The fluid journey: Unreal real or real unreal? Consumer resources in the physical and virtual realms

Abstract

ABSTRACT The growing popularity of immersive technology and the rise of gaming suggest an important shift in consumers' interaction with brands, increasing the blending of the physical and digital environments. Gaming involves constant stimuli and responses that keep consumers' brains hyper-engaged, fostering awareness and absorption of a brand message in both realms. Meanwhile, this blended enviroment allows consumers to develop an interoperable set of resources. Our paper contributes to the evolving resource-based view by focusing on consumers’ operant and operand resources in physical and virtual experiences within the gaming context. Specifically, the goal of our work is to advance a model that is suited to the dialectical interaction consumers face between the physical and virtual sports contexts, where consumer resources remain under-conceptualized. The study adopts a qualitative multi-method approach that integrates in-depth interviews and focus groups to reveal how the consumer moves seamlessly between the physical and virtual context and develops an entangled set of resources (operand and operant), which could in turn lead to personal growth. Experiencing a ‘fluid journey’, consumers may be empowered by making transpositions of the resources developed into everyday life situations.