Journal of Marketing Management 2004 20,343-361

Sharon Ponsonby^
and Emily Boyle

University of Ulster

The 'Value Of Marketing' and 'The

Marketing Of Value' in
Contemporary Times -A Literature
Review and Research Agenda
Over the last quarter of a century, it has become
increasingly apparent that the traditionally accepted
production based view ofthe value adding process is no
longer realistic. Awareness of the value created
through the provision of services and the increasing
importance of services in the economic and business
environment suggests that value can also be created
through the consumption process. For marketers to use
the value adding potential of consumption to fulfil the
marketing concept, the nature of the process and the
value created by it need to be investigated.
This paper provides an overview of the changing
business environment and its implications for our
understanding ofthe concept of value. It examines the
increasing interest in the literature in the concept of
experiential value and highlights the problems caused
by its very personal, idiosyncratic and situational
nature; and, suggests a conceptual model around
which research into the topic can be organised. Finally,
it suggests a methodology for carrying out research
that would provide some insight into the factors that
cause consumers' perceptions of experiential value to
vary so much.

Kej^words:
experiential value, consumption, new marketing, new
economy, individualism
Introduction
"The marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends
on determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the
1 Correspondence Sharon JM Ponsonby, Research Associate in Folklore/Ethnology,
Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages, Faculty of Arts, University of Ulster, Magee
Campus, Northem Ireland, BT48 7HA, Tel: 028 71375785, Email:
SJM.Ponsonby@ulster.ac.uk
ISSN0267-257X/2004/3-4/00343 + 18 8.00/0

Westburn Publishers Ltd.

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors do"

(Kotler and Armstrong 1997). To do this, an organization must offer the
customer better value than its rivals. Treacy and Wiersema (1994) define
customer value as "the sum of the benefits minus the costs incurred in
acquiring the product or service". The means by which a company does this
is the subject matter of the marketing discipline.
During the 1990s, there was much debate about the state of the discipline.
Some felt that its focus was too narrow and its assumptions unrealistic
(Buttle 1994; Belk 1996; Brown et al. 1996). Some argued that marketing in its
existing form was dying (Brown et al. 1996). For example, by 1997, it was
argued that:
''the great companies that... [hadj... once... [borne]... witness to the power ofthe
marketing concept...[hadJ... either closed or radically restructured their
marketing departments" (Brown et al. 1997, p.63).

The discipline seemed to be in crisis (Holbrook 1995). There was a perceived

need for some form of "new marketing manifesto" (Grant 1999).
Simultaneously, a stream of literature identifying new approaches to
marketing including "postmodem marketing" and "retro marketing" (Brown
1995, 2001), "relationship marketing" (Gronroos 1997; Gummesson 1997),
"one-to-one marketing" (Peppers and Rogers 1995), "lifestyle marketing"
and "experiential marketing" (Schmitt 1999), and "tribal marketing" (Cova
1997) began to appear. This raised a number of critical questions about the
relevance of the traditional marketing perspective in the present business
environment. Marketers' dissatisfaction with the assumptions of the
traditional approach to marketing is clearly exemplified by the numerous
refinements made to the traditional marketing mix framework over time
(Brown 1995, 2001; Christopher et al. 1991; Collier 1991; Gummesson 1994,
1999; Schmitt 1999).
A major weakness of traditional marketing was its limited appreciation of
the nature of customer/consumer value and the sources of value creation.
Thus, Parasuraman (1997, p.l54) claimed that "one critical aspect of customer
value theory that is not yet fully developed concerns the sources from which
consumers may derive value"; and. Woodruff (1997) called for a "richer
customer value theory". Similarly, The Marketing Science Institute (19982000, p.5) emphasised the need to explore "value from a customer/consumer
perspective". Furthermore, Holbrook (1999, pp.xiii, 3) pointed out
"remarkably little attention" has yet been devoted to problem of
understanding "the philosophical and empirical underpinnings of a
concept... [consumer value]... that plays such a critical role" in the
marketing discipline. He argued that to date, most academics have "failed to

The 'Value of Marketing' and the 'Marketing of Value'

345

investigate the nature and types of consumer value with anything like the
degree of com^prehensiveness and systemisation needed to make telling
conceptual inroads into the issues of concern". Among these issues of
concern are the factors that can impact upon the type and level of value that
consumers gain from the consumption experience. This is the issue with
which this paper is concerned.
The paper presents a literature review explaining the weaknesses of the
traditional marketers' view of value and the reasons why they are no longer
adequate. This is followed by a discussion of how and why new insights into
the nature of consumption and the value that can be derived from it have
developed. New definitions of consumer value are provided and the
significant features of it are analysed. Of particular relevance is its
experiential nature; and, the value creating potential of consumers' intrinsic
emotional responses to the experience, rather than value derived from
extrinsic product attributes. Intrinsic value has been found to be personal,
idiosyncratic and situational (Zeithaml 1988), making it not only variable, but
also difficult for marketing managers to use in any coherent and systematic
way. This paper therefore proposes a conceptual model on which further
research in this area could be based and provides an outline of the factors
perceived to be relevant to the issue and some methods that could be used to
carry it out. Hopefully the research will enhance the level of understanding
of the nature of the experiential value of consumption and give greater
coherence to the body of knowledge relating to it.
Traditional View Of Value
The roots of marketing lie in classical economic theory that was developed
during the nineteenth century at a time when industrialisation was reaching
its peak.
Therefore traditional marketing suffers from two major
weaknesses. Firstly, it views consumers as passive instruments soaking up
marketing communications and responding to them in an economically
rational way (Buttle 1994; Firat and Venkatesh 1993, 1996; Holbrook 1996;
McDonagh and Prothero 1996; Woodruffe 1997). Secondly, its interpretation
of value and value creation is limited. Value is typically perceived in terms of
costs and benefits and the ratio of outputs to inputs or O/I (Holbrook 1999;
Gale 1994; Monroe 1990; Zeithaml 1988). Because of this its focus has
typically been on the production process as the dominant source of value
creation. Consumption is viewed as a post purchase process which has no
bearing on the value of the product and is therefore of little relevance to
marketers.
These weaknesses have had a negative impact on the ways in which firms
have determined the needs and wants of their target markets; and, especially
on their perceptions of what constitutes customer value. Marketers viewed

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

value creation as a function of demand and supply conditions. On the

demand side, value was created through scarcity of a product; and, on the
supply side, it was derived through the use of capital and the investment of
labour time and effort in the production process (Holbrook 1995). Value was
added at each stage of the supply chain. This economically determined
explanation of the source of value has resulted in attention being focussed on
the utility of a product, its physical attributes and the trade offs that
customers are prepared to make between quality and price (Band 1991; Gale
1994; Monroe 1990; Zeithaml 1988). Implicit in this instrumental view of
value is the perception that consumers make purchases on the basis of
rational choice decisions and preference judgements (Holbrook and
Hirschman 1982; Schmitt 1999). Monroe (1990, p.46) defined customer value
as "perceived quality which is adjusted for the relative price of the
products". This view of value suggests that the consumption of an offering is
devoid of any value creating potential (Firat and Venkatesh 1996; Firat and
Dholakial998).
These weaknesses of the traditional instrumental view of value have led to
Piercy's (1991, p.l5) contention that the traditional marketing concept
"assumes and relies on the existence of a world which is alien and
unrecognisable to many of the executives who have to manage marketing for
real"; and, to Schmitt's (1999) argument that traditional marketers'
conceptualisations of consumers, products and competition are based on
largely untested assumptions. It therefore fails to provide "a useful starting
point for the development of a general theory in any way" and is little more
than "pure rhetoric" (Robson and Rowe 1997).
Firat and Dholakia (1998) believe that the traditional tendency to neglect
the value adding potential of consumption is a consequence of the
industrialisation process in which production moved from the home into the
factory and thus became separated from the other aspects of people's lives.
From the days of simple barter through to industrialisation production and
consumption had been viewed as a single operation. Because of this, work
was not separated from play, nor creation from recreation, nor function from
ritual. In fact, "pure consumption or recreational activity had a social, ritual
or functional purpose" (Firat and Dholakia 1998, p. 7). For example, harvest
festivals and prayers for rain were rituals, but they also fulfilled very
important social and economic functions. Production and consumption were
all part of the same process. This view can be compared to the difference
between Westem and Eastem philosophies. Westem philosophers argue that
mind and body are two separate entities rather than being part of an overall
whole. As Campbell (1975, p. 12) explains: "the belief that mind and matter
were separate and had nothing to do with each other, may have been a factor
in the coming to birth of the principle of objectivity which was considered to

The 'Value of Marketing' and the 'Marketing of Value'

347

be Western in character, whilst the Easterners considered both mind and

body to be one and the same". It is only with the coming of the postindustrial age in the West, that the emphasis on objectivity is beginning to be
questioned.
The Impact Of The New Economy
Over the last quarter of a century. Western society has moved out of the
industrial era into a new economic era in which rising income levels offer
consumers the opportunity to purchase what they want rather than what
they need (Pine and Gilmore 1999). This has resulted in consumers being
bombarded with a widening range of goods and services to choose from. It is
thus becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to differentiate between
offerings, rendering marketing on the basis of the traditional instrumental
view of value, increasingly ineffective (Pine and Gilmore 1999).
The marketing dilemma is further compounded by another feature of the
new economy - the fact that consumer expenditure on services is much
higher than previously (Wolf 1999). As a consequence, the provision of
services has overtaken manufacturing as the dominant mode of wealth
creation in Westem society. This development has led a number of marketing
specialists to note that consumers' evaluation of services have been generally
ignored in the past (for example, Caruna et al. 2000; Ravald and Gronroos
1996).
Services differ from products in four distinct ways. They are intangible,
variable, perishable and inseparable (Kotler and Armstrong 1997, p. 265). Of
these, inseparability has probably had the greatest impact on thinking about
value creation because the value of a service can only be created during
consumption. The inseparability of production and consumption in services
has led marketers to actively reassess the potential of consumption as a
mearungful and valuable experience and has caused a blurring of "the
subject-object distinction" (Firat and Venkatesh 1996, p.255) between
offerings and their consumption. In consuming a service, the consumer must
be involved in some way in value creation. If consumption creates value in
the provision of services, so too can it provide it for all offerings for as
Holbrook (1999, p. 9) explains "all products provide services in their capacity
to create need-or-want satisfying experiences".
Acceptance of the view that value can be created as a result of
consumption as well as production implies that the role of marketers should
extend beyond transaction and product purchase or acquisition to usage and
disposal (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982; Holbrook and Hirschman 1982). To
appreciate how this might be done, marketers first need to understand the
nature of consumption.

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

The Nature Of Consumption

Consumption, by its very nature, is the central theme of consumer research.
To provide greater insight into it, consumer researchers are concerned with
elucidating the role of symbolism, imagery and metaphor, the meaning of
rituals, ceremonies and traditions, and the impact of emotions and feelings
including nostalgia on the process (Firat and Venkatesh 1996; Hirschman and
Holbrook 1982; Holbrook 1994, 1999; Pine and Gilmore 1999; Schmitt 1999;
Wolf 1999). However, few have tried to analyse its very essence,
concentrating instead on such topics as the retail shopping experience, gift
giving, reasoned action and consumer (mis)behaviour, consumer aesthetics,
and aggregate spending. A key reason for this is that analysing the
consumption process is particularly problematic for a number of reasons.
Firstly, consumption is typically a personal experience carried out
individually and often, in private by the consumer. Secondly, consumers
may find it difficult to describe or explain the aspects of the process; and,
thirdly as Holt (1997) points out, "the act of consuming is a varied and
effortful accomplishment underdetermined by the characteristics of the
object. A given consumption object ... is typically consum.ed in a variety of
ways by different groups of consumers".
Holt (1997) is one researcher who has analysed the consumption process
and suggests that a typology of the variations in consumption can be
developed on the basis of two dimensions - the structure of the consumption
action and the purpose of consumption. The first dimension ranges from
personally engaging directly with the consumption object to consumption
that involves interaction with other people. The second dimension ranges
from being an end in itself (autotelic action) to being a means to some other
outcome (instrumental action). From these, four generic types of
consumption have been identified. These are: consumption as experience,
consumption as integration, consumption as classification and consumption
as play. Consuming as experience focuses on the "subjective emotional
reactions to consumption objects". In this sort of consumption, the process is
seen as a psychological phenomenon that evokes various types of personal
feelings (Holt 1997, p. 2). Consuming as integration occurs when consumers
want to feel that the object they are consuming "is a constitutive element of
their identity" (Holt 1997, p. 6). They want to "integrate self and object,
thereby allowing themselves access to the object's symbolic properties".
Consumption as classification occurs when consumers perceive consumption
objects as "vessels of cultural and personal meanings" through which they
can be classified as a type; and, finally, consumption as play relates to
interactive consumption as an end in itself. Social drinking and having a
meal with friends are typical examples of this.

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Although value may be created during each of these types of consumption,

marketers have focused on consuming-as-experience, largely as a result of
the impact of Holbrook and Hirschman's work on 'the three Fs of hedonic
consumption' (1982) on the discipline. The three Fs referred to are fantasy,
feelings and fun. Initially, the significance of this work was considered to be
in the way it allowed for differentiation between two extreme types of
purchasing behaviour - a rational decision making approach on the one
hand, and a hedonic emotionally charged pleasure-seeking one on the other
hand. In the former case, little attention is paid to the potential to add to the
value of the purchase once the transaction has been carried out, whereas in
the latter case, consumers are seen to make purchases on the basis of the
anticipated pleasure their consuniption will provide for them. The sense of
pleasure is the result of fantasizing about the purchase's potential to arouse
positive feelings on consumption. This in turn allows consumers to have fun
and to enjoy the consumption process. In this way the consumption process
becomes a valuable experience in its own right. A typical example of this is
the decision by consumers to buy and eat food that they believe may not be
beneficial to their health but tastes delicious to them.
Experience and Experiential Value
This example of hedonic consumption shows clearly that often, it is only
through the consumption of the product that the true value of its purchase
can be realised. In particular, it is the pleasing experience of consumption
that is significant. An experience has been defined as "an event or occurrence
which leaves an impression on someone" (Pearsall 1998). For an event to
have this impact, it must be of sigriificance to the individual concemed. This
significance results from the event affecting the person's emotions. These
emotions are not the outcome of rational thought, rather, they are affected
when one or more of the person's five senses are stimulated. The reason for
the stimulation is often subconscious, arising from the person's social and
cultural background. Thus, in trying to make sense of the emotions, people
imbue them with symbolic meaning. It is this symbolic meaning related to
the consumers' experiences that makes them valuable. The objects consumed
act "as vessels of the meaning" taken "from a symbolic perspective" (Holt
1997, p .1). Thus, as Solomon (1999, p. 15) noted: "people often buy products
not for what they do, but for what they mean"; and. Sherry (1998)
commented that meanings are: "continually emplaced in consumers'
experience".
One effect of the increased awareness of the experiential aspect of
consumer value has been the appearance of a growing number of definitions
of customer value that acknowledge the role of the consumer in its creation.
For example. Woodruff (1997) defines customer value as a "customer's

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perceived preference for and evaluation of those product attributes, attribute

performances, and consequences arising from use that facilitate (or block)
achieving the customer's goals and purposes in use situations". This view,
reinforced by Holbrook (1994, p. 27; 1999, p. 5), contends that consumer
value is an: "interactive, relativistic, preference experience". It is interactive
because the consumer interacts with the offering in its consumption (subjectobject interaction). It is preferential because it embodies a preference
judgement. It is relativistic because it requires comparison between this
experience and some other one; and, it is experiential because the value can
only be derived from experiencing the situation from which the value is
derived. The increasing awareness of the value creating potential of the
consumption experience has led Schmitt (1999) to argue that the primary
objective of marketers today should be to create "a valuable customer
experience".
Thus, marketers are increasingly focusing on the provision of positively
memorable everyday consumptions experiences and have examined the
"driving experience", the "cooking experience", the "shopping experience",
the "cleaning experience", the "clothes-wearing experience", the "dining
experience", the "on-line experience" as potential sources of value (Pine and
Gilmore 1999; Schmitt 1999). Advertisers, for example, are now less likely to
focus on the attributes of a product that make it worthy of purchase by the
customer and are more likely to portray the product as part of a holistic
experience. As a consequence, products such as toothpaste and shampoo
which were formerly promoted on the basis of their product attributes and
benefits, are now likely to be promoted as part of a "grooming in the
bathroom" experience (Schmitt 1999).
The success of any experience in providing consumers with added value
can be gauged from their willingness to repeat it. H they have a strong desire
to repeat it, then significant value has been created. This means ttiat the
experience has aroused strong, positive, symbolically meaningful feelings
and emotions in the consumer. Wolf (1999) suggested that there has been a
cultural shift away from buying "real goods" to buying "feel goods".
Typically the positive value added through "feel goods" can range from
delight, desire, aspiration, nostalgia, sensuality and entertainment as well as
many others. The symbolic meanings that consumers often derive from these
feelings can cause them to form emotional bonds with items they purchase
and to view them as evidence of their self identity or as reflections of their
deeply held values (Brown 2001; Cova 1997; Gobe 2001; Pine and Gilmore
1999; Schmitt 1999; Wolf 1999). Consumption objects can also act as a link
with people's past selves. The revival of old advertisements and products
with their traditional styling but with the latest technology imported
suggests this (Brown 2001; Pine and Gilmore 1999; Schmitt 1999).

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Furthermore they can also serve as a social link among people (Cova 1997,
2003), as in the case of the admiration of cult objects by sub-cultural
groupings who use them to form social bonds or attain linking value.
The positive emotional consequences of a consumer's experience have
been referred to as "emotional payoff" and have been identified as "abstract,
multidimensional, difficult-to-measure attributes" (Zeithaml 1988). Zeithaml
(1988) considers that these have a higher-level impact than monetary or
cognitively based value factors (that is, value based on rational decision
making). Through an exploratory study, she found that consumers'
perceptions of the value of a food product changed as they moved from
purchasing it, to preparing it for consumption, and finally to consuming it.
She found that higher-level value factors are more common during the actual
consumption process than during earlier evaluation stages.
These higher-level factors may be equated with the concept of the intrinsic
aspects of consumer value identified by Holbrook (1994). These contrast with
the extrinsic aspects of value that relate essentially the product's attributes
and are the cornerstone of traditional views of value. Holbrook (1994)
developed a "Typology of Consumer Value" on the basis not only of its
extrinsic/ intrinsic dimension but also its active/ reactive and selforiented/other-oriented dimensions. Active value can only be derived from
manipulating the product whereas reactive value can be gained through
mere observation. For example, the value of food might come from eating it,
but the value of a well-made suit of clothing is observable from the quality of
fabric, sewing and style. Self-oriented value refers to personal feelings of
satisfaction derived from consumption for the benefit of oneself, whereas
other-oriented value is concemed with the positive emotional response felt
from giving someone else satisfaction or from conspicuously partaking
socially in a consumption activity (Cova 1997, 2003; Muniz and O'Guinn
2001). Thus, for example, Zeithaml (1988, p.l4) cited the case of mothers'
increased perceptions of the value of consuming fruit juice when their
children "mentioned them ...or evidenced thanks"; and, Cova (1997, 2003)
and Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) have noted that consumers derive value from
interacting with each other and having a shared interest in the object which is
often the cause of them being together in various contexts (e.g. sub-cultural
groupings' ritual gatherings).
Using these three dimensions, Holbrook identified eight types of
consumer value - four of which are extrinsic and analogous with traditional
views of value. The other four, in which intrinsic factors are significant, are
play (not to be confused with Holt's (1997) view of play as a type of
consumption), aesthetics, ethics and spirituality. The value of play relates to
the concept of hedonic consumption already discussed; that of aesthetics to
the value created from observing perceived beauty (not to be confused with

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

the aestheticisation of everyday life referred to by Cova 1997) - for example,

the value derived from listening to a certain piece of music or appreciating
an oil painting. The value of ethics derives from actively providing added
satisfaction for others, as in the fruit juice example above; and, that of
spirituality from the ecstasy derived during certain experiences. Holbrook
(1994, p. 55) cites Perry who in 1954 described "a class of states vaguely
described as 'exaltation' and 'rapture' accompanied by a 'sense of union'".
For those concerned this is "supreme value ...good ...above all other goods".
Despite the development of this typology of intrinsic value, questions still
remain about how marketers can use it to fulfil the marketing concept. This is
because not only are customers' perceptions of a valuable experience highly
personal (even if, on occasions shared with others (Cova 1997, 2003)),
individualistic and idiosyncratic, they are also conditional on the situation in
which the experience occurs (Zeithaml 1988; Holbrook 1994). An experience
that is considered valuable by one consumer (or group of consumers) in one
situation may be considered as a major cost in another. The consumer's
mood state, purpose in seeking the experience, other emotional factors and
even the environment in which the experience occurs can all impact upon its
value creating capacity (Bitner 1992). Again, aspects of an experience valued
by one consumer may seem extremely costly for another or be de-valued.
Baker et al. (2002) argue that just as the factors adding to the perceived
value of an experience can range from lower level to higher level, so too can
perceived cost factors. Costs range from monetary to cognitive to psychic and
even to physiological. Cognitive cost factors are those that the consumer is
rationally and consciously aware of and are similar to the concept of
opportunity costs in economic theory. The time spent doing one thing
instead of another is an example of this. Psychic cost factors refer to the
negative emotional consequences of an experience, the best example of which
is probably the stress caused by it. This type of cost is intrinsic and is the
opposite of intrinsic value. Physiological costs refer to the detrimental impact
that an experience might have on a consumer's physical well being (Baker et
al. 2002).
The impact of background music playing during customers' shopping
experiences provides a typical example of a factor that can create either
psychic value or psychic costs. Evidence from Aylott and Mitchell (1999) and
others suggests that it typically lowers consumers' psychic costs and may
even add to their experience value. However, Brown and Reid (1997) found
that it had the opposite effect among some members of their sample of
student shoppers. Other ambient features, including the temperature, decor
and store layout are also likely to have varying effects on customers' psychic
value/cost factors. Indeed, research has shown that the very activity of
shopping can be either very costly, in terms of monetary, cognitive, psychic.

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353

and, even possibly physiological factors for customers; or, it can be costly
only in monetary terms but valuable in terms of the intrinsic value adding
benefits of the experience. This is because there are at least two types of
shopping - task oriented and recreational (Eroglu and Harell 1986). For task
oriented shoppers, shopping is an essential activity that they have to do
which gives them little pleasure. The costs are monetary, cognitive in terms
of time spent on the task and, possibly, psychic in terms of stress suffered.
Typical shopping stressors include perceived crowding, long queuing and
waiting times, poorly laid out stores, the unanticipated location of items and
badly behaved children (Aylott and Mitchell 1999).
In contrast to task oriented shoppers, recreational shoppers gain various
types of value from the experience because for them, shopping is
"pleasurable in and of itself". They have little interest in making an
immediate purchase. For them, time is not a cognitive cost and perceived
crowding need not be stressful (Eroglu and Harell 1986). They are happy
browsing, actively seeking information about offerings and comparing the
characteristics of similar items in different shops. These shoppers often make
impulse purchases. When they do, they often feel a real sense of euphoria,
perhaps akin to Holbrook's ecstasy, which adds significantly to the psychic
value of the experience (Brown and Reid 1997).
Summary
In summary, then, this paper has shown that because of the recent
development of the economic and business environment from an industrial
to a post-industrial state, the classical views of value previously accepted by
marketers which focused solely on value created through the production
process is no longer tenable by marketers wanting to fulfil the marketing
concept adequately. Recent research has indicated that consumers can gain
significant value from the purchasing and consumption experience and that
this value derives largely from their positive symbolically meaningful
emotional response to the experience. This type of value is sometimes
referred to as intrinsic or psychic value.
From the traditional economic viewpoint, value is what is left after the
costs of the experience have been deducted. Sometimes when a customer has
a bad experience, the costs (for example, monetary, cognitive, psychic and
physiological) can be greater than any value gained from it. Furthermore the
literature suggests that the nature of consumers' intrinsic, psychic value and
costs are situational, personal (or personally shared) and idiosyncratic (Cova
1997; Zeithaml 1988; Holbrook 1994, 1999; Parasuraman 1997; Woodruff
1997). Given the generalised nature of marketing management, this
knowledge in its present form offers it little benefit. Rather, it suggests that
there is a significant need for more research in the area to make it more

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

understandable and thus usable. As the Marketing Science Institute (19982000, p .5) has noted, that "understanding the customer experience" is one of
two key issues that "deserve intensive research attention" at the present time.
Research Implications and Agenda
In light of the foregoing discussion, it is clear that a key research question
that needs to be answered concerns the factors that cause individualistic (or
personally shared), situational perceptions of intrinsic experiential value. To
answer this question, as the Marketing Science Institute (1998-2000, p. 5)
notes "multidisciplinary perspectives" need to be used. Consumer research
has led the way in this by accepting creative, philosophical, humanistic, and
artistic concepts and methods as well as those from other social sciences,
including semiology, anthropology, psychology and psychoanalysis (Pine
and Gilmore 1999; Holbrook 1995; Schmitt 1999; Gobe 2001; Brown 2001).
Furthermore, consumer research is becoming increasingly integrated into
marketing research and its methodologies are increasingly being applied to
marketing management issues (see Zajonc and Marcus 1982; Hirschman and
Holbrook 1982, Brown and Reid 1997; Patterson et al. 1998; Carson et al.
2001). In particular, despite criticism from some researchers (Campbell 1996;
Uusitalo 1996) the "subjective, personal introspection method" strongly
advocated by Holbrook (1995) has now gained favour with a number of
marketing researchers including Brown and Reid (1997) and Patterson et al.
(1998) and has been effectively used by them. This research method has
proved particularly useful for gaining information about a consumer's
individual perceptions of events and experiences. It is thus anticipated that
by combining evidence gleaned from using this research method to assess
the experiential value that the researcher him/herseK and consumers gain
from an event, with evidence derived from more traditional social science
techniques and instruments for analysing the factors affecting the consumer's
responses to the event, progress can be made in answering the research
question posited above.
Using Holbrook's (1994) basic view that experiential value results from
consumers' interaction with the object (an product, service, event) it is
surmised that consumers' experiential value/cost perceptions result from
three sets of factors. Therefore, it is important to consider the nature and state
of the consumer at the time of the event, the characteristics of the event, and
the impact of contextual factors, particularly the socio-cultural factors. Using
these three sets of factors, a conceptual model of the creation of experiential
value/costs has been constructed

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355

Contextual Factors
Environment + Ambience

Consumer
ong Term

Event
- Characteristics

Personality
Psychological Make Up
Social Circumstances
Cultural Factors

Good or Bad Experience

Immediate
Mood State

Experiential Value/Costs
Figure 1: A Conceptual Model of Experiential Value/Cost Formation
In carrying out research based on this model, it would be appropriate for all
participants to be subject to the same event, for example, a clip of film or an
advertisement as used by Patterson et al., (1998), or for the consumers to be
part of a single sub-cultural grouping, as suggested by Cova (1997). This
would provide a constant around which other variable factors can be
identified, analysed, assessed and classified. Consumers' perceptions of the
various types of value/cost of the event/group situation could be evaluated
using subjective personal introspection on the part of the researcher and the
others present. Similarly, research into their personal, psychological, social
and cultural variables can generally be carried out using existing social
science techniques and instruments. These could include personality and
psychometric testing (Foxall and Goldsmith 1994) as well as questionnaires
for ascertaining pertinent personal demographic, social and lifestyle factors.
A cultural audit could also be used to determine the key cultural factors

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Sharon Ponsonby and Emily Boyle

affecting the consumers (Hoyer and Maclnnis 2001). Finally, the impact of
the environment and ambience in which the event/group situation took
place could be ascertained through follow-up interviews (Bitner 1992; Baker
et al. 2002). Where appropriate, statistical techniques may be used to ensure
the validity and reliability of the findings.
It is only through research of this type that some kind of codified
generalisable knowledge set relating to the factors affecting consumers'
perceptions of experiential value/costs will emerge. However, given the
claims that research of this nature would be a monumental task by those who
have attempted to ascertain the nature and types of consumer value which
exist (Holbrook 1999), and the emerging insights into the limitations of
exploring use value in the context of mere subject-object interaction (Cova
1997, 2003), one might ask whether this is a feasible exercise. Furthermore,
one would need to consider that those marketers with post-modem
ideologies and an incredulity towards meta-narratives have suggested that
research which aims to gain a holistic understanding of any phenomenon is a
pointless exercise, is modernist in tenor, and thus not suitable or appropriate
for contemporary times. This includes Holbrook's widely accepted
"Typology of Consumer Value".
Conclusion
Marketers' neglect of the value adding potential of the consumption
experience in the past was a consequence of the separation of production and
consumption during industrialisation, often equated with the modem era by
proponents of post-modern marketing (Firat and Venkatesh 1993, 1996).
However, in this post-industrial, information or sign economy (Baudrillard
1981), marketers are becoming increasingly aware that they are both part of
the overall value adding process in the same way that the body and mind are
part of a single entity. But just as the body and mind function in different
ways within this entity, so too do the value adding aspects of production and
consumption. The value adding potential of consumption is typically
intrinsic, psychic, personal (or personally shared) and situational. This
contrasts with the extrinsic value added through the production process,
which is cognitive and instrumental.
Despite the existing lack of coherence of information relating to the
manifestation of intrinsic value, there is evidence that some firms' customers
experience it. Successful firms/brands such as Nike, Apple Macintosh, Hard
Rock Cafe, Starbucks, Virgin and Singapore Airlines often have loyal cult
followers and maximise the intrirrsic experience value of their brands via
their retail outlets and flagship stores that are viewed as cult places by subcultural groupings. However, it could be argued that they might be even
more successful if they had a systematic body of knowledge about

The 'Value of Marketing' and the 'Marketing of Value'

357

experiential value to work from, particularly that which shifts beyond

subject-object interaction to the consumer-consumer interaction which
involves the consumption of their product. If firms wish to move beyond
building cognitive types of customer loyalty (for example, loyalty
programmes), they must understand the micro and the broader macro
context of consumption and its value in contributing to well being. They
must also understand as well as individual-level consumption, the microsocial level of consumption to which sub-cultural groupings belong because
consumers may conduct repeat purchases as a consequence of their loyalty to
the social group, not necessarily the brand. The research outlined above
could provide the first step in this.

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About the Authors
Sharon Ponsonby works in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ulster.
Her main research interests are in the ethno-sociological aspects of the value
of consumption.
Emily Boyle is Head of the Research Graduate School of the Faculty of
Business and Management at the University of Ulster.