Experiential aspects of tourism gift consumption

This article addresses how consumers make use of fantasy, feelings, and fun when deciding, giving, and consuming gifts of tourism and leisure. Despite little industry awareness, consumers are engaging with such behaviour because tourism gifts offer considerable scope for the creative expression of donor–recipient relationships. This UK-based interpretive qualitative study captured data from donors, recipients, and tourism and leisure providers. The feelings (emotions), fantasies (imagination and dreaming), and fun (playfulness) were interrogated through the behavioural phases of gift decision making, gift exchange, post-exchange, and gift consumption. A range of emotions were displayed by donors and recipients at different stages in the gift-giving process; donor decision making in groups for created gifts was particularly charged. Fantasies were evident both for donors planning gifts and for recipients. As an intangible gift, means of exchange allowed for creative mechanisms beyond the classic wrapping strategies associated with physical gifts. The ‘decoy’ strategy stimulated the recipient’s imagination to conjure fantastical scenarios. Fun or playfulness was built into many of the gifts and often related to an element of ‘surprise’, an attribute of the perfect gift (e.g. Belk, 1996) in Western societies

Materialism Effect on Apparel Collaborative Consumption Platform Usage: A Research Proposal

Collaborative consumption (CC) has become a buzzword during the past few years. In fashion and apparel industry context, CC accentuates product usage rather than ownership, through sharing usage of underutilized or unwanted products by renting, swapping, trading, and lending. As the definition of CC suggests, the exchange of apparel is expected to happen between private individuals. However, the fashion and apparel retail industry is seeing a phenomenon where an increasing number of retailers are developing business models to provide a platform that facilitates renting or sharing of clothing items between consumers and/or the retailer. As this business is booming, it is becoming more important for retailers to understand apparel CC customer consumption behavior, what motivates customers to adopt such models, and more importantly what stops them from using such services. In this chapter, we are focusing on understanding what stops customers at collectivist cultures from using such services. We are focusing on materialism as a potential value that might hinder customer’s willingness to adopt CC

The impact of storytelling on the consumer brand experience: The case of a firm-originated story

Contains fulltext : 112190.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Stories fascinate people and are often more easily remembered than facts. Much has been written about the power of stories in branding, but very little empirical evidence exists of their effects on consumer responses. In the present study, we investigate how a firm-originated story influences consumers’ brand experience, by comparing the brand experiences of two groups of consumers. One group was exposed to the story and one group was not. An existing brand was used in the study, which had not been launched in the focal country. In-depth interviews were conducted with individuals in the two experimental conditions. The comparison revealed remarkable differences between the two groups. Consumers who were exposed to the story described the brand in much more positive terms and were willing to pay more for the product. The study contributes to brand management research and practice by demonstrating the power of storytelling on consumer experiences. The results are also important from a managerial point of view. They demonstrate how brand stories can be used to create and reinforce positive brand associations. A review of past research in combination with the findings demonstrates that more research is needed on the effect of stories on consumer brand responses.2 maart 201215 p