What is the effect of the traditional marketing and experiential marketing approaches to the degree of how strong the brand communities are?

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UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM

“What is the effect of the traditional marketing and experiential

marketing approaches to the degree of how strong the brand

communities are?”

University of Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Business Master Thesis

MSc. In Business Administration –Marketing Track

Name of the student: Margarita Barbashova

Student number: 11206810

Word count: 16,448

Name of the first supervisor: Dr. Marco Mossinkoff

Name of the second supervisor: Dr. Antonius Cornelis Jonannes Meulemans

Date: 24.03.2017

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Margarita Barbashova who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original

and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references

have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the

supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract: Scientists has asked the question of what modifies customers-brand interaction for

decades. Research suggests the view of how the traditional and experiential marketing approach could influence these interactions and whether that particular approach predicts the appearance of hard and light brand communities. Research proves that the traditional marketing approach does not generate hard brand communities, but creates customer engagement in collaboration with the brand. Experiential marketing also does not stimulate the appearance of hard brand communities that is surprising since consumers might have had an emotional connection to the brand. The most interesting finding is that where the company uses the mix of two approaches, consumers more actively interact with the brand that allows companies to generate the appearance of the stronger brand communities.

Keywords: Traditional marketing, experiential marketing, brand communities, the

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1. Introduction

Company and customer interaction has always been a question of the study. Nowadays, in the era of online technologies and more educated consumers, the information about both parties is available to each of them. Brands used by companies as a trigger to influence customers purchase intention on building some advantages and attributes such as Functional or Emotional. In the traditional model marketing tactics that companies use are made to influence consumers purchase decision, attract their attention and keep them as future clients, in other words, make them loyal to the brand (Kotler, Kartajaya & Setiawan, 2012, p.5). What if these exchange relationships initiated by customers and especially by consumer communities? What if the power of these communities works in line with the marketing tactics launched by companies? In that case, would companies have power and influence over their customers?

1.1 Background and research question

Many scientists conducted research and wrote many articles about how companies and consumers interact. From the customer perspective, core interest is customer communities – communities that usually establish around the brand (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). The more detailed view of what is the structure of brand communities, how consumers behave online and what they discuss is present. From the companies’ perspective – distinct approaches those positioned either to highlight emotional or functional benefits or attributes are the core interest of the research. Marketing tactics or approaches that companies use to promote the product or either create an experience are analysed. Most of the mentioned topics above more or less described in scientific literature. However, a point of whether the particular chosen approach of the company could influence the strength of brand communities is not explicitly cover yet. Marketing approaches and brand communities have been studied separately over

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denied. That gap between the brand communities and the chosen marketing approach represent the core idea of that research.

Most of the companies try to create not only a product but also a value and experience that customers seek before making a purchase decision. How does marketing influence the brand community and what is the outcome of it is interesting to identify? That brings us to the central research question: “What are the effect of the traditional marketing (product oriented) and experiential marketing approaches on the degree of how strong the brand communities are?”

The main idea of this study is to understand whether the use of a particular approach is more powerful and attracts more consumers. Potential findings of the research are the analysis of how efficient each approach is regarding brand communities’ strength. How do the particular approach influence brand communities' characteristics? In other words, if the company uses a traditional marketing approach, would that predict that the community around the brand would be light, so not that strong in comparison to companies that use the experiential marketing approach? It is interesting to see how businesses can influence their consumers through the particular approach or if there is no link between these two factors.

The following research consists of several parts. First, the literature review makes a connection between what is known and what was not studied yet. Literature review helps to identify the theoretical gap. In the research design section, the main steps of the analysis described, and the codes identified, as that research is qualitative in nature. Following chapter is particular analysis. The main goal in that step is to analyse gathered approaches and to identify to which extend the approach belongs to traditional or experiential marketing. The objective of that evaluation is to find out three approaches: pure traditional, pure experiential and the mix of both. Then make an analysis of the online groups and identify how strong the brand community is. Finally, in the discussion of the results chapter, the research question

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answered, and hypotheses evaluated. The research summarised by the conclusion, where the limitations of the research design discussed, and the further directions described.

1.2 Scientific relevance

Most of the scientist studied marketing approaches and brand communities separately. This research posts the question of whether these two factors have a connection and could influence one another. The study adds values to the brand community literature by suggesting the marketing approach as a factor that could affect community strength. Brands usually manage their communities, but how and through which tools scientists have not identified yet. The following research identifies at least one factor that has an impact on the community strength.

1.3 Managerial Relevance

There are two managerial implications of that research. First, it is of vital importance for the companies to understand that the values they try to communicate and deliver to their customers have to be in line with the approach they use because only through the chosen approach can consumers come to understand a company’s core focus. It is important to identify to which extremes the values the company communicates and the product the company sells belong to them. Does it belong more to functional and the company try to sell the product or more to experiential and the company attempt to sell the experience of using the brand? The other most important implication is what is the connection between the approach and brand community. In other words, does the approach influence consumers regarding their willingness to interact with the brand and should the companies that want to build strong brand communities take that into account?

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2.Literature review

The following chapter is a detailed literature review that helped to identify a theoretical gap.

It starts with the general overview of the literature about company and customer interaction. Then followed by the literature review about traditional and experiential marketing this chapter provides a detailed view of the differences between these two approaches. Then detailed analysis of literature about brand communities described. That section summarised by the theoretical gap.

2.1 Overview

Brand and customer interaction has been studied a lot in the last few decades. Consumer communities have always been an issue to study for companies that are interested in developing a long-term relationship with their customers. The growth of consumer communities has begun from the era of development and popularity of digital social media and social networks. It opened a new way for customers and companies to interact. Wirtz, Den Ambtman, Bloemer, Horvath, Ramaseshan, Van de Klundert & Kandampully (2013) were one of the first to empirically test the difference between online and offline brand communities and tried to explore whether companies could use both online and offline communities and their connection to each other. Their main suggestion for future research was to understand consumers’ behaviour in online communities. Nowadays, even customers by themselves are initiators of that interaction. However, what drives that interaction to appear? Can customers initiate the interaction, even if the companies did not push that communication to appear? Why do customers spend time as a resource in the exchange process? Would the approach that is used by the company influence the relationship between consumers and the brand? The vague answer could be simple, everybody wants to have and feel a sense of belonging to any community and in some cases even would like to be

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associated with the brand. This theory has been studied from the companies’ perspective and described by Kaptein, & Eckles (2012).

That provided us with the overview about the tactics companies use to persuade people to buy their products. Adjei, Noble S.M & Noble C.H. (2009) and Albert, Aggarwal & Hill (2014) found out that corporations may use online brand communities to attract customers and influence sales that proved the proof of only one side studying of that company and communities interactions.

However, what we see in practice is that the first initiative of the interaction starts from the brand. The use of the particular approach is based on the product characteristics and attributes that the company wants to deliver to its consumers. That brings us to the identification of two extremes, traditional and experiential marketing approaches. Traditional marketing is also well known as marketing management focused on selling the product by highlighting functional features of it (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.8). While experiential marketing focuses on selling the experience that consumers might gather from their use of the product (Schmitt, 1999). Schmitt (1999) was the first to identify the difference between these approaches and develop precise characteristics for traditional and experiential marketing. It seems clear that consumers’ reaction defined by the chosen approach, but how could it influence consumers’ willingness to interact with the brand?

That thought brings the research to another sub-related topic about communities. We do not know too much about them. The main idea of brand communities is their shared values. We are aware that communities established by the brand, which means promoted by the company by using unique marketing tactics or either by the product that describes customers’ initiatives to share values- football clubs are a good example. In the article by Nambisan & Watt (2011), the authors studied whether customers’ communities experience influences consumer attitude regarding the product. It has posed a future question of if companies could establish online

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communities? It also addressed the question of how the effectiveness of the chosen approach of a company perceived by its’ consumers?

One of the first research projects that distinguished brand communities and identified the markers of them was Muniz and O’Guinn (2001). They consider that the brand communities should have particular characteristics to exist (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). First, there should be consciousness of the kind of communities, which means, the connection and interaction among members. Second, those members should have shared rituals and tradition that probably base on the brand love. Third, all members should have a sense of moral responsibility to each other and should distinguish themselves from others (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). Thus, it points the question of whether the stronger these markers are within one community, the stronger the community is.

Understanding marketing approaches and brand communities, it is important to make a more detailed literature review of these two topics.

2.2 Marketing approaches

Marketing is a science that has faced many changes in thinking during its whole existence.

In this study, it is important to pay attention to the two extreme points of marketing approaches firstly identified by Schmitt (1999).

Marketing as a discipline is changing and modifying over time, it adapts to customers needs and wants. Thus, marketing approaches developing throughout time alongside marketing thinking. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA, 2013), the old research identified marketing as the process of planning and executing conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of goods, ideas and services to create an exchange that satisfies individual and organisational goals (AMA,2013). Thus, we could characterise marketing as a product driven transaction. In comparison with 2007, when AMA identified marketing as an activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging

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offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. That brings companies to the new way of thinking about relation and value driven marketing (AMA,2013).

Developments in marketing thinking, modifying of the customers’ needs and wants, pushed marketing to change the traditional approach that was used and adapted it to the recent market changes. The experiential approach replaced the traditional or classical one, and thus new ways of marketing were implemented. To identify the nature of both approaches, first of all, it is important to understand what each approach is and especially which marketing mechanisms and tools are used by companies following the particular approach. That brings the research to the deeper explanation of two extreme points the traditional and experiential marketing approaches.

2.2.1 Traditional marketing

Traditional marketing presents an engineering- driven, rational, analytical view of customers, products, and competition (Schmitt, 1999). At the heart of a great brand is a great product or service. Product or service is a fundamental element in the market offering. To achieve market leadership firms must offer goods and services of superior quality that provide unsurpassed customers’ value (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.10). Traditional marketing has different interpretations. In some research, it is marketing management, for some is a modern marketing approach. According to the different scientists, it is considered that the era of traditional marketing began in early 1950. The world of marketing was dealing with an exploding mass market. The pent-up demand from the war years’ restrictions on supplies of consumer goods, as well as an explosive growth in world population, drives the mass market (Wilkie & Moore, 2003). Marketing’s primary concern was viewed as a mere transportation of the goods to convenient locations and completing the sale to be the simple exchange of

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money for goods (Goi, 2009)

.

The marketing job came down to trying to satisfy the particular group of the consumers with either goods or services (Goi, 2009). The marketing strategy consists of two main and straightforward steps: first, identifying the target market and developing the marketing mix (4P). The whole connection of marketing based on the stimuli-reaction model (Grundey, 2008). In other words, the evolutionary path traces from the functionalist paradigm and marketing management paradigm to the exchange paradigm (Achrol & Kotler, 2011). The marketing management paradigm is rooted in a firm view of marketing processes (Achrol & Kotler, 2011). According to that, marketing’s role and responsibilities expanded from sales and advertising to product development and a firm-wide responsibility for customers’ care. Thus creating and delivering value and experience to customers are now becoming a crucial point (Achrol & Kotler, 2011).

2.2.2 From the traditional to the experiential marketing

The fundamental process in marketing is consumption, and the elemental concepts in consumption are satisfaction, value, and utility. If there is a “new” concept in the digital age of information, knowledge products and the service economy, it is consumer experiences. As Holbrook & Hirschman (1982) points out, the idea that the consumption experience is at the bottom of consumer value goes back for 25 years and even refers to the economist Lawrence Abbott, who considered: people desire - not products, but satisfying experiences. People want products because they want experience-bringing services, which they hope the products will render (Achrol & Kotler, 2011). Later on authors considered that marketing has changed and that marketing approach now includes more than just sensual and rational perceptions. The experiential approach identifies as a constant that is based oneself on experience, enhanced perception guarantee reliability.

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In 1982 Holbrook and Hirschman separated only experiential standpoint, but companies did still not use experiential marketing conception. Only Schmitt (1999) distinguished traditional and experiential marketing (Grundey, 2008).

2.2.3 Experiential marketing

Carù and Cova (2003) confirm that the concept of experience is still defined and in the field

of marketing, we must use a typology of consumption experiences, which goes beyond an ideological view where every experience predicts to be extraordinary (Same & Larimo, 2012). Analysis showed that in the social sciences and philosophy, the experience defined as a subjective episode in the construction transformation of the individual, who is also driven by their emotions and senses. (Carù & Cova, 2003) (Same & Larimo, 2012).

By the experience of Carbone and Haeckel (1994), they considered that the main takeaway impression formed by people's encounters with products, services, and businesses are now becoming a perception produced when humans consolidate sensory information (Same & Larimo,2012) (Carbone & Haeckel, 1994). The scientists of neuromarketing it stated that brands work their magic by associating themselves with experiences, which in turn influence subsequent retrieval and recognition (Plassmann, Ramsoy & Milosavljevic, 2012). Experiential marketing is the process of identifying and satisfying customers’ needs and aspirations profitably, engaging them through two-way communications that bring brand personalities to life and add value to the target audience (Smilansky, 2009, p.5).

In the experiential approach, marketing communication messages spread through media or other channels, for example, digital marketing channels, which exist to communicate with different consumers. Marketing communication channels that traditionally included advertising as well as direct mail, packaging and sales promotion now also include more recent prominence of sponsorship, public relations, digital and live brand experiences

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(Smilansky, 2009, p.3). The selected channels need to be integrated to maximise the impact of a campaign and more efficiently achieve marketing communication objectives (Smilansky, 2009, p.3). The experiential approach focuses on a two-way interaction in real-time, a live brand experience and thereby a significantly deeper consumer bonding process (Smilansky, 2009, p.3).

While these marketing channels traditionally work together, currently delivering successful campaigns worldwide for global brands and small businesses alike. Although brands and companies benefit from using these channels, marketers worldwide are looking for new ways to utilise these channels to their full potential to engage their target audiences on a deeper level and build relationships that create loyalty and brand advocacy. Experiential marketing converted consumers from simple shoppers into brand evangelists who preach the brand, its personality and core message or features to their friends, families, colleagues and communities (Smilansky, 2009, p.5).

2.2.4 Traditional vs. experiential

Despite the fact that the main difference between traditional and experiential marketing has

now become clear, the extent of the difference is still unmeasured. Let’s have a look at the AIDA model that guides marketers through the stages from consumer awareness about the product to actual consumer behaviour (Barry & Howard, 1990)". The AIDA- marketing communication model is used to stimulate a purchase decision in the minds of consumers through a linear progression of steps.

For traditional marketing, the AIDA model is a good example of how appropriate measures should help in developing a successful advertising (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). Every letter describes a particular point. First, Awareness: the attention or knowledge of the customer (advertising would be a favourite for this stage).

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Second, Interest that traditionally raises consumers’ interest by creating public conversation or demonstrating features and benefits (PR is a favourite for this). Third, Desire convinces customers that they want the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs. Then Action: the all-important stage is leading customers towards a purchase (face-to-face sales or sales promotions used here) (Smilansky, 2009, p.7) (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). That traditional AIDA model applies to the traditional marketing approach, however, as the marketing is a developing science, adding S letter at the end that goes for satisfaction transfers the whole model to the new era. Satisfaction leads to the customer to become a repeat customer who recommends the product. This shift is in line with the emerging focus and emphasis on word-of-mouth and personal recommendation (Smilansky, 2009, p.7). Live brand experiences, especially when integrated into a broader experiential marketing campaign, can be effective for achieving each of the AIDA stages. Thus, using AIDAS in the experiential marketing approach could generate more value for the company (Smilansky, 2009, p.7) (Schmitt, 1999).

As marketers, we must think creatively and engage with consumers in ways that make them want brand communication. Marketers want customers not only to receive messages but also to communicate back with the brand and with immediate peers and publics (Smilansky, 2009, p.10). That two-ways communication raises the level of business consciousness that the world is experiencing. In the experiential marketing era, the consumer and the employees of a company are equally part of its marketing as its advertising agencies and marketing department (Smilansky, 2009, p.7).

To that research, it is important to understand the nature of both traditional and experiential

marketing approaches. The detailed comparison will help to identify codes that in turn allow making a precise analysis. The fist scientist, who has identified and developed the exact features applicable to each approach, was Schmitt (1999).

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Schmitt (1999) has defined four key features (presented in Table 1) that apply to the particular marketing approach. The first two characteristics define the core focus of two approaches. Traditional marketing assumes that customers weight functional features regarding their importance, trade off features by comparing them and selecting the products by the highest overall utility. Experiential marketing assumes that experiences, which occur as a result of encountering, undergoing or living through things, provide sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, and relational values that replace the traditional approach of evaluating. (Schmitt, 1999)

Traditional marketing Experiential marketing

Focus on functional features and benefits Focus on Consumer experience Product category and competition are narrowly

defined

Focus on consumption as a holistic experience

Customers are rational decision makers Customers are rational and emotional animals Methods and tools are analytical, quantitative and

verbal

Methods and tools are eclectic

*Table1: “List of the particular characteristics applicable to the traditional or experiential marketing.” (Schmitt, 1999)

The change in approach also predicts the change of view on customers and causes the change in methods that apply to the particular approach.

We can now link the traditional marketing, and experiential marketing approaches to two extremes point well know as marketing 1.0 and marketing 3.0.

During the era of marketing 1.0, the product or service was at the heart of marketing. It is the product-centric era (Kotler, Kartajaya & Setiawan, 2010, p.3-5). Marketing 1.0 base on the "four P's" of Marketing Mix. It considers an approach based on targeting. It rests on segmentation, marketing mix elements, and the one-way contact with the target. Communication is unidirectional through traditional channels (mail, TV and radio ads). The objective of Marketing 1.0 is still the short-term processing of the transaction (Erragcha &

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Marketing 3.0 is the result of collaboration within groups of entities, adopting all the same values. The new technology wave has been the source of globalisation (Erragcha & Romdhane, 2014). Companies abandon the consumer as the centre of interest to look at the human, and where profitability and the social component of the company should level off as reported by Kotler et al. (2010,p.3-5). This latter needs both a cultural and spiritual collaborative marketing (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.16). In the marketing 3.0 era, consumers have changed. They become more sensitive to the concerns of the society (Erragcha & Romdhane,2014). Instead of treating people simply as consumers, marketers approach them as whole human beings with minds, hearts, and spirits (Kotler et al., 2010, p.4).

The understanding of customers has changed dramatically in traditional versus experiential marketing. As it was already stated above, under the traditional marketing consumers viewed as rational decision makers, while for experiential marketing they seen as animals whose physical and mental apparatus for generating sensations, thoughts and feelings evolved by natural selection to solve the problems faced by their evolutionary ancestors. (Schmitt, 1999) Marketing 3.0 believes that consumers are complete human beings, who’s other needs and hopes are not neglect (Kotler et al., 2010, p.4). That is, while customers may frequently engage in rational choice, they are just as frequently driven by emotions because consumption experiences are often "directed toward the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and fun." (Holbrook & Hirschman,1982). Therefore, Marketing 3.0 complements emotional marketing with human spirit marketing (Kotler et al., 2010, p.4).

Key differences between approaches have now become clear that brings the literature analysis to the second specific topic that is brand communities.

2.3 Brand communities

In order to analyse customers' attitude, it is necessary to find out what brand communities are. Through those communities, customers interact with each other, and the brand interacts

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with its' customers. One of the first explanations of brand community belongs to Muniz and O’Guinn (2001), who identified a brand community as a specialised, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand. It is specialised because branded goods or services are in the centre of the approach. Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) also identified three specific markers of the customers’ community. The first and the most important one is consciousness of kind that was also identified by Hausknecht & Gusfield in 1976. The consciousness of kind is the intrinsic connection that members feel toward one another, and the collective sense of difference from others, who are not in the community (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). The consciousness of kind is a shared consciousness, a way of thinking about things that are more than shared attitudes or perceived similarity. Members know that there is something that separates them from non-members. That includes the usage of words such as "us" and "we" on the websites, for example. (Schau, 2002). It is a shared knowing of belonging. (Weber,1978, p.45). The second marker of brand communities is members’ shared common rituals and traditions. Rituals and traditions perpetuate the community’s shared history, culture, and consciousness (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). The third indicator is a sense of moral responsibility, is a felt sense of duty or obligation to the community as a whole, and to its individual members is a collective action (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001).

At first, the relationships that might occur in the brand communities were studied by Algesheimer, Dholakia & Herrmann (2005). Algesheimer et al. (2005) described the brand community identification as a cognitive component that involves categorization processes, whereby the consumer formulates and maintains a self-awareness of his or her membership within the community, emphasising the perceived similarities with other community members and dissimilarities with non-members. That sees as an explanation that captures the consciousness-of-kind marker of brand community (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001). According to

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Algesheimer et al. (2005) identification means that the consumer agrees (or strives to agree) with the community’s norms, traditions, rituals, and objectives and promotes its’ well-being. Two extreme points were taken to identify the strongest and the weakest connection among members of brand communities. The two extreme points are hard brand communities and light brand communities, by which we mean the strength of the connection, thus relationships among members of the particular brand community. For evaluate the further cases, the key features were gathered through the literature review to assess the degree of consciousness of kind within the brand community. Algesheimer et al. (2005) has spread the behaviour of members into three main intentions. The first one is a ‘membership continuance intention’, which are the member’s intentions to maintain membership and ties to the brand community in future. The author considers that such an intention implies the willingness to stay committed to the community and to meet any conditions, such as fees, for example, which are required for membership (Algesheimer et al.,2005). The second is a person’s intentions to recommend the brand community to the non-members, and the third pertains to the individual’s level of participation. These intentions are crucial to perpetuate the brand community, to attach a goal and to create an effective marketing program. These three behavioural intentions likely help marketers to frame and communicate the brand community’s influence on their customers (Algesheimer et al., 2005)

The later research of Zaglia (2013), focused on revealing common brand community markers in two different brand communities on Facebook. Zaglia (2013) discovered that markers of brand communities manifested themselves soon and that consumers have feelings of love and connectedness with other members. Customers define part of their identity by that brand and its community (Bagozzi, Bergami, Marzocchi & Morandin, 2012) (Zaglia, 2013). Also, members' motivation included utilitarian factors such as getting help or improving skills for better use of the branded products as well as hedonic reasons such as entertainment and

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forming social relationships (Habibi, Laroche & Richard, 2016). In the article of Habibi et al. (2016) authors clearly explain the connection of brand community markers that, according to their paper, emerge consumers need to feel related to the brand community. They link the idea that the strength of the relationship between a consumer and a brand community defines as ‘brand community identification’ (Algesheimer et al., 2005) (Habibi et al., 2016). Brand community identification refers to the degree to which a consumer considers oneself as an integral part of a community (Habibi et al., 2016). This identification helps consumers to belong to a group or a collective identity (Tajfel & Turner, 2004, p. 276-293).

Identification is the feelings attached to the community as the whole and a shared consciousness. The link among the members of the community bases on common feeling. (Habibi et al., 2016). Thus, it is that brand community identification is what people feel before they become a member of the particular community, while the consciousness of kind describes the relationships among members of the special brand community. According to Habibi et al. (2016), a collective identity captures two dimensions: cognitive and affective. These dimensions have overlaps with brand community markers and in fact, can be considered as antecedents of these markers. The cognitive aspect of brand community identification relates to the cognitive awareness of a member regarding membership and belongingness to the collective. This component supports the shared consciousness among brand community members through which they emphasise their similarities with the other community members and differences from the outsiders (Habibi et al., 2016) The effective component implies that consumers are emotionally involved and committed to the group as a whole, its rituals and traditions as well as its wellbeing (Algesheimer, et al., 2005) (Habibi et al., 2016).

The other researchers have also characterised brand communities, and McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig (2002) added three context-dependent markers, which help in describing

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brand communities in more details. The geographic concentration depicts the distribution of its members about their locations or places. The social context classifies brand communities according to the personal (or sole virtual) knowledge of its members. The last one is the temporality that indicates whether brand communities are stable and enduring or temporary and periodic (Stokburger-Sauer, 2010). Of course, within the current development of the online world, online brand communities are no longer restricted by geographic concentration. However, some communities remain geographically separate from one another according to the language barriers, for example.

The main outcome of the literature review about brand communities helped to identify three main markers of the communities. Thus, analysis of two specific topics in details allowed to determine the theoretical gap and brings the review to the last part of that chapter.

2.4 Identification of the theoretical gap

According to the literature analysis, it is clear that companies drive intentions of consumers

to engage their time and effort into collaboration with the brand. However, what about the chosen approach? Does the experiential marketing approach stimulate consumers to collaborate more because of their willingness to share their personal experience? Alternatively, does the traditional marketing approach generate more discussion because of consumers’ willingness to gather advice or assistance in product usage? That brings to the main question of the research: “What is the effect of the traditional marketing and experiential marketing approaches to the degree of how strong the brand communities are?”

Several points highlighted here. First of all, the main goal of the research is to find out whether the marketing approach influences brand communities. Thus customers’ brand relationships and then more specifically identify how does it influence and which approach is better to use to create the stronger customer community?

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Marketing approaches and brand communities have been studied separately that builds a gap. The connection and influence of these approaches to brand communities represent the core focus of the analysis.

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3.Research design

In the following chapter, I describe the research design in details. It starts with the conceptual map and hypothesis that base on the theoretical gap identified before. Then the methodological description is present that describes the structure of the research. At the end of the chapter, I describe the data collection process.

3.1 Conceptual model

Literature analysis allowed identifying the theoretical gap. That, in turn, helped to formulate

the following research question: “What is the effect of the traditional marketing and experiential marketing approaches to the degree of how strong the brand communities are?” The following conceptual map was developed to make the research visual and formulate the particular hypothesis.

*Figure 1: ‘Conceptual map’ Marketing approach Brand community characteristics Traditional marketing Experiential marketing Rituals and traditions Consciousness of kind Shared moral responsibility Mixed of traditional and experiential marketing H1 H2 H3

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There are three main hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: The traditional marketing approach predicts the brand community to be weak regarding three markers of the community: consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions and moral responsibility- light brand community.

• Hypothesis 2: The experiential marketing approach predicts the brand community to be strong regarding three markers of the community: consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions and moral responsibility- hard brand community.

• Hypothesis 3: The mixed approach predicts the brand community to be neither strong nor weak regarding three markers of the community: consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions and moral responsibility.

The goal is to identify the role of the traditional, experiential and the mix of both marketing approaches in company-community relationships and to find out which of the approaches is better to use if the company wants to build a strong brand community.

3.2 Methodological justification

According to the research question, the primary object of the study is to find out if the link between marketing approaches and customers’ communities exist. The main aim is to determine whether the company has used a traditional or experiential marketing approach in the particular marketing campaign or promotional activity, which could influence customer connection to the brand communities and the brand in total. The main subject of the research is a marketing approach, which according to two extremes could be a product oriented- traditional marketing and experiential marketing approach.

To make it more structured and explore the dimensions in detail the research were divided into two main parts. First part is the analysis of traditional and experiential marketing approaches. The second part is the analysis of brand communities. In total research is spread into five steps:

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• Step 1: Identifying codes of traditional and experiential marketing approaches to analyse. • Step 2: Analyse ten marketing approaches through codes those identified in step 1.

• Step 3: Choose three of the ten approaches, one with pure traditional marketing, one with pure experiential and one with the mix of both.

• Step 4: Identify codes to analyse brand communities.

• Step 5: Analyse brand communities of those three brands through the codes those identified in Step 4.

Multiple sources and methods used in the research, for example, longitudinal (statistics), snapshot (different statistical reviews) and databases analysis for collecting secondary data. The primary method is observation, where the gathered information is about interaction among members of brand communities. More than that, netnography is used as an online marketing research technique to present consumer insights and is used to identify the customers’ behaviour within the brand community. (Kozinets, 2002)

The research bases on the multiple case studies and document analysis that would give a broader view about the topic. The following research is semi-structured. On the stage of the data collection, the deductive approach is used. On the stage of the evaluation and interpretation of the results research, the inductive reasoning implemented.

To deeper understand the methods that are used to gather the needed information and represent the core value of the analysis, it is important to look to the five appropriate steps into details.

Step 1: Identifying codes of traditional and experiential marketing approaches to analyse. The detailed literature review allowed formulating general questions that in turn helped to determine codes to analyse whether the approach that company use is traditional or experiential. Mostly literature review was used in that step. The appropriate codes that were developed described in the third part of the current chapter (p.30-32).

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Step 2: Analyse ten marketing approaches through codes those identified in step 1.

To examine the particular approaches that companies use or used, it was considered to gather ten approaches from the subset of approximately 50 approaches. Ten approaches are needed to make the research more structured. Traditionally in different subjects, ten points scale is used, and this study uses it as well. Ten approaches provide a sufficiently broad view and detailed information for the particular study. Then in the analysis part approaches spread it into 10 points scale. The specific points were assigned, according to numbers on the scale. The scale starts with the pure traditional (=1) and finishes with pure experiential (=10). First of all, it was consider that the brands have to be international in nature, medium or large size enterprises, as it could predict their budget to marketing campaigns. The core aspect of that evaluation was to get a list of brands and prepare the data for further analysis. The other aspect that was also paid attention to was whether this company at least presented online, for example, use social media and have the page in the social media networks. The data were collected through the websites of the brands, social media and special case analysis. Step 3: Choose three of the ten approaches, one with pure traditional marketing, one with pure experiential and one with the mix of both.

After the numbers had been spread into the 10 points scale, three approaches were chosen for further analysis. The pure traditional marketing approach, thus, evaluated as one on the scale. The second is pure experiential marketing approach assessed as ten on the scale The mix of both approaches, thus, determined as five on the scale, was also taken. These three approaches represent the core units of the analysis and are in line with the hypotheses stated above.

Step 4: Identify codes to analyse brand communities.

The analysis of cases brings the research to the step number four. The primary goal is to find out how customers identify themselves with the companies. Do they feel the connection

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to the community or other clients for those brands? What is their attitude to the particular commercial and approach? That information was gathered through the social media channels using netnography as the main approach. Analysis of the comments on YouTube, where the commercial or promotion program present, provides an overview of what people think about the particular campaign and what they discuss. Analysis of the Facebook groups brought, even more, an outcome about the reasons that drive people to communicate with the brand. However, to analyse that information, identification of codes through the literature analysis is needed. In that research, communities examined online. It is important to understand not only how the brand communicates with its’ community, but focus on the relationships that exist within the particular brand community and whether the marketing approaches of the company could influence these communication process.

Communities base on such wide-ranging commonalities as kinship ties, professional connections, religious beliefs, or leisure pursuits (McAlexander et al., 2002). In that study, to direct the analysis, the primary interest is communities that bases on brand, communities that organised because of customers’ love or favourability to the particular brand. Thus, the particular brand is a common thing shared by all members of these communities. To analyse brand communities and its’ strength the consciousness of kind as the specific characteristics were taken into account. To measure the outcome from the particular marker of the community was spread into two extreme points, light and hard brand communities that refer to the degree of the connection among members, but understanding whether the community is hard or light only possible after the analysis. To figure it out several criteria were chosen. First of all, three main markers of the community help to identify to which extend the community could be light or hard. Then every marker was spread into several codes that contribute to evaluating how strong the particular marker is. The consciousness of kind as one of the most complicated ones was spread into three main points. The first is the geographic

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concentration that evaluates through the language that company use to communicate to its’ customers, country of origin and international integration of the business and its’ brand community (in how many countries does the brand present). The second is temporality that would identify through some years, for which brand and its’ community has existed. The amounts of interactions that are made by companies also have to be taken into account (surveys, actions, especially organised events). Several points helped to evaluate the third characteristic, which is the social context. It is important to understand whether it is an online or an offline brand community, knowledge of its’ members, some deputies if the brand is seen as a way of life and whether members are active within the community (take part in different events, for example, associated with the brand). The second marker is common rituals and traditions characterised through shared stories about the brand, common events, annual meetings or common community attributes. The last one is shared moral responsibility is analysed through the obligations that members may have, for example, members fee or the particular duties to the community.

Step 5: Analyse brand communities of those three brands through the codes those identified in Step 4.

For the analyses of brand communities, the information gathered through social media such as YouTube as a channel that provides the commercials and comments, which allows identifying customers attitude to the commercial and the brand. Facebook page was used as an online media platform to find out the topics of customers’ interaction with each other and the brand (Mochon, Johnson, Schwartz & Ariely, 2016). More than that, Facebook contains online brand communities that are real groups. The corporate website is also a valuable tool to gather the information about the particular brand and marketing approach (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016). Analysis of different forums will provide us with the more detailed view of customers’ opinion to the brand (Berger & Milkman, 2012).

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Three markers were chosen through the literature analysis and represent the community characteristics. To analyse of how strong the brand community are it is important to assign a particular point to the specific marker. Thus, for every marker, there is a ten points scale that identifies how strong the particular marker is. Points assign in the analysis chapter after the coding of three specific approaches. Then the average point of these three markers says how strong the brand community characteristics are and thus how strong the community itself.

3.3 Data collection

As it was mentioned above the whole research was spread into five steps. In that chapter the codes, those identified through the literature analysis is present, and first brand selection is made. There are two big topics of the analysis, which need the particular codes to evaluate the information. The first item is marketing approaches and the second is brand communities. 3.3.1 Codes to analyse marketing approaches

To make an analysis, first of all, I would like to look deeper into the descriptions of both approaches and specifically address the following general questions:

1. What is the core goal - sell the products or experience, of the particular approach?

2. Which media do company use for the particular approach? In other words, how does company interact with consumers?

3. What are the promotional methods? 4. What is the company’s value proposition?

5. What is the primary focus of the attention during the promotion? 6. How does the company interact with consumers?

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8. What does the company try to communicate? In other words, which features and benefits do the company seek to deliver?

9. Is the context two- or three-dimensional? (2D vs. 3D) 10. How does the company view its’ consumers?

Questions help to identify particular codes that contribute to evaluating to what extent the approach that company use is traditional and experiential. Answers to that questions are codes that are present in the table below. The literature analysis helps to find an answer to the particular questions.

The following table represents the summary of the comparison between traditional (1.0) and experiential (3.0) marketing approaches.

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Questions to be addressed Traditional marketing (1.0) Experiential marketing (3.0)

What is the core goal of the particular approach?

Sell products Sell an experience and make the world a better place

Which media does the company use for the particular approach?

Communication is

unidirectional through traditional channels (mail, TV and radio ads)

Communication through traditional channels including wise use of the internet such as content marketing.

What are the promotional methods?

The "four P's" of Marketing Mix Traditional 4P’s Plus sponsorship, PR, digital and live brand experiences

What is the company’s value proposition?

Functional Functional, emotional and

Spiritual What is the primary focus of the

attention during the promotion?

Product or service is in the heart of promotion

Experience and gathered emotions of the consumption How does the company interact

with consumers?

One to many transactions Many-to-Many collaborations

What is the basis of the particular approach?

Approach based on targeting Approach based on the experience

Which features and benefits does the company try to communicate?

Focus on functional features and benefits

Focus on consumer experience

Is the context two- or three-dimensional? (2D vs. 3D)

2D 3D

How does the company view its’ consumers?

Consumers are rational decision makers

Consumers are rational and emotional complete human beings

*Table 2: 'Identification of the codes'. Table 2 helps clearly identify the difference between traditional and experiential marketing approaches. As research previously identified the main difference between two approaches is in its’ focus. For companies that use the traditional marketing customers perceived as rational decision makers, product or service is utterly essential, and promotion of the goods and services is focused on main features of the product, representing the core interest of the

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value that they would get of product or service consumption. Companies try to communicate the experience to customers and thus build a competitive advantage through that experience. For traditional marketing, the use of classical 4P is enough, while the experiential marketing stepped forward to the extensive use of digital tools.

To sum up, Table 2 represents the results gathered from the literature and helps to identify essentially applicable codes to analyse and evaluate the further information.

3.3.2 Codes to analyse brand communities

Before the analysis of how strong the brand community is it is important to evaluate the general situation online for the three brands. Сore questions addressed to analyse the online databases and social media of the companies and to spread the data. Then each question covered in a matrix in the resulting chapter to every brand and the mark assign to the information provided. It allows more easily to identify the impact of the gathered information. The following list provides the questions that belong to the analysis of the customers, their attitude to the brand and their interaction with the brand. These questions were formulated after the literature analysis and identifying of the hypothesis for the particular research. These questions represent the core interest of the analysis and mainly based on the characteristics of the brand communities, those described in the following scheme (p.34).

1. What is the geographic concentration of the community? 2. How do customers see the brand?

3. Do customers have common rituals and traditions based on their brand love? 4. Does the commercial/promotion program present on the YouTube?

5. How many followers does the brand have on the YouTube channel? 6. How many comments did the commercial/promotion program gather? 7. How many views does it have?

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9. How many likes does it have? 10. How many dislikes does it have? 11. What do people discuss in comments?

12. How many followers does the brand have on Facebook group? 13. What do people discuss?

14. How many active users does the Facebook group have?

15. Does the brand actively participate in a discussion with consumers?

After the literature analysis about brand communities, three markers represented the core interest for that research. These three markers, in turn, were separated into characteristics; thus codes, that would help to evaluate to what extent community is strong. Mainly characteristics of three markers were taken from the Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) research, and more actual codes of those markers were taken from the research of Algesheimer et al. (2005). Thus, all that features those gathered through the literature analysis spread in the following scheme:

Brand communities:

1) The consciousness of kind: a) Geographic concentration:

• Language of communication (brand-consumers-brand) • Brand and its’ community country of origin

• International integration of the brand and its’ community b) Temporality:

• The duration of the existence of brand community

• Amount of interactions associated with the brand (surveys, actions, events) c) Social context:

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• Brand saw as a way of life

• Members are active (actively engage their time and effort in events or discussions online)

2) Rituals and traditions:

a) Annual meetings- celebrating the history of the brand b) Common events

c) Sharing brand stories d) Community attributes: • Songs

• Symbols • Flags

3) Shared moral responsibility:

a) Obligations of members- assisting in the use of the brand b) Members fees

c) Programs to integrating and retaining members

All in all, identifying customers through the analysis of brand communities would provide a richer context. In overall, the core interest of the research is to understand whether the usage of particular marketing approach has an impact on how strong the brand community is.

3.3.3 Brand selection

After the codes had been identified, ten approaches were selected for the analysis. Ten approaches:

1. Persil Pro Clean-“Experience premium clean.” 2. Gillette Mach 3- “The Best a man can get”

3. Nescafé Dolce Gusto-“There is nothing like being creative to reinvent a classic ft. will.i.am”

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4. Sprite – “Sprite Giant Soda Machine Shower.” 5. Nutella- “Breakfast never tasted that good” 6. Lipton Ice Tea-“Hugh Jackman campaign.” 7. Coca-Cola Zero-“Unlock a 007 in you.” 8. Coca-Cola-“Taste the feeling.”

9. Adidas-“Jump with Derrick” 10. Milka-“Last Square”

The chose of these particular brands were made according to the requirements that were described in the previous chapter for more details. As it was already mentioned above, it should be big, well-known international companies as it predicts the budget for the campaign. All brands should present online in different social media channels.

However, for the particular research three approaches represents the core focus of the analysis. Thus, first, the brand, which approaches are an example of pure traditional marketing. Second, the brand that represents the middle point so assumes using both focus on the product features and show the experience of the consumption. Third, the brand with the pure experiential marketing approach. These three approaches are based on the analysis of ten approaches and are described in the following chapter.

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4.Analysis and results

The following chapter consists of three main parts. In the first part, the results of the

analysis of ten approaches are presented. The second part shows the results of that analysis and deeper explanation of the three chosen approaches. The third part of the research studies the brand communities of the three selected brands with the primary focus on customers’ engagement. Every part summarised by the findings of the analysis.

4.1 Analysis of ten marketing approaches

As the research previously identified, the approaches were spread into traditional and experiential marketing. The following table contains the subset of ten chosen approaches. In the previous chapter, the core characteristics mentioned. The choice bases on the brand features such as the size of the company, the representation of the company online and the degree to which the company is international.

The ten following approaches were identified. The use of descriptive coding allowed making the description of the particular approach.

1. Persil Pro Clean-“Experience premium clean”. It is a series of the commercials introduced in 2015 only in the UK market. The core attention of the commercials is when people get stains on clothing in critical moments of their lives, the professional shows up and cleans the clothes by explaining what the product does (The Dial Corporation, a Henkel company, 2017) For example, one commercial was about a girl who got a stain on her dress during her birthday party: “All hope may have seemed lost when a stain threatened to ruin a little girl’s birthday party. That is until The Professional showed up with new Persil Pro Clean. Experience Premium Clean.” (Persil ProClean, 2016).

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ages. However, the particular chosen commercial was launched in 2016. (Procter & Gamble, 2016) The product is centred, and the commercial says that the hair on the face of a man is said to be as strong as copper wire. Take on hair this tough with the Gillette Mach3 with the world's number one selling blades. The product is shown in details and use. (Gillette, 2016)

3. Nescafé Dolce Gusto-“There is nothing like being creative to reinvent a classic ft. will.i.am”– Is a commercial that was introduced in 2016 worldwide. Dolce Gusto is about getting a fancy but mostly fuss-free coffee with one click. (Virtue, 2016) Commercial shows how the product is creating, while Will.i.am creating music and works in his studio. The brand appears at the begging, so consumers know what it is going to be about (Nescafe Dolce Gusto worldwide channel, 2016).

4. Sprite – “Sprite Giant Soda Machine Shower”- In Brazil, beach-goers are enjoying the sun and refreshing taste of Sprite soda. In 2012, Sprite installed a giant shower on the beach. It wasn't Sprite soda, but a water shower. (Bmedia, 2016) Mostly, the company built a giant soda dispenser complete with the famous green and yellow logo of the lemon-lime drink, and they invited people to stand where the cup would usually go. Once the beachgoer pushed back on the giant lever, a shower would rain down on them (Creative guerrilla marketing, 2012).

5. Nutella- “Breakfast never tasted that good”- That campaign was launched in 2011, it was shown on the TV and translated into different languages (Ferrero, 2015). The plot of the commercial is about a mother with three children. She is preparing the breakfast with Nutella. Breakfast put all the family together, and all members enjoyed their breakfast time. The mother is happy because she saved time making the food. Nutella usage is centred. The product is promoted as a fast way to have a good and healthy breakfast (Mad on Ads,2014).

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6. Lipton Ice Tea-“Hugh Jackman campaign”- The series of campaigns that was launched in 2010 as a part of the “Drink Positive” marketing strategy of Lipton (Sweney, 2010). The ad shows Hugh Jackman in different countries and places like a hotel or near the beach or in the city a hotel looking rather bored until he takes a sip of Lipton Ice Tea. The tea is so delicious it causes him to break out into a dance. The other people who around also start dancing and thus gaining the energy from the Lipton Ice Tea. (Canal de TVspotblog 1, 2010)

7. Coca-Cola Zero-“Unlock a 007 in you”- Make it possible. The promotional activity was launched at the Central Station of Antwerp in Belgium inviting real consumers to unlock the 007 in themselves and overcome their personal 007 missions to win exclusive tickets for the movie, “Sky Fall”. However, the exclusive tickets weren't free. People had to go the extra mile and unlock their inner 007 in less than 70 seconds to win (Event management institute, 2013) (Palmen, 2012).

8. Coca-Cola: “Taste the feeling”- Is a global marketing program that was launched in 2016 to promote the Coca-Cola as one brand, by united all brands modifications such as Coca-Cola life, Diet and others (The Coca-Cola Company, 2016). The creative campaign is anchored in the fundamentals of the Coca-Cola brand – the Spenserian script, the red disc and the iconic glass bottle – but with a modern take, featuring authentic and real moments with the product at centre stage (Coca-Cola, 2016).

9. Adidas-“Jump with Derrick” – The promotional action that was launched in London in 2013. Concept executed directly for Adidas. This beautifully shot expertly cut short tells the story of the opening of the D Rose Jump Store in London (Cullers, 2013). This unique store gave fans a chance to jump with the Chicago Bulls point guard to get a pair of Derrick Rose signature Adidas sneakers. Hundreds of fans descended and tried to make the 10-foot jump (Bosher, 2013).

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10. Milka-“Last Square”- Both the commercial and the promotional activity was implemented in Europe in 2013. Milka is short-changing customers in their latest campaign in which Milka chocolate packages are now missing a square of chocolate. The company took a square out of over 13 million Milka chocolate bars and gave people the chance to claim their square or send it to someone else. When you open the packaging, you’ll notice the missing chocolate square in which there is only code. The code can be entered online to either claim the missing chocolate, or it also gives you the ability to send it to someone else along with a personal message. The campaign promotes Milka brand’s message, “Dare to be tender.” (Elodie, 2013).

The second step is to analyse the approaches through the codes those identified by using the literature to spread these approaches on the ten points scale. In the appendix the full table with gathered information about the particular approach is present. (See Appendix 1). In that table, the particular approach is analysed according to the codes that were identified before. The descriptive coding that is present in the table helps to analyse the exact approach and spread it into the 10 points scale. However, the first evaluation was made according to the argumentation.

First of all, it is important to highlight that for those approaches that are mostly focused on a product, and its’ features would more strictly belong to traditional marketing rather than experiential marketing. Thus for Persil Pro Clean and Gillette Mach 3, it is clearly communicated that those brands follow the traditional marketing approach because the product is in the heart of the promotion, communication is done through traditional channels like TV, context is 2D and brands more focus on explaining its’ functional benefits and features of the product. However, the main difference between these two approaches is that Gillette seems to be more traditional that Persil Pro Clean because in the commercial of Persil

What is the effect of the traditional marketing and experiential marketing approaches to the degree of how strong the brand communities are?

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM