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The consumer behaviour literature is evolving towards the assumption that products are inherently experiential bundles, and after all, all businesses are operating within the experienced economy. Experiences are much more advantageous for the consumers because they advance happiness or enjoyment of life (instead of survival or maintenance). Experiential purchases lead to greater happiness levels compared to material purchases. Reliance on materialism and material purchases is shown to be the reason of low happiness levels in even the most affluent countries.

In this chapter, based on theoretical as well as empirical papers, I analyse experiences and the consumption of experiences in the Turkish context. The arguments are supported by up-to-date market analysis of related industries conducted by independent market research agencies. The first section looks at the rise of experientialism in retail industries, such as in the case of shopping malls. The following sections touch upon main experiential categories such as tourism, dining and sports. Finally, the social aspects of experiences are discussed in the context of third-place experiences, and some empirical findings are presented. The chapter concludes with some recommendations for practitioners, experience designers, service providers as well as researchers.

This paper aims to advance the design-thinking approach in food from an engineering mind-set toward a positive psychology perspective by investigating how consumer experiences evoked by food-related activities can facilitate, stimulate and enhance individuals’ happiness and perceptions of life satisfaction.

A diary field experiment was conducted. Participants from a major European city were asked to reflect on their food-related activities, provide descriptions and answer questions on experiential stimulation derived from these activities in relation to happiness and perceived life satisfaction.

Food-related activities generally result in positive consumer experiences and psychological well-being. Experiential stimulation resulting from food activities is positively related to perceived life satisfaction directly and indirectly via pleasure and meaning. Although the authors found an overall positive relationship between these constructs, they also found differences based on the experience type considered. A “crescendo model” of experiences that details how experiences lead to happiness and perceived life satisfaction is presented.

This study is largely exploratory. Future research should adopt an experimental approach and further test the relationship between experiential stimulation, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food.

The paper offers innovation teams in food companies a practical “crescendo model” that can be used to design product–consumer interactions.

The research bridges literatures on design thinking, psychological well-being and consumer experiences. By studying the relationship between experiences, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food, the findings contribute to research on food well-being by expanding the notion of happiness seen only as pleasure. The research also contributes to work on design thinking by offering an experiential framework that contributes to the notion of consumer empathy.

The purpose of this paper is to test the applicability of brand personality theory in the perspective of trade show events, and the influence of trade show event personality on exhibitor’s eudaimonic and hedonic happiness and advocacy intentions.

A total of 210 exhibitors (n=210) of three trade exhibitions, organized at Delhi, India participated in the study. A face to face survey method was used to collect the data.

The results of the study provide sustenance for the event personality and exhibitor’s eudaimonic and hedonic happiness model. The event personality factors significantly affected the meaningful and subjective happiness of exhibitor. Happiness was identified as a key influencer for advocacy intentions. Hedonic and eudaimonic facets of happiness had positive effects on exhibitor’s intention to participate, and word of mouth intention.

The current study provides event marketer a tool for measuring event personality. Event personality is vital to build the event equity and to position the event in the market to gain a competitive advantage over the other events. Happiness as a construct is being studied in various social science studies. This study has attempted to establish a relationship among exhibitor happiness, event personality, and advocacy intentions.

This study contributes to the management literature in two ways: first, Eudaimonic and hedonic happiness constructs have never been explored in the brand personality context. Thus, this research adds a new value to the brand personality literature. And second, the brand personality construct is used for the first time in trade show event context that will open a new domain in brand personality, and event research.

Frontline service providers are a key touchpoint in a customer’s overall experience with a brand. Though they are recognized as important contributors to brand experiences, service providers have received relatively little attention in both experienced marketing and branding research. This paper aims to illuminate the importance of understanding factors that contribute to the role services providers play within the environmental context of the customer’s brand journey.

This study uses two experimental studies to show that greater customer happiness and customer loyalty could be achieved through collective brand personification whereby the frontline service provider’s identity and core values align with those of the brand persona and store environment.

Specifically, findings reveal that customer happiness increases because of feelings of belongingness and greater brand authenticity when the service provider aligns with the retailer’s brand persona and store environment.

While this study gets us closer to understanding how managers can leverage human capital in the retail service environment, there are opportunities to further explore issues such as the impact of collective brand personification on the employee.

Given the strong desire companies have to bolster customer happiness to increase brand loyalty, the findings bolster the importance of understanding the influential factors associated with frontline service providers. Their role in creating optimal customer experiences should not be underestimated.

As an important cautionary note, firms should take care when creating the appearance and personality-based occupational qualifications by considering social norms and the impact on societal well-being (e.g. self-consciousness and exclusion can lead to serious illnesses and including depression). Study shows that people have an inherent need to feel accepted and belong to social groups that help to construct and affirm their self-concept, and appreciate opportunities that empower them to seize control against exclusion. Therefore, appearance and personality-based occupational qualifications should be strategically aligned with the image and goals of the firm, and not subject to management bias from an unconscious reaction to an applicant’s physical and interpersonal presentation.

The present study builds on both customer experience and branding literature by examining the relationship between customer happiness and collective brand personification – where the frontline service provider’s identity and core values align with those of the brand. Two experiments test the hypotheses that customer happiness increases because of feelings of belongingness with the brand and the consumer’s perception of the brand’s authenticity when the customer service provider aligns with the brand’s identity and core values.

This paper aims to examine the effect of psychological ownership on consumer happiness, which is mediated through basic psychological needs satisfaction.

Data were collected by means of two online experiments. Study 1 tested and validated the hypotheses by examining post-consumption on a sample of 252 college students. Study 2 investigated the impact of psychological ownership in a pre-consumption scenario.

The results show that consumers feel happier when they have a higher psychological ownership over an item after consumption. Furthermore, consumers anticipate greater happiness from a product before consumption due to increased psychological ownership through customization. This effect is mediated by the satisfaction of basic psychological needs.

The study will help marketers make their products or services as a better candidate for the target of psychological ownership through user experience design. Furthermore, the study encourages new business and marketing models, such as the sharing economy, that exploit the effect of psychological ownership.

The core contribution of this study is that it extends self-determination theory by distinguishing the effect of legal and psychological ownership on consumer happiness. It provides a better understanding of the psychological mechanism behind happiness.

This paper aims to investigate the idea of eating for pleasure and its effect on consumer well-being. It begins by introducing the concept of food well-being (FWB) under the transformative consumer research (TCR) agenda. Subsequently, it provides detailed discussions on the concept of pleasure, under which food practices involving epicurean pleasure and hedonic and eudaimonic consumption will be discussed.

This paper takes a different approach to the usual qualitative methodologies by using the introspective analysis of the film Eat, Pray, Love where the consumption of food for pleasure was heavily practiced.

This paper presents the introspective voice of the lead author’s food consumption. It reveals a food consumption practice which followed an initial loss of taste, to alternative food consumption (AFC) and finally slow food ingestion. The journey of her epicurean ingestion revealed pleasurable experiences that reflected a positive subjective well-being (SWB). This attitude of ingesting food and living for the moment propelled the idea that food well-being is more about consumer happiness.

This paper is novel in its approach to use film introspection to probe the concept of FWB within TCR. Additionally, it reveals the transitioning moment of AFC that leads to pleasurable experience. It also reveals that a personal investment in cooking for self restores taste and improves SWB. Overall, it showcases how the appreciation of the sensations of food from its taste, as it was ingested gradually, leads to the total experiential feeling embedded in food consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically formulate the plausibility of affective recalling through the analysis of different psychological theories and assumptions and develops the theory of vacation happiness bias on the emergence of some variations on affective recalling and forecasting intertwined with dispositional affect, affect regulation and types of situational affect.

This study uses a non-empirical method to find gaps in the literature and the existing theories and build a new theoretical model, vacation happiness bias.

The theory of vacation happiness bias accounts for how the modified focalism model that is expanded to affective recalling beyond affective forecasting works, and thus the modified model is better accounted particularly for the vacation field. In addition, the theory of vacation happiness bias explains how different types of affect and affect regulation are intertwined with one another within the modified focalism frame, thereby yielding some variation. Recalled vacation experiences are more positive than vacation experiences as of the present as a result of affect that is controlled through affect regulation merged with social desirability bias.

Research in tourism and psychology fields has not yet deemed affective recalling, even though affective recalling would likely be more salient in the vacation context that is different from the context of daily life.

I present a framework for thinking about personal happiness. Ideas from philosophy are combined with research on happiness from various scientific traditions. But treatments in philosophy tend to be atomistic, focusing on one narrow approach at the exclusion of others; treatments in psychology tend also to be circumscribed, emphasizing specific hypotheses but at the neglect of overarching theory. My approach posits a far-reaching theoretical model, rooted in goal-directed action, yet mindful of nonpurposive sources of happiness as well. The heart of the theory is self-regulation of desires and decisions, which rests on self-conscious examination and application of self-evaluative standards for leading a moral life in the broadest sense of guiding how we act in relation to others. Seven elements of happiness are then developed and related to the conceptual framework. These encompass love and caring; work as a calling; brain systems underpinning wanting, liking, and pleasure; the need to deal with very bad and very good things happening to us; the role of moral concerns and emotions; the examined life and its distractions; and finally spirituality and transcendental concerns. The final section of the chapter sketches everyday challenges and choices academics face.

Travellers who love to try different foods and who frequently follow up on food-related news and topics consider themselves to be “foodies”. The main aim of this research was to identify the relationships among food consumption motivations, experiential values and well-being of foodies.

A questionnaire survey was distributed to foodies from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao in March–May 2019 who were aged 18 and above and who had visited Taiwan within the prior two years. Some 480 valid responses were received based on intercepts at airports and the data, based on a conceptual model, were analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM).

Three paths among the key variables showed significant and positive relationships. Additionally, the mediating effect of food experiential values on emotions and well-being was identified.

The findings provide insights for food and hospitality scholars and the related literature since “foodie” is a rather new concept that is lacking in sufficient empirical and conceptual research. The research examines the relationships among experiential values, motivations and emotions and their influences on the well-being of foodies. In past studies on food consumption motivations and emotions, food experiential values were not included as a variable of potential influence. The research subjects were confined to foodies from the Chinese mainland (including Hong Kong and Macao) who were in Taiwan. Hence, the generalisation based on the sample may be limited.

This research produces useful information on the behaviour of Chinese foodies when they are travelling. Preparers of food and beverages and tourism retailers should supply food that represents local cultural characteristics and design relevant local food souvenirs with the appropriate packaging.

Communities need to realise that not all visitors are alike and that some have a deeper interest in local foods and their historical and cultural roots.

Although numerous studies on the behaviours of Chinese tourists have been conducted, the research on their food consumption characteristics is limited. To date, no empirical studies have examined the relationships among foodies, food consumption motivations, food experiential values, emotions and well-being of mainland Chinese tourists, which is a knowledge gap in understanding this important market segment.