Fabio Forlani

The importance of brand architecture in business networks: The case of tourist network contracts in Italy

Purpose This study aims to understand if network brand management is a key activity in tourism business networks and how the network brand relates to the place brand and the brands of individual network members. Design/methodology/approach Preference has been given to a qualitative approach and to the use of case study methodology. Two qualitative techniques have been used: document analysis and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Findings Results indicate that network brand identity is a prerequisite for all alliances, thus confirming the brand’s aggregating role in business networks. However, the network brand is not always exploited for commercial purposes, as signalled by the few efforts in communication activities. Results also indicate that there is a strong connection between the network brand and the place, confirming that tourism businesses are intertwined on a local context and cannot avoid citing the place where they operate. Research limitations/implications Two main aspects limit the generalizability of this study. First, the empirical evidence is limited to four case studies and refers to only one country. Second, chairmen of the examined networks were interviewed without investigating the opinions of network members who may have contrasting views. Practical implications Poor brand management within the examined networks suggests that network managers should have more decision-making power. To apply concepts of brand architecture, network managers should be able to influence brand strategies of individual network members. For example, structures and processes could be created to engage all members in brand management activities like for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) searching to increase participation of all stakeholders. Originality/value The novelty of this study is that it explores the role of brand management in networks created by partners with equal decision power. Moreover, it differs from previous research on inter-firm relations because it adopts the concept of brand consonance to evaluate if networks will succeed in the long term thanks to a proper management of the network brand.

Experience Logic: The New Challenge for Trade Fairs

The present chapter applies the experience logic to the trade show (TS) sector by analyzing the role of the different stakeholders’ categories (exhibitors, organizers, visitors) in the transformation of trade shows into interactive and experiential platforms. Based on the complexity and the multiple facets characterizing the phenomenon of TSs, the starting objective of this work is to outline, through a review process, the main trends emerging from the recent (2010–2017) business and management international literature devoted to trade shows (TSs) and trade fairs (TFs). In the second part of the chapter, attention is focused on one of the trends identified in the literature review (i.e., the growing importance of the entertainment and experiential component in the TS management), and the main tasks, performed by the different categories of TS actors, are explored by discussing the review’s outcomes. The results of this work make different contributions to TS literature (identification of recent trade show papers, systematization of their main research focuses, and construction of a possible framework of synthesis) and to business management (identification of the main roles and tasks each category of TS participants is called to play in order to stage the trade fair experience).

Marketing of traditional-local products in the experience logic perspective

The hypothesis underlying the chapter is that the business of traditional-local products requires a specific and suitable approach, which needs to combine the conceptual tools of service marketing with the experiential perspective. In line with an experience logic perspective, the authors suggest that the producers of traditional-local products (raw materials and goods) abandon the conservative strategy that rests upon the defense of traditional means of production, and embrace instead an experience logic marketing approach. As widely illustrated in the literature, this way manufacturers could offer an integrated portfolio, inclusive of both traditional agro-industrial items and new experiential products, such as themed events, carrying higher added value. The chapter adopts a qualitative approach and case study analysis as the research methods. Despite the limitations of the research related to the use of a single case study, the paper proposes some theoretical and managerial insights adopting the experience logic as a conceptual model to observe and interpret the food and wine business, thus innovating its value proposition. Through an experience logic approach, companies that produce traditional-local products, especially small and medium-sized, can intercept the new postmodern consumption processes that require experiential content, authenticity, and low standardization of the offer.

Experiential Perspective in Management Literature: A Systematic Review

The first chapter describes the evolution of the state state-of-the-art of the experiential perspective (ExP) approach in managerial literature, an approach that uses the concept of customer experience management (CEM) in a variety of ways. Through a systematic review, the chapter provides a structured overview of the main studies that use the experiential perspective; this overview is instrumental to in the conceptual scheme of the book developed in the chapter Marketing in an experiential perspective: from “goods and services logic” to “experience logic.” To describe the various approaches in which the authors classify articles, authors, and journals of reference in experiential perspective and customer experience management (ExP and CEM), the authors measure the notoriety of the articles and their authors, in an attempt to assess whether and how their impact dwindles inside the “small world” of ExP and CEM, or whether, instead, it extends to a wider radius that includes management literature. Lastly, the authors define the areas of application (areas of interest, or sectors), where the concept has found its widest application. The chapter, recognizing that the experiential logic is assuming centrality in marketing studies, indicates the need to construct a key to understanding and a conceptual basis of synthesis capable of integrating the various contributions that emerged in the literature into a unified framework.

The Tourist Offer of the Destination in an Experience Logic Perspective

The aim of the chapter is to propose an application of the experience logic and, in particular, the theatrical model to organize the tourist offer for the destination. Assuming the prospect of selling experiences, it emerges that, among the various factors needed for a destination to fall within the theatrical model, there must be the indispensable presence of a director (governing body in a systemic approach), to which we refer in our proposal for possible tourist destination market-oriented management tools. According to the theatrical model inspired by Pine and Gilmore, in which they underline that each business can be considered a show business, in order to be wholly efficient, the marketing activities must be geared toward the various internal (cast) and external subjects within the organizational system, whether it is a company or a destination. In other words, it is a question of adopting an integrated managerial perspective that is widely diffused organization-wide and culturally holistic. What is to be avoided is the logic of focusing the marketing only on the final client, thereby falling into a near-sighted approach that underestimates the importance of truly satisfying an audience when all of the theater components have worked together well. Indeed, concentrating exclusively on the external consumer means ignoring the fact that, in a tourist system, there are stakeholders (internal clients, distributes, suppliers, financial backers, public institutions, mass media, etc.) whose complete satisfaction is an indispensable condition for satisfying the final client and for long-term competitive success. We propose applying the experience concept and the theater model to tourist destinations with all due conceptual caution, aware of the limitations inherent in both theory and managerial actions, in undertaking to shift into territorial contexts paradigms and tools that were developed with reference to organizational systems.

Sustainable Management of Events in an Experiential Perspective

Events are complex value propositions that are realized by specialists to meet different leisure and entertainment needs. They are highly intangible and experiential-type products (Pencarelli and Forlani 2016) to which the application of logical experience is particularly suitable (Bartolazzi et al. 2008; Pegg and Patterson 2010; Manthiou et al. 2014; Getz and Page 2016). This chapter aims to describe the role played by events in the experience economy for territories involved in sustainable tourism strategies. The authors also propose a model for event impact analysis and evaluation. Starting from the idea that tourist destinations represent a stage on which tourism products can be displayed, so as to satisfy the demands of travelers seeking engaging experiences (Pencarelli and Forlani 2016), the importance of the role played by destination management in managing the events is further underlined. Tourists searching such experiences want to be in the spotlight and co-participate with territorial players in the creation of value. As such, event management requires the use of tools such as planning, organization, and control in order to design, plan, and put on a balanced program of events while monitoring the impact on value creation for both tourists and regional stakeholders within the perspective of sustainability. This chapter proposes to redefine the experiential perspective of a set of indicators that are useful in holistically evaluating the performance of events in a traditional tri-faceted dimension, i.e., economic, social, and environmental.

Marketing in an Experiential Perspective: From “Goods and Service Logic” to “Experience Logic”

The work aims to show how experience logic can be used to renew the most known marketing perspectives, by directing them towards new management approaches, which, starting from the customer experience, can find new ways to create, communicate, and deliver value. We use a conceptual approach: We want to propose a new vision of marketing, starting from the traditional goods logic inspired concept of marketing, discussing services marketing contributions, and ending with the experiential and experience marketing theories. We discuss the differences between experiential and experience marketing approaches, in order to go toward a new common vision: the marketing driven by the logic of the customer experience or “experience logic.” Moving from the traditional marketing logic to an “experience marketing logic,” we discuss six managerial processes for marketing managers in order to understand and improve customer experience: developing the experience concept; building the experience setting; communicating the experience; organizing and motivating employees; delivering or staging the experience; monitoring the perceived quality.

Introduction to the Experience Logic: Key Concepts and Contents

Over last two decades, the experiential perspective to business analysis has been strongly affirmed and has become a “topic of interest” in managerial literature. In fact, over these period, the experiential perspective has been adopted in various ways: in the general re-interpretation of economic phenomena and of the enterprise-market relationship (experience economy), in the rethinking of marketing approaches (experiential marketing), in managing touristic or territorial systems, in customer management and brand management. The chapter shows how it is desirable to consider the customer’s experience at the center of value creation processes in a managerial marketing approach that the authors define “experience logic”. This introduction also provides a brief description of the contents of each chapter and the conceptual key to reading the entire text, providing a short overview of application cases and of the ways in which the adoption of experience logic can revitalize marketing perspectives and stimulate novel approaches to the value creation.