Why the Experiential View Is Vital To Marketing Communications Research Now

Advertising and, more generally, marketing communications, along with consumer behaviors, have changed in important ways. Whereas, traditionally, brands and companies have forced information on consumers, they now are creating numerous forms of communications to trigger diverse gratifications for consumers who are most often exposed incidentally to them. This essay, therefore, urges researchers and practitioners to open up the theoretical framework of marketing communication research beyond the traditional information-processing paradigm by incorporating the experiential view. The authors develop three major arguments in favor of adding the experiential view to provide an enhanced framework for examining the effects of contemporary marketing communications. They conclude with a set of implications for both researchers and practitioners.