active in the creation of their own brand
experience. Lastly, the study shows that CSR initiatives strengthened the
relationship between the club and its followers.
... Emotional and creative techniques are better to investigate using experiential marketing framework. The letter is defined as the provision of additional and new service components to create unique, intense, and memorable experiences (Bodet, 2015). ...
Purpose - The purpose of this study is to determine, how successful sponsorship activations on-site at sporting events in Russia are being perceived as successful by sponsors and rights owners to enhance the effectiveness of sponsorship. Understanding of sponsorship effectiveness, evaluation process and advantages of activation's methods will help the researcher to conduct this study.
Design - The research presented in this dissertation follows a qualitative research design. As the strategy of inquiry this dissertation applies multiple case study. Data was collected through the semi-structured interview with sponsors and rights owners of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, the 29th Winter Universiade 2019 in Krasnoyarsk, the Quiksilver New Star Camp 2019.
Findings - According to the current study on-site activations contributed to effectiveness of sponsorship of sporting events and fulfillment of business and image objectives. Sponsors perceived activations as extensive method to connect directly with the target audience, reach its passion points and drive emotional appeals. Rights owners consider activations as effective tool to engage the audience and to build partnership with sponsors.
Value - This research recommends from its findings to practitioners in the sport sponsorship activations field to consider experiential marketing tools and other different methods that engage audience to enhance activations and sponsorship effectiveness in general.
This study explores the impact of the sensoryscape on spectator experiences and intentions to revisit HC Ambrì-Piotta games at the Gottardo Arena. Data was gathered from 1,566 participants through a self-administered online questionnaire and was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, along with structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that aesthetics and comfort, fan-made entertainment, and arena smell significantly influence spectators' interactions, emotions, and loyalties, while club-made entertainment and food and beverages have varied impacts. These insights are crucial for enhancing spectator experiences and fostering team loyalty. Practical implications include focusing on the holistic sensory environment to create engaging and satisfying arena experiences, thereby attracting and retaining spectators.
This chapter offers insights into the branding of sports teams. The importance of branding is explained, and a strong sports team brand is defined, by introducing the concept of brand equity. Based on this definition, which identifies the key components of sports team brand equity, the three fundamental stages of team sports brand management, strategic brand management, operational brand management and brand system management, are explained and illustrated.
Evidence from past research and insights from an exploratory investigation are combined in a conceptual model that defines and relates price, perceived quality, and perceived value. Propositions about the concepts and their relationships are presented, then supported with evidence from the literature. Discussion centers on directions for research and implications for managing price, quality, and value.
Research question: This exploratory paper aims to introduce the concept of value co-destruction in the field of sport management and research. We asked whether all groups of spectators at a sport stadium experienced value co-destruction in the same way. Moreover, we analysed how the prior expectations of the various stadium spectator groups influenced their experience of value. Our definition of value co-destruction comprises not only an actual decline in value experienced, but also the negative deviation from the expected enhancement of well-being. Research methods: Value co-destruction was investigated at two German Bundesliga football games during the 2012/2013 season. Spectators of both games deliberately refused to cheer. As a result, the entire stadium remained silent for 12 minutes at the beginning of each game. We conducted qualitative interviews with different types of spectators. This allowed us to measure value co-destruction at the individual level, in line with service-dominant logic. Spectators were interviewed either before or after the game, or during half-time. Results and Findings: Our results show that value co-destruction is one of many different possible outcomes of the interaction between actors in a sport stadium. Like co-creation, co-destruction mainly depends on the value expectation: interactions in the stadium that co-create value for one actor can co-destroy value for another. Our findings indicate that this holds true specifically for stadium atmosphere as one of the most important value dimensions of spectators. Implications: For sport management practice, we thus recommend assessing the positive or negative value effect of the interaction processes that contribute to stadium atmosphere individually for each actor.
Research question: Services play a growing role in modern sport industries. Relatively little is known about the impact of experiential marketing strategy on consumer behaviour and within the context of sporting events industry in particular. The study seeks to start addressing this gap in knowledge and to better examine the subjectively based aspects of extra-ordinary experiences, which define experiential marketing, in sporting events lived by consumers, and their impact in terms of consumer behaviour and experiential and branding strategies.
Research methods: A series of in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with Stade de Français' spectators who witnessed what is considered as extra-ordinary experiences. The 26 interviewees were aged between 18 and 56 years old (M age = 24.7), and were comprised of 18 males and 8 females.
Results and findings: It was found that the pricing issue, which highlighted the presence of opportunistic behaviour, was probably as important as the experiential marketing strategy. Moreover, if experiential marketing influenced brand awareness and brand associations, those associations were not always perceive positively particularly from the most committed and connoisseur fans. Finally, this marketing strategy did not seem to have any conspicuous positive result in terms of brand loyalty.
Implications: An explanation relying on the tribal marketing approach, which emphasises the link between consumers rather than between consumers and the brand, could be put forward estimating that the consumers attracted by the extraordinary experiences provided are more interested in the link with the other consumers than the brand and the service offered.
This paper analyses the marketing strategy, marketing mix and brand development of SF Paris rugby union club, which succeeded in attracting huge crowds (around 75,000 spectators) for several regular season games and in building strong brand equity. Parallels with American professional sports are drawn and differences from other European clubs highlighted. Finally, planning, consistency and in particular innovation are identified as key factors for success in implementation of the club's marketing strategy.
La notion d’experience est devenue un element-cle de comprehension du comportement du consommateur et le fondement principal d’une nouvelle demarche marketing : le marketing experientiel. Prenant appui sur l’idee que le consommateur actuel cherche a vivre des immersions dans des experiences extraordinaires plutot qu’a rencontrer de simples produits ou services, le marketing experientiel prete le flanc a de severes critiques pratiques et theoriques qui sont developpees dans cet article.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide better understanding of potential foreign customers or satellite fans' perceptions of professional‐football brands, as this constitutes a necessary step toward setting up an internationalisation strategy to create a global professional‐sport brand.
Design/methodology/approach
Twelve semi‐directed individual interviews with French satellite fans about how they perceive the English Big Four brands of Arsenal Football Club (FC), Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC and Manchester United are conducted.
Findings
The paper found the common and specific features of each club's brand equity and the typical fans' perceptions of the clubs, which constitute major dimensions upon which the clubs are differentiated in the customers' minds. It also identified such key antecedents to building strong professional‐sport brand equity in the French market as the fit between the image, the values or both of the foreign club and the local club a fan supports.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is the size of the sample, even if the saturation‐semantic criterion is applied.
Practical implications
This paper emphasises the need for professional‐sport clubs not to underestimate the need for strategic‐marketing steps different from those used at home before implementing foreign marketing operations and constitutes a first step toward future research into the analysis of the perceptions of potential foreign customers or satellite fans in broader contexts.
Originality/value
Although many studies have dealt with the perception of local professional‐sport brands, this paper represents one of the first empirical studies of the perceptions of professional‐football brands in a foreign market.
Academically constructed segments may often fail to be implemented by practitioners. There may be a number of reasons for this, but at the heart of the matter for practitioners must be an economic reward that outweighs the incremental costs of segmenting. Central to this issue is the ease with which different types of data can be collected and used. Experience from direct marketing practice suggests that segments based on customer value and customer benefits sought often lead to successful strategies. Accordingly, looks to utilise these variables to complement the traditional use of geo-demographic and psychographic approaches. Examines the business of football. Using a mixed qualitative and survey based approach, an exploration of football supporters was undertaken with the objective of identifying segmentation opportunities. A number of new segments were identified, among them “professional wanderers”; “carefree casuals” and “repertoire fans”. Suggests directions for broader studies. Hopes that this work will better inform the marketing efforts of professional sports franchises and indeed all leisure sectors that rely on regular live audiences for their livelihood.
The commodification of football has been the subject of substantial sociological debate but has received relatively limited scrutiny in terms of sustained comparative empirical research. This article draws heavily on interviews with supporter groups, journalists, and officials in Scottish football to examine a range of issues relating to fan experiences and understandings of football's commodification. The author examines how fans respond to their labeling as customers and considers whether they are alienated or marginalized from football in economic and cultural terms. The author explores how the game's commodification can be at the expense of themost deserving supporters and undermines the future reproduction of fan communities. The author concludes by arguing for a nuanced sociological reading of supporters in regard to commodification, which appreciates both the fans' market pragmatism and their normative critiques of distributive justice in the game.
This paper presents an alternative, “Latin” vision of our societies. Here the urgent societal issue is not to celebrate freedom from social constraints, but to re-establish communal embeddedness. The citizen of 2002 is less interested in the objects of consumption than in the social links and identities that come with them. This Latin view holds that people like to gather together in tribes and that such social, proximate communities are more affective and influential on people’s behaviour than either marketing institutions or other “formal” cultural authorities. There is also an element of resistance and re-appropriation in the acts of being, gathering and experiencing together. This view of the shared experience of tribes sets it apart from both Northern notions of segmented markets and one-to-one relationships. In this Latin view, the effective marketing of 2002 and beyond is not to accept and exploit consumers in their contemporary individualisation, as Northern approaches might. Rather the future of marketing is in offering and supporting a renewed sense of community. Marketing becomes tribal marketing. In a marketing profession challenged by the Internet phenomenon, tribal marketing is by no means just another passing fad but a Trojan horse to induce companies to take on board the re-emergence of the quest for community.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize, construct, refine and empirically validate a multiple‐item scale for measuring customers' service experience (EXQ).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present exploratory research developing a conceptualization of service experience based on a two‐stage approach: initial item generation through qualitative research, initial purification of these findings through exploratory factor analysis, and validation through the use of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
Findings
The paper conceptualizes and validates the concept of customer/service experience. In total, 19 items in four dimensions of the EXQ scale were identified: product experience, outcome focus, moments‐of‐truth and peace‐of‐mind. These dimensions reflect service experience perceptions. The findings support the conclusion that the service experience has a significant impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty and word‐of‐mouth intentions. The scale demonstrates good psychometric properties based on the variety of reliability and validity tests utilized and builds upon extant research.
Practical implications
The research provides managers with the dimensions of service experience that influence purchase behavior and provides researchers with a sought‐after conceptualization of service experience.
Originality/value
The authors believe that this is the first empirically founded conceptualization and measurement of the service/customer experience.
A brand community from a customer-experiential perspective is a fabric of relationships in which the customer is situated. Crucial relationships include those between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the firm, between the customer and the product in use, and among fellow customers. This paper delves ethnographically into a brand community and tests key findings through quantitative methods. Conceptually the study reveals insights that differ from prior research in four important ways. First, it expands the definition of a brand community to entities and relationships neglected by previous research. Second, it treats vital characteristics of brand communities, such as geo-temporal concentrations and the richness of social context, as dynamic rather than static phenomena. Third, it demonstrates that marketers can strengthen brand communities by facilitating shared customer experiences in ways that alter those dynamic characteristics. Fourth, it yields a new and richer conceptualization of customer loyalty as integration in a brand community.
This study's goal was to create and test a tool for identifying different types of sport spectators. Based on four types of sporting-event consumers - aesthete, interactive, supporter, and opportunist - we developed the Sporting Event Experience Search Scale (SEES). We conducted an empirical investigation involving two sporting events with both live and mediated types of attendance. Although the first validation step failed to support the four-type structure for the mediated context, the scale appeared to be relevant in a live-attendance context. The SEES scale should therefore allow sporting-event managers to analyse the nature and then the expectations of sport spectators by identifying which sporting event consumption type is dominant. This study consequently proposes four marketing axes corresponding to the four consumption patterns.
Retailers, such as Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, aim to provide customers a great experience across channels. In this paper we provide an overview of the existing literature on customer experience and expand on it to examine the creation of a customer experience from a holistic perspective. We propose a conceptual model, in which we discuss the determinants of customer experience. We explicitly take a dynamic view, in which we argue that prior customer experiences will influence future customer experiences. We discuss the importance of the social environment, self-service technologies and the store brand. Customer experience management is also approached from a strategic perspective by focusing on issues such as how and to what extent an experience-based business can create growth. In each of these areas, we identify and discuss important issues worthy of further research.
The flagship brand store is an increasingly popular venue used by marketers to build relationships with consumers. As we move further into an experience economy in the new millennium, retailers are refining the flagship brand store into new forms such as the themed retail brand store. This new form not only promotes a more engaging experience of the brand’s essence but also satisfies consumers looking for entertainment alongside their shopping. In this article, we conceptualize and explore themed flagship brand stores in terms of the mythological appeal of the narratives conveyed by their physical and symbolic structure. We utilize a field study of ESPN Zone Chicago to examine these features in a sports-themed retail brand store. Finally, we offer some projections, based on our research, of the possible transformations of the flagship brand store as the new century unfolds. We conclude that mindscape-related themes, which combine entertainment, therapeutics, and spiritual growth, are at the frontier of retail theming.
Brands are today under attack by an emerging countercultural movement. This study builds a dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding that explains the rise of this movement and its potential effects. Results of an interpretive study challenge existing theories of consumer resistance. To develop an alternative model, I first trace the rise of the modern cultural engineering paradigm of branding, premised upon a consumer culture that granted marketers cultural authority. Intrinsic contradictions erased its efficacy. Next I describe the current postmodern consumer culture, which is premised upon the pursuit of personal sovereignty through brands. I detail five postmodern branding techniques that are premised upon the principle that brands are authentic cultural resources. Postmodern branding is now giving rise to new contradictions that have inflamed the antibranding sentiment sweeping Western countries. I detail these contradictions and project that they will give rise to a new post-postmodern branding paradigm premised upon brands as citizen-artists. Copyright 2002 by the University of Chicago.
Although consumption-related emotions have been studied with increasing frequency in consumer behavior, issues concerning the appropriate way to measure these emotions remain unresolved This article reviews the emotion measures currently used in consumer research and the theories on which they are based; it concludes that the existing measures are unsuited for the purpose of measuring consumption-related emotions. The article describes six empirical studies that assess the domain of consumption-related emotions, that identify an appropriate set of consumption emotion descriptors (the CES), and that compare the usefulness of this descriptor set with the usefulness of other measures in assessing consumption-related emotions. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.
Congratulations to H. Russell Bernard, who was recently elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences"This book does what few others even attempt—to survey a wide range of systematic analytic approaches. I commend the authors for both their inclusiveness and their depth of treatment of various tasks and approaches." —Judith Preissle, University of Georgia "I appreciate the unpretentious tone of the book. The authors provide very clear instructions and examples of many different ways to collect and analyze qualitative data and make it clear that there is no one correct way to do it." —Cheryl Winsten-Bartlett, North Central University "The analytical methodologies are laid out very well, and I will definitely utilize the book with students regarding detailed information and steps to conduct systematic and rigorous data analysis." —Dorothy Aguilera, Lewis & Clark College This book introduces readers to systematic methods for analyzing qualitative data. Unlike other texts, it covers the extensive range of available methods so that readers become aware of the array of techniques beyond their individual disciplines. Part I is an overview of the basics. Part II comprises 11 chapters, each treating a different method for analyzing text. Real examples from the literature across the health and social sciences provide invaluable applied understanding.
This study presents a multi-method based approach to matching fan expectations and needs with a franchise's strategic vision. This approach is demonstrated by looking at a Canadian team in the National Hockey League. The needs of the customers are assessed through a questionnaire survey and an indepth interview with the franchise's marketing vicepresident. Results are discussed, discrepancies between the two positions are analysed and recommendations are made.
Consumer resistance is frequently conceptualised as con-sumption 'on the edge' (Ritson and Dobscha 1999), or resistance of the subordinate consumer to the dominant market (Holt 2002, Penaloza and Price 1993). An alternative conceptualisation of resistance is the desire of some minority groups to have their identities properly represented in the marketplace, rather than a desire for emancipation from the market (Penaloza and Price 1993). Yet another conceptualisation of resistance defines it as aversion to the tastes of others. Hogg and Savolainen (1998) cite Bourdieu (1984) to argue that a particular 'taste' is primarily a distaste, or aversion, to the identity associated with another set of tastes. These perspectives help to construct a "resistance continuum", moving from "avoidance behaviour" at one end, to acts of active rebellion against the market at the other (Fournier 1998). At the weaker end of the continuum, consumer resistance can result from the desire for distinction, rather than an ideological opposition to the market per se. The purpose of aversion for alternative tastes is to demonstrate to oneself what one is not (Bourdieu 1984, Hogg and Savolainen 1998). RESEARCH QUESTION This paper seeks to address several related questions. Firstly, it asks whether the definition of resistance as aversion is helpful in understanding the consumption of soccer fans. Secondly it explores how resistance as aversion is structured. Whose tastes are deni-grated, why are they denigrated, and how are they denigrated? Is the ingroup's system of subcultural capital (Bourdieu 1984, Jancovich 2002) important in determining these issues? Finally, it also consid-ers the question of how such aversion might impact upon the consumption behaviors of the ingroup.
Un important courant de recherche analyse la consommation comme un processus de production d'une expérience plus ou moins gratifiante pour le consommateur. Une revue de ces travaux est proposée pour tenter de clarifier le statut théorique de ce concept d'expérience de consommation. Puis les pratiques des entreprises sont confrontées à ce cadre d'analyse du comportement du consommateur pour proposer un modèle de la production d'expérience de consommation. Analyzing the consumption process in terms of a more or less gratifying experience for the consumer is a trend in the research literature on consumer behavior. A review of this literature leads to an attempt to clarify the concept of consumption experience. Managerial practices are compared with this theoretical framework to suggest a model of the production of consumption experience.
Einzelhandelsmärkte sind diversifizierter und fragmentierter denn je; sie konfrontieren die Konsumenten mit einem Übermaß
an Informationen und Alternativen. Um die Konsumenten anzuziehen, haben die Handelskonzeme begonnen, ihre Häuser und Einkaufstätten
atmosphärisch aufzuladen, um den Konsumenten dadurch ein deutlich einprägsameres und attraktiveres Einkaufserlebnis bieten
zu können.2 Entertainment-Berater Michael J. Wolf (1999) meint hierzu, daß Shopping aufgrund der Tatsache, daß das Entertainmentmotiv
bis in die letzten Nischen der Wirtschaft vorgedrungen sei, inzwischen zu etwas geworden ist, was er „Shoppertainment“ nennt.
Dieser offensichtlich futuristische Trend ist tatsächlich die Wiederkehr eines althergebrachten Imperativs. So erzählen uns
Anthropologen, daß die Ursprünge des kommerziellen Marktplatzes bei den festlich arrangierten Marktplätzen früherer Zeiten
liegen, bei Plätzen, die sich traditionellerweise an den Rändern der Städte befanden, wo Vorführungen, exotische Personen,
Mysterien und Gaukler zugegen waren (vgl. Lears 1994; Sherry 1995). Um die Aktualisierung dieser Tradition zu verstehen, bei der die Geschäfte Geschichten erzählen, mußten die Einzelhandelsmanager
der ästhetischen Seite ihrer Verkaufsläden sowie den Verkaufsprozessen besondere Aufmerksamkeit schenken, mittels derer es
den Konsumenten gelingt, die physische Erfahrung solcher Plätze mit Bedeutung aufzuladen.
For the last twenty-five years customer experiences have been considered to be a key concept in marketing management, consumer behaviour, services marketing and retailing with the result that the underlying logic and managerial rationale for experience marketing is well established in the marketing literature. However, the gulf between academics and practitioners on this topic is now as wide as ever with bestselling titles on experience marketing written by and for practitioners, which are rich in examples and step-by-step guides to managerial success yet pay scant attention to the contributions of academics in this area. The purpose of this paper is to review and reassess the extant work on experience marketing. Service-Dominant logic is employed to bridge the divide between theory and practice in this respect. A model of customer's experience proposed, implications for practitioners and academics are discussed and greater dialogue is called for between marketers and their academic counterparts.
In this article, I contrast traditional marketing with a new approach to marketing called Experiential Marketing and provide a strategic framework for Experiential Marketing. Traditional marketing views consumers as rational decision-makers who care about functional features and benefits. In contrast, experiential marketers view consumers as rational and emotional human beings who are concerned with achieving pleasurable experiences. Five different types of experiences, or strategic experiential modules (SEMs), that marketers can create for customers are distinguished: sensory experiences (SENSE); affective experiences (FEEL); creative cognitive experiences (THINK); physical experiences, behaviours and lifestyles (ACT); and social-identity experiences that result from relating to a reference group or culture (RELATE). These experiences are implemented through so-called experience providers (ExPros) such as communications, visual and verbal identity, product presence, electronic media, etc. The ultimate goal of experiential marketing is to create holistic experiences that integrate individual experiences into a holistic Gestalt. The paper concludes with an examination of strategic issues and a discussion about how to create the experience-oriented organization.
This study examines the impact of fan identification on four distinct sponsorship outcomes: sponsor recognition, attitude toward the sponsor, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with the sponsor. In addition, consistent with the identification literature we investigate the antecedents of prestige, domain involvement, and fan associations for predicting fan identification among sports spectators. Utilizing structural equation modeling the findings support the premise that highly identified fans are more likely to exhibit the investigated sponsorship outcomes. In addition, we found that the investigated antecedents may aid in predicting fan identification. Our findings are discussed, managerial implications presented, and future research directions provided.
This article approaches sports team supporters from two lenses: (1) that of branding, which defines supporters as loyal customers and potential commodities; (2) that of fandom, which understands supporters as agentive meaning-producers who use fandom for their own uses. This juxtaposition reveals how fans’ sense of symbolic ownership is both impelled and disavowed. I use the term ‘brandom’ to refer to brand-controlled ‘fan’ communities that lack real autonomy. The case study of the Lazio Irriducibili ‘ultràs’ fan club in Rome Italy, demonstrates the potential of organized fans to create and promote branded commodities and, furthermore, it shows the potential of organized fans to threaten the symbolic and financial legitimacy of sports team/brand ownership, and the typical relationship that exists between fans (consumers) and teams (brands).
Purpose
This paper aims to critically assess the conceptual validity of customer experience as a construct and propose a model which integrates inter‐personal relationships, service quality and brands.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical review of literature is structured around the key components of brands, relationships, quality, emotions and perceptions, viewed from a consumer's perspective.
Findings
Paradoxes in use of the term customer experience are noted. As a verb, experience describes a process of learning, leading to learned response, but as a noun emphasises novelty and the lack of predictable, learned response. By incorporating emotions and perceptual distortion over time, customer experience overcomes many problems associated with static, partial measures of service quality.
Research limitations/implications
Academic coverage of the subject of customer experience remains fragmented. Approaches to its measurement are suggested and their limitations noted. The multi‐dimensional, situation‐specific nature of customer experience favours qualitative rather than quantitative measurement approaches.
Practical implications
The unique nature of customer experience, which is specific to a customer, at a specific time and location, in the context of a specific event, limits its managerial usefulness for planning and control purposes. Many companies have seen customer experience management (CEM) as a successor to customer relationship management (CRM). However, issues of inter‐functional integration become an even greater challenge.
Originality/value
This paper has provided a critical review of an emerging topic and suggested that despite academic interest in the concept, practical application of customer experience management may be difficult to achieve.
In the late twentieth century traditional football fan culture in England was increasingly under threat as a result of the advance of globalisation processes and a more profit oriented American model of sport. This article examines the extent to which recent changes in English professional football can be related to the new concepts of McDonaldisation and Disneyisation. McDonaldisation refers to the process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are increasingly applied to other sectors of society. Disneyisation suggests that the principles of the Disney theme parks are becoming more dominant in other sectors of society. The 1990s concepts of McDonaldisation and Disneyisation are located in the previous literature on the globalisation and Americanisation of sport. The nature of traditional football fan culture in England is explained both in terms of its current structure and its historical origin. There is a lack of fit between traditional fan culture and the more profit oriented model of sport. The central core of the article presents considerable evidence that some of the processes encompassed by the concepts of McDonaldisation and Disneyisation have infiltrated English professional football in the late twentieth century. Football fans have not remained passive, however, and a final section is devoted to assessing the extent of resistance to the McDonaldisation and Disneyisation of English professional football.
The notion of experience entered the field of consumption and marketing with Holbrook and Hirschman's pioneering article of 1982. Twenty years later, this notion has become a key element in understanding consumer behaviour, and, in some views, a foundation for the economy and marketing of the future. In our view, however, this development is not without its risks, as the concept of experience is still illdefined or, worse, defined in ideological terms. To this end, the present paper looks 1) to give an overview of the different meanings ascribed to the word `experience' in various scientific disciplines and to detail the different meanings ascribed to the notion of consumption experience; and 2) to highlight, using a deconstructive approach, that in the field of marketing we must use a typology of consumption experiences which goes beyond an ideological view that tends to consider every experience as extraordinary.
Develops a classification or typology of the sports fan. Specifically, contends that five different types of sports fans exist: temporary, local, devoted, fanatical, and dysfunctional. The need exists to identify the different types of fans due to the inadequacies of past theories to explain the totality of fan behavior. The usefulness of the typology is demonstrated by offering specific segmentation strategies for each classification. Finally, directions for future research are presented.
In this paper, the authors develop a conceptual and implementation framework for `fan relationship management' (FRM) that learns from the successes and failures of conventional customer relationship management (CRM) but considers the special nature of football. Although often not explicitly described as such, in reality most CRM is a mixture of transaction and relationship marketing, often leaning towards the former. Here, the authors examine the current state of CRM implementation within the football industry based on information collected from football club business managers. Based on existing knowledge about supporter behaviour the notion of FRM is developed. The authors believe that FRM provides an appropriate balance between transaction and relationship approaches. The paper discusses the football industry's approach to CRM and includes an in-depth case study into one football club's attempt to implement CRM. These results suggest that the football industry may be replicating mistakes already made by mainstream business sectors, reinforcing the need for FRM.Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management (2006) 13, 156-172; doi:10.1057/palgrave.dbm.3240292
This study examines the comparative effects of physical and social atmospherics in a hedonic service context. This article focuses on other customers as the social factors in the service environment and distinguishes three dimensions: density, appearance, and behaviour. The main purpose of this article is to highlight the relevance of other customers as the atmospheric factors of the servicescape. The findings of our empirical study suggest that in addition to the perceived physical properties, favourable perceptions of other customers – particularly, their behavioural patterns – exert a strong positive influence on favourable overall affective responses. These responses, in turn, have a positive impact on customers' on-site spending and positive word-of-mouth behaviours.
An entire research current has taken on the mantle of analysing the growing quest on the part of contemporary consumers for immersion into varied experiences. But there has been little empirical analysis of this process of immersion and the experience it produces. This paper introduces and develops the subjective operations that consumers undertake in their efforts to be submerged in the consumption experience. It uses empirical research based on introspective reports filed by consumers who attended a series of classical music concerts. The results suggest that, rather than being an immediate process, immersion in a consumption experience is more progressive. To facilitate this progressive process, greater attention must be paid to the management of those service elements that will have an impact on the so‐called operations of appropriation.
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Nowadays the experience factor plays an increasingly important role in determining the success of a company's offering. The literature on Customer Experience is growing fast and the debate among scholars and practitioners is fervent. While many studies explore such theme from a theoretical viewpoint, tools aimed at supporting marketing managers in devising the right stimuli to support an excellent Customer Experience are still scarce. In this perspective, this study sheds some light on the concept of Customer Experience, and on how the right environment and setting for the desired Customer Experience should be created in such a way as to contribute to the value creation for customers and the company itself. Drawing from the results of a survey submitted to several groups of customers, this paper attempts to understand the specific role of different experiential features in the success achieved by some well-known products. Following the empirical investigation, this work also suggests an interpretative model to support the marketing manager in generating the proper stimuli to activate the various components of the Customer Experience.
Contenido: Parte I.Cuestiones conceptuales en la investigación cualitativa: Naturaleza de la investigación cualitativa; Temas estratégicos en la investigación cualitativa; Diversidad en la investigación cualitativa: orientaciones teóricas; Aplicaciones cualitativas particulares. Parte II. Diseños cualitativos y recolección de datos: Estudios de diseños cualitativos; Estrategias de trabajo de campo y métodos de observación; Entrevistas cualitativas. Parte III. Análisis, interpretación e informe: Análisis cualitativo e interpretación; Incrementar la calidad y la credibilidad del análisis cualitativo.
This paper argues for the recognition of important experiential aspects of consumption. Specifically, a general framework is constructed to represent typical consumer behavior variables. Based on this paradigm, the prevailing information processing model is contrasted with an experiential view that focuses on the symbolic, hedonic, and esthetic nature of consumption. This view regards the consumption experience as a phenomenon directed toward the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and fun.