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This study explores the brand management and marketing of Creative Cities of Gastronomy. A framework based on brand experience was constructed to investigate its relationship with tourists' brand attachment and brand identification. Two factors that enable tourists to have a stronger brand experience from the self-concept perspective – self-congruity and self-expansion – were also examined.

The authors adopted a quantitative research design and collected data from participants who had visited Creative Cities of Gastronomy. A total of 515 valid questionnaires were collected online and offline. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

The results showed that brand experience positively affects brand identification and attachment. The brand experience of tourists who considered themselves to be “foodies” was enhanced in the Creative Cities of Gastronomy through self-congruity. The results also confirmed that the relationship between self-congruity and brand experience is mediated by self-expansion.

Studies on the Creative Cities of Gastronomy are limited. The few that have explored these cities are dominated by qualitative approaches. This study applied empirical data to examine the brand experience in Creative Cities of Gastronomy. The authors successfully verified that brand experience is effective for building positive relationships with brand attachment and identification. The study also confirmed that self-congruity and self-expansion are important antecedents of brand experience in Creative Cities of Gastronomy. This study enriches the literature by providing empirical evidence and insights into the marketing and branding of these cities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence and development of experience stores and to consider their potential role in fostering consumer brand relationships and their impact on the retail landscape.

The paper begins by outlining the characteristics of experience stores before moving on to discuss the ways in which a number of electronics and mobile phone retailers have developed experience store formats.

While recognizing that experience stores are a small but potentially significant addition to the retail marketplace, the paper discusses four principal issues. The need for continuing innovation to maintain competitive advantage; the changing relationship between manufacturer and retailer brands; the challenges involved in maintaining consistency in the brand experience; and the possible extension of the concept of experience stores to other sectors of the retail marketplace.

The paper provides an accessible review of the emergence of experience stores and their role in developing relationships between brands and consumers and as such it will be of interest to academics and students who are interested in retailing and in brands.

Purpose – This chapter provides a critical review of the emerging field of consumer experience and experiential marketing.Design/methodology/approach – We review definitions, perspectives, and key research areas on the topics of consumer experience, product and service experiences, off-line and online experiences, as well as consumption and brand experiences. We report empirical findings, seminal studies, and insight into the experience process (e.g., how consumers process experiential attributes, how they process experiences over time, and whether positive and negative experiences can co-occur). We present research on experiential dimensions, experiential themes, and the nature of extraordinary experiences.Value/originality – The chapter provides value by discussing the key measurement and marketing management issues of experiential marketing and discusses the original issue whether it is rational for consumers to include experiences in their decision making.

Many industries have witnessed a shift from traditional features and benefits marketing towards creating experiences for their customers (Pathak, 2014), but perhaps none more so than the service industry. The concept of experiences and experiential marketing has garnered much attention in recent years and has evolved to where it now has become more strategic and encompasses

the process of identifying and satisfying customer needs and aspirations profitably, engaging them through authentic two-way communications that bring brand personalities to life and add value to the target audience. (Smilansky, 2018, p. 12)

Despite its popular usage however, experiential marketing has had to contend with a lack of acceptance that was – at least in part – justifiable given its emergent nature and poor measurability properties. Its theoretical underpinnings have been explored but are less codified than many other areas of marketing. Nonetheless, it is an established part of a marketer’s armoury, is innovative in its use of technology such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and, interestingly, has paved the way for a move to a focus on overall business experience. Where customer experience was limited to the marketing domain, business experience is a priority of the CEO, where customer-centricity becomes the driving force throughout the entire company. In this way, the role of experience is central to the ways that companies will grow and achieve better performance in a fast-changing global market. This is of particular relevance to the service industry, which perhaps has experienced the most upheaval of all, throughout the global Covid pandemic. To succeed in a post-Covid world, this chapter will establish how service companies must examine every aspect of their business to create meaningful experiences for customers, that will in turn translate into brand differentiation, ongoing customer satisfaction and business growth.

This chapter examines the significance of multisensory experiences in the branding of the Swedish tourist destinations. Firstly, it provides a critical review of the relevant literature in the field of nation branding. It discusses about the tourism branding strategies that are intended to attract more visitors to Stockholm and in other areas in Sweden. Secondly, this contribution suggests that the destination marketers are engaging with tourists and are providing them with multisensory experiences to drive their emotional resonance for the Swedish destinations. Thirdly, it analyses how the ‘Swedishness’ could be expressed through the destinations’ attractions and from creative marketing campaigns. In conclusion the author provides four case studies on ‘The Swedish Number Campaign’, ‘ICEHOTEL’, ‘The ABBA Museum’ and ‘IKEA Museum’ to better explain how the Swedish destinations are providing the mentioned multisensory experiences to tourists.

Brand backstories enable consumers the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes of their favourite brands. This chapter explores the role of the brand backstory experience in the consumer–brand relationship, detailing the manner in which these experiences are structured to immerse consumers within the brand storyworld.

A qualitative analysis of two brand backstory experiences, a museum exhibit documenting the television series Outrageous Fortune and a factory tour of snack foods brand Herr Food Inc. was carried out using in-depth interviews with backstory creators and observatory field notes of the backstory exhibit and tour.

This study reveals how temporal and spatial elements craft the overall architectonics of the brand backstory experience and how the brand backstory reveal progresses to ultimately unite consumers with the brands’ imagined and real families.

By illuminating the dynamism and evolution of brands and branding practices, this chapter offers exploratory insights into a scarcely explored aspect of the brand experience.

The aim of this study is to examine the role of relational benefits and brand experience measurements on willingness to pay more (WPM), effects of word of mouth (WOM) and repurchase intention (RI) in fast-food restaurants (FFR).

Employing an online questionnaire survey with a sample size of 503 respondents, the quantitative methodology included multiple regression and factor analysis to facilitate the analyses of data.

Relational benefits and their dimensions (confidence, special treatment and social benefits) found to positively impact WPM, WOM and RI. With reference to brand experiences, the current study found that behavioural and intellectual experiences have significant and positive effects on WPM, WOM and RI. Surprisingly, no positive significance was identified between sensory experiences and WPM, WOM and RI.

The findings show that relational benefits and brand experience dimensions play an essential role in improving brand loyalty.

The current study subscribes to the concept of relationship marketing theory, suggesting that loyalty to FFRs can be enhanced by offering customers relational benefits and augmenting their brand experiences.

This study aims to draw on customer experience theory to shed light on how hotel in-room amenities foster customer experience, which continues to form brand attitude and loyalty before and during the pandemic. Also, this study assesses the impact of the pandemic in the relationships among proposed constructs on the basis of risk perception theory.

A quantitative approach was deployed using a total of 379 responses, for evaluating the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis and testing proposed hypotheses through structural equation modeling.

The findings provide initial support for the predictions, except for the influence of brand attitude on brand loyalty before the pandemic. Particularly, the analysis results observe that the effect of tangible amenities on customer experience was stronger before the COVID-19, whereas the impact of intangible amenities on customer experience is greater during the pandemic. Furthermore, the results validate the significant moderating influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the path between customer experience and brand loyalty.

This present study guides hotel professionals to be more effective in the management of appropriate in-room amenity to create a satisfactory customer experience, which contributes to brand loyalty in the with-corona era.

The study differs from earlier studies in that it investigates how the pandemic changes the role of hotel in-room amenities on customer experience, which, in turn, increases brand attitude and brand loyalty for the first time.

The objective of this research is to explore the relationship between brand experience and customer equity (value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity). We examine the impacts of different contact points’ experiences (media contact, physical environment contact, people contact, and product usage contact) and different dimensions of brand experience on customer equity. Further we investigate the possible moderating effects of different brand positioning and strategies – hedonic and utilitarian, on this relationship. The data which are collected via online survey includes 410 observations with brand experience and 83 without brand experience, 493 valid samples in total. We found that positive and strong brand experience is the key factor for building strong customer equity. Although the impacts of all four contact points’ brand experiences are significant, product usage contact has the most powerful influence on customer equity and its individual drivers. The results also indicate that the different brand positioning strategies do have moderating effects. For utilitarian brand, only brand experience at product usage contact point has significant impact on customer equity and its three drivers. For hedonic brand, all four contact points’ experiences have significant relationships with customer equity. Finally, the four experience dimensions (sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral) have different impacts on customer equity and its three drivers at different experience contact points.

Over recent years, brand semiotics have been gaining the marketing practitioners' attention for designing their brand strategy. Hence, to address this gap, the current study investigates the effect of semiotic product packaging on brand experience dimensions, brand trust and purchase intent of reputed major brands of fast-moving consumer good (FMCG) products.

The data for this study were collected by administering a questionnaire-based survey from 254 respondents from the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) of India, using systematic sampling. Structural equation modeling has been used to test the conceptual model and examine the hypotheses developed in the study.

The results present evidence of the growing influence of semiotic product packaging upon consumer brand trust and purchase intentions. The study suggests that brand semiotics positively influence customer brand experience, brand trust and purchase intention of FMCG products.

The research findings will benefit FMCG companies to identify how to apply semiotics in packaging to improve consumers' brand experience and influence intent to purchase.

Research in brand semiotics on product packaging is limited, as most prior studies focus on brand semiotics in advertising, product design improvement and retail design. The present study has investigated the impact of semiotics on brand experience dimensions in product packaging, which is emerging as a critical concern for the FMCG sector particularly in the post-COVID period.