Using the brand experience scale to profile consumers and predict consumer behaviour

INTRODUCTION

The idea that consumers are looking for unique and memorable experiences (resulting from sensory, affective, and other experiential appeals) is, by now, well established in the marketing literature. Today's consumers are not just interested in buying products for functional benefits; they increasingly make choices on the basis of experiential aspects of the offers.^{1, 2} As a result, both academics³ and practitioners^{4, 5, 6} have expressed great interest in the concept of brand experience and have acknowledged its importance for developing marketing strategies for goods and services. For services, it has been demonstrated that the creation and delivery of an emotion-rich experience provides brand differentiation and influences sales, consumer loyalty, and promotion of the brand.⁷

So far, however, no one has investigated how consumer behaviour in general, and in particular the relation between attitudes and purchase intention, may vary for different types of consumers. This article addresses the following two key questions:

Can we create a typology of consumers that prefer different experiential appeals? Are there, for example, consumers that prefer sensory/affective versus more action-oriented experiences, or 'low experiential' versus 'high experiential' consumers?

Do these experiential types moderate the relationships between brand attitude and purchase intention (for example, for some types the relation is stronger; for others it is weaker)?

To answer these questions, we first examine the key constructs of our research - brand experience on the one hand, and brand attitude and purchase intention on the other hand - more closely. Then, in an empirical study, we develop a typology of consumers with different experiential profiles and examine differences related to the attitudes-intention relationship.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Brand experience

In the marketing literature, the concept of experience has been investigated in different contexts including consumption experiences,⁸ product experiences,⁹ aesthetic experiences,¹⁰ service experiences,¹¹ shopping experiences,¹² and customer experience.¹³ Recently, a concept has been presented that spans across these various contexts: the concept of brand experience . Brakus et al¹⁴ define brand experience as 'subjective, internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings, and cognitions) as well as behavioural responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand's design and identity, packaging, communications and environment'.

Brand experiences can be positive or negative, short-lived, or long-lasting.¹⁴