Revisiting experiential marketing: a Delphi study

Abstract

Experiential marketing (XM)—a form of marketing that uses branded experiences as a tool to influence consumers—has become one of the dominant tools within the marketing world. Despite this, it is poorly understood by both sides of the academic and practitioner dyad. What appears to be missing is a holistic conceptualisation of XM that explains not only its antecedent conditions and resulting outcomes but also the factors that may mediate and moderate those outcomes. This paper presents a Delphi study that seeks to provide such a conceptualisation. Across three phases, a panel of XM experts from academia and industry practice was recruited to establish a robust and holistic conceptualisation of XM as well as its success factors, consequences, psychological mechanisms, and boundary conditions. The current findings identify XM as a marketing strategy that uses the subjective, elaborative nature of experience to positively influence the salience of a brand in the mind of participants. The findings suggest that the ‘depth of immersion’ in the experience on three levels (experiential, brand, and conceptual) is an important underlying mechanism while the impact is moderated by the ability and motivation to become immersed.