No Experience Required: Experience Identification in the Pre-Experience Stage

摘要

While experiences have received much attention within the marketing literature across diverse areas (e.g. service and retail experiences, brand experiences, product experiences), researchers have most often focused on experiences at the time of consumption (Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). However, the value of an experience is created and judged across three stages—pre-experience, customer experience, and post-experience—and "not merely at the point of exchange" (Tynan and McKechnie, 2009, p. 508). Currently, however, little is known about the pre-experience stage and how it may influence the actual experience. The need to understand the pre-experience stage has increasingly gained significance as Internet technologies encourage consumers to become more involved with an experience even before it begins (Cho, Wang, and Fesenmaier, 2002). The purpose of the current study is to understand whether consumers, through participation in an online community, identify with an experience even before it initially occurs. Specifically, the focus is on first time consumers of the experience. In summary, this research aims to answer the following research question: 1. Is it possible for first time experiential consumers to identify with an experience beforehand? 2. What effect would that pre-experience identification have on brand-related outcomes, such as brand loyalty?