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Store experience
Store experience and co-creation: and co-creation
the case of temporary shop
Tiziana Russo Spena, Angela Caridà, Maria Colurcio and
Monia Melia 21
University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
Received September 2010
Revised July 2011
Abstract Accepted July 2011
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on Temporary Shops, a recent communication and
distribution innovation used by firms in order to improve interaction with customers and to reinforce
brand loyalty and equity. The main aim of the study is to frame the Temporary Shops phenomenon in
Italy and to analyze its value co-creation potential.
Design/methodology/approach – The DART model proposed by Prahalad and Ramaswamy has
been chosen as the theoretical framework for understanding the Temporary Shops phenomenon. The
authors investigate the process of value co-creation inside the Temporary Shops through its four key
building blocks, namely, dialogue, access, risk/benefits and transparency. Through a multiple-case
study, the authors study in-depth evidence from five leading firms that represent the main Temporary
Shops in Italy over the last two years.
Findings – Temporary Shops provide a locus of value co-creation in which the interactive and
experiential relationship between the firm and the customer is engaged and value co-creation emerges.
Research limitations/implications – There are two main limitations: this study is exploratory
and analyzes co-creation only from the company perspective. Further studies may widen the unit of
analysis from firm to customer’s network and thus provide further insights about antecedents and
implications of the interaction in a multi-sensory context.
Originality/value – The work contributes to understanding the role of experiential environment in
value co-creation processes, as well as analyzing the contribution of a new distribution phenomenon
with respect to co-creation through the application of the DART model.
Keywords Italy, Shops, Consumer behaviour, Marketing strategy, Temporary shops,
Consumer experience, Experiential marketing, Value co-creation, Experience co-creation,
In store experience
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Recently, there has been increased interest in the role of experience in marketing
research. Based on the notable contributions of Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) and
Schmitt (1999) to the experiential marketing literature, numerous articles and studies
dealing with the emotional, experiential and sensory dimensions of marketing now
address the implications of this approach on purchasing and consumption behavior
(Vigolo, 2007). Among studies emphasizing the highly symbolic and experiential
dimension of purchasing and consumption, some interesting insights arise from
Ramaswamy’s (2009) article entitled “Co-creating value through customers’
experiences”, which focuses on customer interactions. Experience is not a material International Journal of Retail
or immaterial tool to be sold and transferred from firm to customer; rather, it is & Distribution Management
Vol. 40 No. 1, 2012
co-created through the customer’s participation and involvement within a sensory and pp. 21-40
emotional sphere (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a, b; Carù and Cova, 2006, 2007). q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-0552
From these social and emotional relationships, the consumer extracts the value that he DOI 10.1108/09590551211193586
IJRDM or she contributes in order to co-create value (Ravald and Grönroos, 1996; Storbacka
40,1 and Lehtinen, 2001; Woodruff and Flint, 2006).
Based on this view, emerging firm strategies aim to build strong interactions and
trust relationships with the consumer (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; Carù and
Cova, 2007).
From an experiential perspective, the point of sale, which is defined here as the space
22 where the interaction between the firm and the customer takes place, assumes a new role.
It becomes a cognitive and emotional place (Pellegrini, 2001; Codeluppi, 2001; Castaldo
and Mauri, 2008), where firms and consumers build their relationship and emotional
exchange occurs. Hence, many companies have developed in-store marketing strategies
based on entertainment, design, customer involvement and sensory attributes in order to
encourage certain forms of experience, especially in terms of brand awareness and brand
value (Codeluppi, 2001; Castaldo and Mauri, 2008), as potential tools for customer value
creation (Fox and Sethuraman, 2006; Grewal and Levy, 2007).
Much research has been carried out on experience, investigating the co-creation of
value and experiences from a consumer perspective (Chen, 2009). We agree with Hilton
(2008), that future research needs to focus on experiences from a managerial
perspective, where experiences are co-created by interaction among the visitor and the
experience (Bäckström and Johansson, 2006). Particularly, as Gentile et al. (2007, p. 395)
note, “there is the need to shed some light on how the right environment and setting for
the desired Customer Experience should be created in such a way as to contribute to
the value creation for customers and the company itself”.
With respect to its physical and sensory attributes, the point of sale is an experiential
environment, which may enable value co-creation processes (Fox and Sethuraman, 2006;
Grewal and Levy, 2007; Caridà et al., 2010). At the point of sale, numerous elements
combine to create experience, such as sensory stimuli, environment, design and
structures, front-line staff and store atmosphere (Relph, 1976; Baker et al., 1992;
Puccinelli et al., 2009; Verhoef et al., 2009; Grewal et al., 2009; Vigolo, 2007).
In this article, we focus on the physical environment and the atmosphere at the point
of sale by referring to sensory stimuli that may trigger value co-creation processes
through the development of an in-store experience. Specifically, we analyse a point of
sale typology in which the experiential dimension seems to be very important, and we
reference the concept of the Temporary Shops. Temporary Shops are short-lasting
brand stores located in highly representative locations (Pellegrini, 2009; Zarantonello,
2009) that aim to develop brand awareness and strengthen brand loyalty and value
through a recreational happening (Sabbadin and Negri, 2009; Caridà et al., 2010). Based
on our results, we aim to deepen our understanding of how the Temporary Shops allow
firms to set an experiential environment to realized customer co-creation processes.
The article is organized as follows. First, we provide a literature overview of
experience co-creation studies, the experience retail perspective and research on the
Temporary Shops phenomenon. The next section concerns research aim and method.
Then we show main empirical findings and discuss it. Main implication and research
limitations close the work.
2. Literature overview
The conceptual framework of this study emerges from both theoretical and empirical
streams of research. The theoretical framework arises from recent studies both on
experience co-creation and the new landscape of retail research within the in store Store experience
experience domain; the empirical stream provides further details on recent distribution and co-creation
phenomena related to research on Temporary Shops.
3. Research methodology
Research aim and framework for investigation 27
Based on the overview of literature provided above, we aimed to better understand the
experiential co-creation process at the point of sale, which is characterized by high
sensory and interactive dimensions (Carù and Cova, 2006, 2007; Prahalad and
Ramaswamy, 2004a), and to contribute to the debate on the experiential approach in
the store-experience literature. This explorative study was developed to provide
theoretical and empirical insights. First, it employs a theoretical framework to
investigate the phenomenon. Second, it empirically investigates various theoretical
assumptions. Mainly, we investigated the potential of Temporary Shop as
multi-sensory enablers for triggering value co-creation processes, because we believe
that this innovative retailing form offers opportunities for consumers to co-construct
their own experiences on demand in a specific context of space and time (Prahalad and
Ramaswamy, 2004b).We described the theoretical DART model proposed by Prahalad
and Ramaswamy (2004b) in our literature review above. We decided to utilize this
functional model in our research because it emphasizes the role of experience in the
value co-creation process (Ramaswamy, 2009).
Table I.
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investigation
Temporary shops under
CAFE’ BOUTIQUE
NIVEA ALIXIR DUREX SAECO VERNEL CRYSTALS
Aim Enhance customer Enhance brand activation Communication of new Communication of brand New product launch
contact with products and brand awareness brand positioning identity
and brand Focus on exclusive
positioning
Period 1 month 2.5 weeks 1 month 1 month 2 weeks
(April 2007) (February 2008) (September 2008) (October 2008) (March 2009)
Location Milan Porta Ticinese 22 Milan zona Brera Milan Corso Garibaldi Milan Corso Garibaldi Milan Corso Garibaldi
Visitors/ 6,000 /70,000 5,000/54,000 4,000/90,000 3,000 /37,000 7,000/46,000
contacts
p. 430). Narratives allow one to observe subjective expressions (Flick, 2009). We Store experience
therefore applied a narrative, text-based research design. We conducted a series of and co-creation
problem-centered interviews containing narrative elements with the marketing
directors of the Temporary Shops in order to gain insight into the particularities
regarding innovation in this special sector. Questions were arranged according to each
DART model dimension and each Temporary Shop’s purpose and aim. Figure 1
summarizes the main aspects investigated according to the four main blocks of the 29
DART model (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a).
From June 2008 to June 2009, our researcher also visited Temporary Shops in progress
and gathered observation data to obtain additional information. According to this study’s
goal of developing a deeper understanding of complex interaction in an experiential
environment, we believed it was necessary to develop a holistic perspective that
represents the principles patterning the data as opposed to exclusively relying on simple
aggregation. The information collected has been analyzed in relation to each dimension of
the model and is discussed in connection with the evidence that has emerged.
Nivea encouraged a deeper dialogue with its consumers by providing close to real-time
conversation and strongly communicating its offerings, both visually and through an
Figure 1.
The framework for
investigation – building
blocks of interactions in
the co-creation of value
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Consumer and company Among consumers Consumer and experts
40,1
NIVEA Free beauty treatments Relaxation zone Shopper assistance
include exclusive make-up Blog Active training action
line Events such as a weekend executed by experts
Web site party and happy hours
30 Emoticon campaign
ALIXIR Free products test Next food experience Presence of chefs of Barilla
Hologram panels Web community Meetings with nutrition,
Touch video wall well-being, health and
Alixir card beauty experts
Web site Online QX test
Contact with experts
DUREX Free new product “DUREX Great living zone Reading informative and
O” sample distribution Events: weekend party, humorous texts on sex
happy hours
SAECO Web site Coffee relaxation zone for Coffee tasting course
Active training action to use moms, where they can Cappuccino decoration and
coffee machines socialise have a “coffee pastry making courses
Interactive laboratory to live experience” Coffee cocktail training
the coffee experience action
Teaching about different cru
VERNEL Web site Blog on web site for sharing Cookery and Ikebana
Encourage consumer the consumption experience courses
curiosity Meeting with aesthetical
Table II. Promote a virtual trip into experts and home economic
Dialogue the Temporary Shop consultant
Access
To foster engaged dialogue, Temporary Shops provide their consumers with access to
knowledge, tools, and expertise that enables them to experiment with products and
services in an unprecedented way. During a Temporary Shop experience, the role of
access unfolds primarily via the arrangement of physical space, which includes a
supportive virtual/web dimension (see Table III).
All of the Temporary Shops investigated here included a basic distinction between
the point of sale and the socializing area. This attention to space design encouraged
consumers to have a multi-sensory experience. The store setting and use of multimedia
tools combined to build a dynamic space by enhancing the sensory dimension related
to the brand and product culture. Visitors were free to move, stop and interact with
different informative tools that facilitated access to the brand experience. Usually,
access to the experience was anticipated by passing through a decompression space, as
in Saeco’s compass or Alixir’s long corridor, in order to separate visitors from the
outside world and to help their immersion into the brand experience.
The design evoked brand values in a more appealing way. Nivea’s space was blue,
white, rounded, sinuous and perfumed with the same scent of Nivea Crème, all of which
are reminders of its most famous and standard product. The space was also enriched
by unique design pieces to exploit synergies created by different events.
Saeco’s concept synthesized two elements, namely, experimentation and alchemy.
In order to emphasize the five senses, Saeco’s design used smooth lines, multimedia
and symbolic installations, such as a long white table evoking a laboratory
atmosphere, through which the coffee experience provided clear and professional
information to customers. Vernel proposed a minimal setting, colored with the same
colors of its premium product, “Vernel Cristalli” and characterized by perfume
diffusers to reinforce the brand identification.
Location plays a very important role in fostering access to the experience. In fact, it
ensures high visibility of the temporary event. Accordingly, Durex chose to set-up its
Temporary Shop in a trendy location in the center of Milan to capture the attention of
passersby with a colorful, animated design. Bright colors, well-placed merchandise and
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NIVEA Space is organised into three main areas: point of sales, beauty area for her and barbershop
40,1 area for him
Space design: blue, white, sinuous and rounded; the scent of perfume is diffused in the air
to evoke brand values in a modern way
Contemporary to the famous exhibition “Salone del mobile”
ALIXIR Space design: orange and black contrast evokes brand values and packaging style
32 Healthy living rules were played as customers passed through the long dark hall
Hologram panels were used to create the contact between visitors and the four Alixir
health areas
Experiential video wall evoked brand values and Alixir lifestyle concepts
An interactive totem was used to participate in the Qx and Nex Food Experience tests
Alixir card
Tasting area of personalised menus made by Barilla’s chefs
DUREX 150 m2 of an elegant and trendy location
Shop entrance: centre of the DUREX “O” expositor
Point-of-sale divided from the exposition area
Exhibitor systems: sinuous design and neutral colour to highlight packaging brightness
Living zone: sofa and table available for visitors
SAECO 150 m2 of an elegant and trendy location
The Compass: entrance decompression space designed to encourage a conscious
perception of place
Interactive wall: a wall used to welcome visitors into the Saeco environment
Exhibition: a large wall used to display coffee machines available to a visitor’s disposal
Laboratory, relaxation area and web site used to lead visitors into a virtual trip that draws
on the five senses
VERNEL 150 m2 of an elegant and trendy location
Easy shop setting , with the same product colours and logo as Vernel Cristalli to facilitate
Table III. visual identification
Access External perfume diffuser used to advertise the perfume product
in-store advertisements all helped create a welcoming and friendly atmosphere that
encouraged customer curiosity. For example, many visitors reported that they had
never been interested in the marketing and sales initiatives of sex product brands
before their experience in Durex’s Temporary Shop.
Risks/benefits
Regarding the assessment of risks and benefits, the role of the Temporary Shops
provides an opportunity for both the firm and the customer(s) to better assess the
advantages and disadvantages associated with their decisions in value creation
processes. All of the studied managers pursued a wide range of marketing objectives
and thus witnessed the resulting effect on fostering customer relationships and brand
loyalty. According to them, the Temporary Shop’s activities widely contributed to the
effectiveness of their firms’ customer relationship strategy and to their efforts to
develop customer loyalty. The opportunity for face-to-face interaction, which was
reinforced by many other supporting initiatives in the store and combined with general
marketing strategy (i.e. interactive display, social activities community, multimedia
tools, and newsletters), facilitated more frequent and personalized contact with
consumers. Accordingly, Alixir included in the promotion of the Qx test and the Next Store experience
Food Experience information about the nutritional styles of actual and potential and co-creation
consumers. Its aim was to reinforce its exclusive positioning and value offered (see
Table IV). Also, Durex’s management found the Temporary Shop to be a meaningful
initiative that sustained the new brand’s positioning and allowed for research on new
business opportunities.
In addition, the economic benefits derived from this more effective and efficient 33
brand experience promotion were remarkable; this may be due to the possible
synergies among the different communication methods used.
According to the consumer’s perspective, the opportunity to test new products, have
a unique experience and buy limited edition products contribute to make consumer
better informed and to reduce their perception of risk of shopping.
Transparency
Temporary Shops have an important communicative finality. Firms promote the
temporary experience to share information, values and brand emotions (see Table V).
In particular, the Durex’s Temporary Shop, with its accessible location, has
emphasised transparency in order to challenge taboos about sexual well-being.
According to the managers, it “has been a real cultural challenge” to clarify the new
brand position in terms of sexual well-being and to expand the targeted consumer
market to women. Additionally, for Alixir, transparency is very important; in fact, its
store evoked authentic and natural elements and highlighted the scientific force of its
project to enhance consumer trust.
The value outcomes from the Temporary Shop co-creation platform can be displayed in a
map of experience co-creation. Advancing on the results of Prahalad and Ramaswamy
(2004a) we find the practice of experience co-creation related to four main factors, namely:
(1) a new experience for the firm;
(2) a new experience for the customer;
(3) potential value co-created for the firm; and
(4) potential value co-created for the customer.
As Figure 2 shows, we find that the experiences shared in the Temporary Shops
activate a two-way learning process from the firm to customer and vice versa based on
the development of sensory and emotional links. Learning is an essential part of
co-creation that mainly occurs while the interactions proceeding and are experiencing
so encouraging shared understanding among firm and customers. The learning
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40,1
36
Figure 2.
A map of experience
co-creation
experienced at Temporary Shops allows for the customization of the firm’s relationship
(which is a new experience for the firm) and the internalization of experiences by the
consumer (which is a new experience for the customer) through a high level of
participation and involvement. In this context, Temporary Shops become a platform
for a complex interaction between the firm, brand identity and the customer’s sensory
and cognitive processes, with a high potential for value co-creation.
The development of a Temporary Shops formula is closely linked not only to
increased investment in communication and distribution but also the development of
more complex marketing competences and skills that are capable of drawing out and
managing the experience context that contribute to align the aims and identity of a
firm with the desires, values and aims of customers in a co-creation context. This not
only requires an understanding of the customer’s needs and wants, but it also requires
a thorough understanding of the customer’s role in this process in terms of the context
and the resources leveraged by the customer to achieve the desired outcome.