Making sense of sensory brand experience: constructing an integrative framework for future research

This study asserts that conceptualising sensory brand experience (SBE) as an independent construct is critical to expanding our understanding of experiences provided by brands. To achieve this goal, a rigorous examination of its foundational knowledge structure underpinning the construct is urgently required. Using co-citation analysis examining 151 SBE-related articles with 4,038 citations over more than two decades (1994–2019), six knowledge fields deemed to have constitutive influence on SBE literature have been identified - atmospherics, product evaluation, sensory marketing, service marketing, experiential marketing and brand experience. Combining the results of a hierarchical cluster analysis and a metric multidimensional scaling analysis, the authors located three fundamental premises: (1) brand settings are arbiters of brand meaning; (2) the intrinsic processing of SBE involves the entrainment of exteroceptive and interoceptive processes; and (3) SBE outcomes are non-representational. At the end of the paper, these findings are organised into an integrative framework, highlighting research concerns and research gaps at the antecedent, processing and outcome stages. In doing so, this paper contributes to the conceptual development of SBE by constructing a doctrinal schema for future research undertakings

Experiencing the sense of the brand: the mining, processing and application of brand data through sensory brand experiences

Purpose - This article aims to develop an integrative framework based on a convergence of embodiment, ecological and phenomenological theoretical perspectives, to explain the multiple processes involved in the consumers’ mining, processing and application of brand-related sensory data through a sensory brand experience. Design/methodology/approach – This research adopts a qualitative method by using face-to-face in-depth interviews (retail managers and customers) and focus group interviews (actual customers) with 34 respondents to investigate sensory brand experiences in the context of Chinese shopping malls. Findings - Results show that the brand data mined through multisensory cues (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and taste) in a brand setting are processed internally as sensory brand experiences (involving sensory impressions such as fun, interesting, extraordinary, comforting, caring, innovative, pleasant, appealing, convenient), which influence key variables in customer-brand relationships including customer satisfaction, brand attachment, and customer lovemarks. Originality/value – This study has implications for current theory on experiential marketing, branding, consumer-brand relationships, consumer psychology and customer experience management

An assessment of brand experience knowledge literature: using bibliometric data to identify future research direction

There is wide consensus that the brand experience literature (BEL) suffers from a deficit in conceptual works. This study argues that, for brand experience research to overcome its conceptual insipidity, it must reexamine the core of its intellectual structure to rediscover what ‘an experience provided by brands’ truly implies. The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize and present a future research framework for research into the concept of brand experience, by identifying both the core and peripheral sources of knowledge of the concept and its association with brand meaning. Through a bibliometric process covering 136 articles published between 2002 and 2018, resulting in a database of 2,698 citations, this brand experience conceptual paper fills a critical research gap by providing the first full-scale bibliometric study to date of the BEL, using a combination of high citation and co-citation metrics. Based on this conceptual reorientation, a matrix for future development is presented, enabling the reader to visualize the scope and breadth of potential brand experience research horizons in areas relating to customer experience, consumer-brand relationship, online brand experience and sensory brand experience. The four approaches listed in the matrix – firm-based, social constructionist, virtuality and embodiment – provide a roadmap for future brand experience research undertakings to explore the rich potential of experience evoked by brands

Electrohydrodynamic jet printing of PZT thick film micro-scale structures

This paper reports the use of a printing technique, called electrohydrodynamic jet printing, for producing PZT thick film micro-scale structures without additional material removing processes. The PZT powder was ball-milled and the effect of milling time on the particle size was examined. This ball-milling process can significantly reduce the PZT particle size and help to prepare stable composite slurry suitable for the E-Jet printing. The PZT micro-scale structures with different features were produced. The PZT lines with different widths and separations were fabricated through the control of the E-Jet printing parameters. The widths of the PZT lines were varied from 80 μm to 200 μm and the separations were changed from 5 μm to 200 μm. In addition, PZT walled structures were obtained by multi-layer E-Jet printing. The E-Jet printed PZT thick films exhibited a relative permittivity (ɛr) of ∼233 and a piezoelectric constant (d33, f) of ∼66 pC N−1

An assessment of customer experience concept: looking back to move forward

Based on the overarching research purpose of this paper centered around building a new CX conceptual framework, the research objectives are: (1) to identify the main knowledge structure of customer experience; (2) to understand how the knowledge structure of customer experience has changed over time

Magnetic Incommensurability in Doped Mott Insulator

In this paper we explore the incommensurate spatial modulation of spin-spin correlations as the intrinsic property of the doped Mott insulator, described by the $t-J$ model. We show that such an incommensurability is a direct manifestation of the phase string effect introduced by doped holes in both one- and two-dimensional cases. The magnetic incommensurate peaks of dynamic spin susceptibility in momentum space are in agreement with the neutron-scattering measurement of cuprate superconductors in both position and doping dependence. In particular, this incommensurate structure can naturally reconcile the neutron-scattering and NMR experiments of cuprates.Comment: 12 pages (RevTex), five postscript figure

C-axis resistivity and high Tc superconductivity

Recently we had proposed a mechanism for the normal-state C-axis resistivity of the high-T$_c$ layered cuprates that involved blocking of the single-particle tunneling between the weakly coupled planes by strong intra-planar electron-electron scattering. This gave a C-axis resistivity that tracks the ab-plane T-linear resistivity, as observed in the high-temperature limit. In this work this mechanism is examined further for its implication for the ground-state energy and superconductivity of the layered cuprates. It is now argued that, unlike the single-particle tunneling, the tunneling of a boson-like pair between the planes prepared in the BCS-type coherent trial state remains unblocked inasmuch as the latter is by construction an eigenstate of the pair annihilation operator. The resulting pair-delocalization along the C-axis offers energetically a comparative advantage to the paired-up trial state, and, thus stabilizes superconductivity. In this scheme the strongly correlated nature of the layered system enters only through the blocking effect, namely that a given electron is effectively repeatedly monitored (intra-planarly scattered) by the other electrons acting as an environment, on a time-scale shorter than the inter-planar tunneling time. Possible relationship to other inter-layer pairing mechanisms proposed by several workers in the field is also briefly discussed.Comment: typos in equations corrected, contents unchange

Two-dimensional incommensurate magnetic fluctuations in Sr2_2(Ru0.99_{0.99}Ti0.01_{0.01})O4_4

We investigate the imaginary part of the wave vector dependent dynamic spin susceptibility in Sr$_2$(Ru$_{0.99}$Ti$_{0.01}$)O$_4$ as a function of temperature using neutron scattering. At T=5 K, two-dimensional incommensurate (IC) magnetic fluctuations are clearly observed around $\mathbf{Q}_\text{c}=(0.3,0.3,L)$ up to approximately 60 meV energy transfer. We find that the IC excitations disperse to ridges around the $(\pi,\pi)$ point. Below 50 K, the energy and temperature dependent excitations are well described by the phenomenological response function for a Fermi liquid system with a characteristic energy of 4.0(1) meV. Although the wave vector dependence of the IC magnetic fluctuations in Sr$_2$(Ru$_{0.99}$Ti$_{0.01}$)O$_4$ is similar to that in the Fermi liquid state of the parent compound, Sr$_2$RuO$_4$, the magnetic fluctuations are clearly suppressed by the Ti-doping.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure