体验营销：对消费者心理的洞察外文文献翻译

of experiential marketing and is defined as the ?customer fulfillment response? which is an evaluation as well as an emotion-based response to a service. It is an indication of the customer’s belief on the probability or possibility of a service leading to a positive feeling. And positive affect is positively and negatively related to satisfaction (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997).

Experiential marketing involves the marketing of a product or service through experience and in the process the customer becomes emotionally involved and connected with the object of the experience (Marthurs, 1971). A well designed experience engages the attention and emotion of the consumer, and becomes memorable and allows for a free interpretation, as it is non-partisan (Hoch, 2002). In contrast to traditional marketing which focuses on gaining customer satisfaction, experiential marketing creates emotional attachment for the consumers (McCole, 2004). The sensory or emotional element of a total experience has a greater impact on shaping consumer preferences than the product or service attributes Zaltman (2003). The benefits of a positive experience include the value it provides the consumer (Babin et al., 1994; Holbrook, 1999) and the potential for building customer loyalty (Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Gobe and Zyman, 2001).

Experiential retail strategies facilitate the creation of emotional attachments, which help customers obtain a higher degree of possessive control over in-store activities (Schmitt, 2003). These strategies allow consumers to become immersed within the holistic experience design, which often creates a flow of experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Affective reaction based on an interaction with an object can be described as a person’s subjective perception or judgment about whether such interaction will change his or her core affect or his or her emotion toward the object. Cognitive reaction toward interacting with the object involves cognitive reasoning or appraisal, and is a consumer assessment of the purchase implications for his/her well being. Cognitive and affective reactions towards an object can be quite different, for example: one might appraise taking garlic as good and useful for one’s health, nevertheless, one can at the same time consider it unpleasant due to its smell and taste.

Experiential events can turn out to create both consumer and consumption experiences and can by far more effective in attaining communication goals. Caru and Cova (2003) conceptualization of experience, and Csikzentmihalyi (1997) experience typology and 7 ‘I’s of Wood and Masterman (2007) may serve as a useful framework for evaluating the effectiveness of an event by developing measures that relates to the level of challenges, newness, surprise, and matching it with the audience’s prior experience and skill level. However, the usefulness of measuring these attributes of the event depends upon the assumption and belief that an event that is strong in those attributes will effectively create a memorable and potentially behavior changing experience.

The strategic experiential marketing framework consists of five strategic experiential models which create different forms of experience for customers. The five bases of the strategic experiential modules are: (1) Sensory experience: the sensory experience of customers towards experiential media includes visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile response results.(2) Emotional experience: the inner emotion and sense of customers raised by experience media. (3) Thinking experience: customers' thoughts on the surprise and enlightenment provoked by experience media. (4) Action experience: is the avenue through which experience media, linked customers so that they can acquire social identity and sense of belonging. (5) Related experience for customers: is actualizes through the experience of media production links, and to social recognition.

3.METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

This study, being descriptive and explanatory, utilized secondary sources of information. Secondary information is a good source of data collection and documentation that cannot be under-estimated as it provides necessary background and much needed context which makes re-use a more worthwhile and systemic endeavour (Bishop, 2007).

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The retailing business is constantly changing and experiencing huge trends due to changing consumer tastes, consumption patterns and buying behaviors. As a result

of the changing consumer shopping ecosystem, retailers’ ability to sell its merchandise, depends largely on the strength of its marketing mix elements and ability to create a rewarding and fulfilling experiences for customers.

Traditional marketing strategies focusing on price or quality are no longer a source of differentiation and competitive advantage. Researchers advocate that one of the main routes to successful differentiation and competitive advantage is a much stronger focus on the customer (Peppers and Rogers, 2004). Shopping involves a sequence of '’see–touch–feel– select'’ and the degree to which a shopper follows the whole or part of this process varies with brand, product category, and other elements of the marketing mix.

Experiential marketing evolved as the dominant marketing tool of the future (McNickel, 2004). Companies have moved away from traditional ?features and benefits? marketing, towards creating experiences for their customers (Williams, 2006). Experiential marketing has evolved as a response to a perceived transition from a service economy to one personified by the experiences, for instance, Williams (2006, p.484) argues that ?modern economies are seen as making a transition from the marketing of services to the marketing of experiences, all tourism and hospitality offers acts of ‘theatre’ that stage these experiences?.

From now on leading edge companies, whether they sell to consumers or businesses, will achieve sustainable competitive advantage by staging experiences which include personal relevance, novelty, surprise, learning and engagement (Schmitt, 1999; Poulsson and Kale (2000). Undoubtedly, consumers now desire experiences and, in order to fully capitalize on this, business must deliberately orchestrate and engage in offering memorable experiences that create value and ultimately achieve customer loyalty.

Online shopping experience poses numerous challenges to retailers and has changed the shopping ecosystem. It has opened up huge opportunities for consumers, not only in terms of what they buy, but how they buy it. In an offline experience, factors, such as time constraints, the shopping environment and perceived rewards often influence consumers shopping experience. Although these factors may also play

important role in the evaluation of an online experience, however, the challenge centers on the conscious design of a web environment that is not only appealing but creates positive effects in users and increases favorable consumer responses (Dailey, 2004).

The retail experiences consist of holistic realms (aesthetic, entertainment, education etc), which allow flow between the various static and dynamic elements within the experiential environment and helps the consumer to become immersed and engaged within the retail marketing event (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Pine and Gilmore 1999). For this reason experiential marketing element does not operate in a vacuum nor work in isolation; they function as a holistic mechanism driving the customer's retail experience.

It can be concluded that the retail experience is not only a physical store layout but a combinations of static and dynamic elements which provide customers with rich emotional benefits. These dynamic elements enable the customer to explore their environment to receive an exciting, entertaining and playful form of retail consumption (Holbrook, 1999). It also makes consumers shopping trip a form of adventurous journey, not defined nor restricted by the act of consumption but rather by experiencing holistic immersion (Arnould and Reynolds, 2003).

Experiential marketing techniques used by retailers play a major role in attracting customers to the stores and also inducing them to engage in a shopping experience. Pine and Gilmore (1999) suggest that companies, who stage experiences alone, without considering the effect these experiences will have on participants and without designing the experiences in such a way as to create a desired change, will eventually see their experiences become commoditized and not yielding the expected return on investment.

On a final note, to manage total experiences of the customers, organizations must strive to effectively manage the affective component of the customers, using similar approach devise in managing the functional aspect of the product/service. Also, since shopping is an experience, value for money is a very important factor for most shoppers; retailer must therefore strive to enable the customers feel they are getting