Morris B. Holbrook

The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun

This paper argues for the recognition of important experiential aspects of consumption. Specifically, a general framework is constructed to represent typical consumer behavior variables. Based on this paradigm, the prevailing information processing model is contrasted with an experiential view that focuses on the symbolic, hedonic, and esthetic nature of consumption. This view regards the consumption experience as a phenomenon directed toward the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and fun.

The Chain of Effects from Brand Trust and Brand Affect to Brand Performance: The Role of Brand Loyalty

The authors examine two aspects of brand loyalty, purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, as linking variables in the chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance (market share and relative price). The model includes product-level, category-related controls (hedonic value and utilitarian value) and brand-level controls (brand differentiation and share of voice). The authors compile an aggregate data set for 107 brands from three separate surveys of consumers and brand managers. The results indicate that when the product- and brand-level variables are controlled for, brand trust and brand affect combine to determine purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty. Purchase loyalty, in turn, leads to greater market share, and attitudinal loyalty leads to a higher relative price for the brand. The authors discuss the managerial implications of these results.

The Varieties of Consumption Experience: Comparing Two Typologies of Emotion in Consumer Behavior

Consumer researchers have recently turned their attention toward exploring the imaginative, emotional, and evaluative components of the consumption experience. Nevertheless, considerable work remains to be done on the emotional aspects of consumer behavior. Toward that end, this paper assesses the comparative reliabilities and validities of two competing typologies of emotion when they are applied to the representation of experiences associated with consumption activities. Specifically, independent samples of judges rated real experiential descriptions on either Mehrabian and Russells (1974) PAD dimensions or Plutchiks (1980) emotional categories. Further, separate samples of judges evaluated artificial descriptions on the same competing frameworks. These data permit comparisons of reliability, internal validity, and external convergent validity for the two alternative schemes. The results favor Mehrabian and Russells PAD paradigm and suggest the need for further research exploring types of emotional responses to the varieties of consumption experience.

Play as a Consumption Experience: The Roles of Emotions, Performance, and Personality in the Enjoyment of Games

Consumer researchers have recently begun to focus on the experiential aspects of consumption in general and on intrinsically motivated hedonic enjoyment in particular. Within this broad class of consumer behavior, play (as in sports, games, and other leisure activities) constitutes a particularly familiar and important type of consumption experience. This study investigates some phenomena involved in playful consumption. The results suggest that performance, perceived complexity, and personality-game congruity determine emotional responses and that performance itself depends both on previous performance and on various ability-related individual characteristics. Though still tentative, such findings indicate an important role for the competence motive in the enjoyment of games.

Consumer Responses to Advertising: The Effects of Ad Content, Emotions, and Attitude toward the Ad on Viewing Time

This study develops and tests a hierarchical model of advertising effects on viewing time. The ads studied represent a sample of commercials aired during prime-time broadcasts, and the effects are analyzed across the ads rather than across people. Primary emphasis is placed on the attempt to explain a simulated behavioral measure of attention to television commercials--that of channel switching (zapping) and fast-forwarding through ads on prerecorded programs (zipping). In addition, the study demonstrates a chain of effects from the content of television ads, through emotional reactions and attitude toward the ad, to actual viewing behaviors. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.

Beyond Attitude Structure: Toward the Informational Determinants of Attitude

The author argues that marketing research has focused too narrowly on the static structure of attitude at the expense of its informational determinants. An experimental study investigates the effec...

The Millennial Consumer in the Texts of Our Times: Experience and Entertainment

Two decades ago, (macro)marketing researchers awoke to the hedonic and experiential aspects of consumption—sometimes known as fantasies, feelings, and fun or the “three Fs.” More recent literature has further extended our view toward a broadened recognition of “four Es”—experience, entertainment, exhibitionism, and evangelizing. This essay reviews each of the four Es and will appear serially as three sequential installments: parts 1 and 2 on experience and entertainment, part 3 on exhibitionism, and part 4 on evangelizing.

Popular Appeal versus Expert Judgments of Motion Pictures

Cultural commentators addressing the differences between high art and mere entertainment have suggested that the standards of popular appeal governing the tastes of ordinary consumers differ from the criteria for excellence employed by professional critics in rendering expert judgments. These concerns appear in discussions of the cultural hierarchy (distinguishing among levels of tastes) and in claims that commercialism tends to degrade cultural objects (by catering to tastes that represent the lowest common denominator). However, such attacks make assumptions that are generally left untested and that raise at least two key research questions: (RQ1) Do the determinants of popular appeal versus expert judgments suggest differing or common standards of evaluation for consumers versus critics? (RQ2) Do discrepant (shared) tastes produce a negative (positive) correlation between popular appeal and expert judgments? The present study addresses these research questions for the case of motion pictures. The findings suggest that, at least in the case of films, ordinary consumers and professional critics do emphasize different criteria in the formation of their tastes but that we have reason to question critiques based on the implicit assumption of a negative correlation between popular appeal and expert judgments. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.

Aims, Concepts, and Methods for the Representation of Individual Differences in Esthetic Responses to Design Features

In studying the consumers evaluative judgments of esthetic objects such as artworks or fashion designs, one has reason to anticipate considerable heterogeneity as to preference structures wherein affect depends on the features and feature interactions of interest. For example, one might expect esthetic responses toward fashion designs to vary meaningfully among individuals differing in visualizing/verbalizing tendency (VV), intrinsic/extrinsic motivation (IE), romanticism/classicism (RC), and sex. Yet we lack parsimonious and clearly interpretable methods for representing such individual differences in evaluative judgments. Accordingly, this article (1) argues for the important role played by such personality variables as VV, IE, RC, and Sex in moderating esthetic responses, (2) develops instruments intended to measure VV, IE, and RC, (3) presents a method that uses canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to represent differences in preference structures, and (4) provides an illustrative application that tests some aspects of the reliability and validity of this approach to representing individual differences in esthetic responses to design features.

Customer value and autoethnography: subjective personal introspection and the meanings of a photograph collection

Abstract This paper applies the method of subjective personal introspection (SPI or autoethnography) to the analysis of a photograph collection from the viewpoint of implications concerning the nature and types of customer value. Borrowing from the branch of philosophy known as axiology, this focus emphasizes the centrality of customer or consumer value to the basic foundation for marketing and the essence of consumer value as an interactive relativistic preference experience. This conceptualization leads to a typology of customer value that serves as a lens or perspective to guide the interpretive analysis of photographs from a family archive. In sum, overall, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that consumer value (axiology) serves as a useful framework that furthers the application of SPI (autoethnography) to an interpretation of the meanings found in a photograph collection (archival artifacts).