The Experience of Consumption: Managerial Concepts, Models and Challenges

Abstract

Few concepts in the field of marketing have provoked as lasting a fascination as the experience of consumption. Holbrook and Hirschman’s publication in 1982 of the article often considered as one of the founding mainstream contributions on consumption experience constitutes a common point of reference as being the emergence of “experiential” marketing in the analysis of consumer behavior. The importance that this concept assumed in research may begin to be explained by the academic world and professional circles simultaneously recognizing the importance of experience. A second perspective, the company’s analysis of the proposition conditions of an experience, is illustrated in particular by the works of Pine and Gilmore (1998, 1999), who popularized in the business world the long-term evolution of supply, from the commodity to the product, then with the added value of services, culminating in the provision of an experience. Heineken’s new boutique Culture Biere on the Champs-Elysees is an example of constructing a consumption experience which is intended to reinforce the distinctive positioning of the brand. The sociology of consumption has reinforced this view and placed the experience back under the enchantment of the sphere of consumption by incorporating symbolic features in reaction to the way supply has become commonplace as a consequence of its standardization (Ritzer, 1996, 1999). It also gave a theoretical foundation to the assumption of experience research proposed by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982). The mainstream development of experience in the field of marketing has benefited from the conjunction of several favorable factors, notably: