On the conceptual link between

mass customisation and

experiential consumption: An
explosion of subjectivity
Received (in revised form): 9th March, 2001

Michela Addis
is a PhD candidate at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. She is also an instructor within
the Marketing Department, SDA, Bocconi University.

Morris B. Holbrook
is the Dillard Professor of Marketing at the Columbia Business School in New York,
where he has taught courses in Marketing, Research Methods, Consumer Behaviour
and Commercial Communication. His research has covered a wide variety of topics in
marketing and consumer behaviour with a special focus on issues related to
communication in general and to aesthetics, semiotics, hermeneutics, art,
entertainment, nostalgia and stereography in particular.

Abstract
Marketing managers currently face an explosion of subjectivity. A glance at the business
world reveals new solutions developed to offer customised products. Mass customisation is
stressed by academicians in different ways. For example, relationship marketing
Keywords:
emphasises the role of the relationship between a vendor and its customer, with particular
Consumer
reference to the importance of personal involvement and trust. Reading such phenomena as
behaviour, manifesting an explosion of subjectivity in consumption suggests an enhanced opportunity
consumption for applying the experiential view of consumer behaviour. This paper invites marketing
experience, mass managers, as well as marketing and consumer researchers, to recognise the changing
customisation, environment more proactively and to embrace the increasingly well-established
subjectivity conceptions of the consumption experience more enthusiastically.

INTRODUCTION perspective recognises the importance

Since the mid-1980s, more and more
consumer researchers have pursued an
extension of the mainstream approach
in consumer behaviour that saw
customers primarily as rational decision
makers. Speci®cally, the newer
experiential view offers a revised look at
Michela Addis the world of consumers (Holbrook et al.,
SDA Bocconi, 1990) and represents a helpful
Marketing
Department, framework, now well-researched, for
Via Bocconi 8, Milan, explaining several kinds of
20136, Italy
Tel: ‡39 02 5836 6848 consumption traditionally neglected by
Fax: ‡39 02 5836 6888 academicians (Hirschman and
e-mail:
michela.addis@sda.
Holbrook, 1982; Holbrook and
uni-bocconi.it Hirschman, 1982). Since the experiential
of various hitherto neglected variables
(the roles of emotions in behaviour; the
fact that consumers are feelers as well as
thinkers and doers; the signi®cance of
symbolism in consumption; the
consumer's need for fun and pleasure;
the roles of consumers, beyond the act
of purchase, in product usage as well as
brand choice, and so forth), many
marketing and consumer researchers
have begun to study behaviour that
does not ®t with the traditional view of
buying as reasoned action. The
experiential view has most often been
applied to the study of fairly ordinary,

50 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 1, 1, 50±66 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817


On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
everyday hedonic consumption
experiences associated with products
that tend to evoke strong aspects of
fantasies, feelings and fun. Further,
other areas of application still deserve
consideration. For example, there is also
a growing literature dealing with `the
dark side of consumption' Ð which
refers to such forms of consumer
misbehaviour as addiction, compulsive
buying, obsessive shopping or crime
(Solomon, 1998: 26).
Beginning from this premise, the
authors aim to develop a sense of why
the existing models and concepts
concerning the experiential perspective
are increasingly relevant to marketing
managers. To achieve this goal, they
will refer to two particular phenomena,
one practical (mass customisation) and
the other theoretical (relationship
marketing).
Speci®cally, the present paper argues
that mass customisation in the business
world will have deep impacts on our
view of consumer behaviour, since it
increasingly allows customers to ask for
new personalised products at a level of
individualised tailoring that was never
before possible. Along with the
emergence of mass customisation,
relationship marketing has stressed the
relevance to ®rms of considering
customers as valid interlocutors and of
involving them more intimately in the
production process Ð again, leading
toward increased applicability of the
experiential perspective.
Hence, mass customisation and
relationship marketing (with particular
reference to the involvement of people
and the concept of trust) implicitly
recognise the growing importance of
subjectivity. We call this trend `an
explosion of subjectivity', by which we
mean the emerging phenomenon of a
more widespread role that individual
subjectivity plays in consumption, ie in
the consumer's life. Since the present
paper aims at demonstrating the
usefulness and relevance of the
experiential view of consumer
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behaviour as it is already
conceptualised, the term `subjectivity' is
used here to refer to a personal
psychological state Ð that is, one's own
way of feeling, thinking, or perceiving
Ð which continuously changes
according to the changing environment.
Thus, our de®nition adopts the common
colloquial sense of the term
`subjectivity', rather than the more
philosophically sophisticated
conceptualisations advanced by (among
others) the Social Constructionist
Metatheorists. Constructionist
scholarships address deep issues
concerning the subject/object
dichotomy, which is said to be nothing
more than a social convention (Firat and
Venkatesh, 1995; Gergen, 1996, 1997).
However, although such approaches are
of interest in many contexts, the
traditional notion of subjectivity
pursued here appears more useful to
the aims of the present paper.
Once the growing impact of
subjectivity is explicitly recognised,
more emphasis must be placed on the
subjective responses of consumers. This
revision in thinking implies that
marketing managers must acknowledge
the emotions and feelings that
consumers bring to their interactions
with products. The greater the
importance attached to such subjective
responses, the greater the salience of our
focus on the hedonic aspects of the
consumption experience. Hence, the
most clear consequence is that, more
than ever, marketing managers need the
experiential view as an ally in their
efforts to understand consumer
behaviour.
THE EVOLUTION TOWARD MASS
CUSTOMISATION
Under Fordism Ð the era of mass
production Ð customers implicitly
agreed to a compromise by trading less
customisation for lower prices. In other
words, mass production rested on a
tacit bargain between customers and
®rms in which the former renounced the
51

Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook
personalisation of goods and services in
exchange for a reduction in costs.
More recently, technological
innovations have brought a disruptive
change by allowing producers to solve
the traditional trade-off between two
different and alternative goals Ð
namely, those of (1) reducing the unit
cost of production and (2) increasing the
quality and performance of goods and
services. This new trend, which gains
force from an increase in the ¯exibility
of the productive cycle provided by
modularity, reverses the dependence of
economies of scale on the
standardisation and homogeneity of
mass production. This modularity is the
central concept of post-Fordism,
wherein the new technologies make it
possible to offer a unique product to
every customer according to his or her
particular requirements and
speci®cations, including products that
were traditionally considered
undifferentiated commodities. Under
mass customisation, which involves a
postmodern union of opposites
(Holbrook, 1999a), customers can re-
acquire control over their own
consumption experiences (Rullani and
Luca, 1998). Consider, for example, the
impact of computer-aided design and
computer-aided manufacturing in
allowing quick and cheap modi®cations
in the design of a product. Or ponder
the role of new software that permits
greater ¯exibility in manufacturing. In
brief, the scenario wherein ®rms and
customers interact has evolved
dramatically in recent years. This
potential for marrying high quality and
great variety with low cost represents
the new frontier in business competition
(Pine, 1993) and involves more and
more ®rms from many disparate
industries.
In industry after industry undergoing
turbulent change, the companies that
have come out on top Ð domestic or
foreign competitors Ð are those which
have discovered the power of mass
customisation. In automobiles, apparel,
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lighting controls, power tools,
refrigerated warehouses, travel services,
midrange computers, watches, power
supplies, pagers Ð the list could go on
Ð the leading companies use ¯exible
information, telecommunications and
manufacturing technologies, but more
important, ¯exible, knowledgeable
workers and new management methods
to shorten their cycle times, lower their
costs, enhance their ¯exibility and
responsiveness, and increase their
variety and customisation Ð all to
satisfy more closely the individual
wants and needs of their customers. Not
only are these companies the pioneers of
the new frontier in business
competition, they are at or near the top
in market share in their industries (Pine,
1993: 8).
Further, the development of new
communication and information
technologies transforms the market as
new ways to communicate break
through old limitations imposed by
space and time. These facilitate the
involvement of the consumer in every
step of the production process so as `to
develop and maintain mutually
bene®cial relationships in a changing
environment' (Webster, 1997: 51). For
example, Webster (1997) says:
`Customers become better informed,
more knowledgeable, and more
sophisticated in their choice processes.
They become less dependent on a given
supplier for product knowledge and
service and better able to understand
market options as well as their own use
situation. They gain in their ability to
make informed choices and they gain
power in their negotiations with various
sellers' (pp. 50±1).
The most evident consequence is that
the essential and major function of the
product as a good or service decreases
in relevance, while its role as an
embodiment of symbolic meaning
increases. Such meanings are attributed
to it by individual subjectivity Ð that is,
by the subject's personal way of
thinking, feeling, or doing Ð as

On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
contingent on his or her psychological
state.
STRENGTHENING THE RELATIONSHIPS
BETWEEN CUSTOMERS AND FIRMS
The widespread impact of the issues
just discussed obliges ®rms, more than
ever, to adopt new models and new
views of the world and to develop
postures and strategies consistent with
the changing marketplace. In many
ways, with the shift toward mass
customisation and ¯exible production,
many aspects of business once presided
over by marketing now become the
province of engineering (Holbrook,
1999a). Hence, one could ask if
marketing still plays its customary role
at the interface between the ®rm and its
customers. If not, what role should
marketing play now?
Part of the answer comes from
relationship marketing. Speci®cally, if
the consumer has become as important
as the ®rm in determining the direction
of production, ®rms must recognise the
customer as a valid interlocutor (Vavra,
1995). This requires a strong and stable
relationship between the ®rm and its
customer. Such a relationship must be
built upon the sort of continuing
dialogue now made possible by the new
communication technologies. In this
way, relationship marketing argues that
Ð in order to face the new world of
emerging economic realities Ð
marketing must abandon the old
transaction-based logic typical of the
traditional economy so as to embrace
the relationship-based orientation
typical of the dawning era, becoming a
custodian for moments of truth in the
buyer-seller interaction. Here, the hope
of relationship marketing as a new
marketing paradigm is `to establish,
maintain, and enhance [usually but not
necessarily always long term]
relationships with customers and other
partners, at a pro®t, so that the
objectives of the parties involved are
met. This is achieved by a mutual
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exchange and ful®lment of promises'
(GroÈnroos, 1990: 138).
But this transformation of the ®rm-
customer interaction from transaction to
relationship, from the perspective of the
®rm, is accompanied by a parallel
transformation from the viewpoint of
the consumer. Some time ago, the
customer's role consisted primarily of
two phases:
Ð the transaction between consumer
and ®rm;
Ð the use of the product thus
transacted for.
The ®rst phase is that on which most
traditional marketing studies have
focused. During this transactional
phase, the ®rm enacted its marketing
strategy (eg the 4 Ps), while the
consumer processed the relevant
information in order to reach the
appropriate decision (eg brand choice).
Thus, the second phase Ð involving use
of the product Ð tended to be greeted
less by attentive consideration than by
neglect.
After the aforementioned shift,
consumption is now recognised as
consisting primarily of the following
two phases:
Ð the relationship between consumer
and ®rm;
Ð the use of the core product.
Hence, the basis for the exchange
between the ®rm and its customer has
changed. The exchange now involves
not only a product for money or one
desired behaviour for another given in
return, but rather a whole relationship
cultivated between the two actors. In
short, the complex relationship entails
not only a product but also the services
that surround it and the information
that a consumer and ®rm impart to each
other. Moreover, the use of the product
has also changed because it now
involves the inclusion of other offerings
that together create the consumption
experience Ð what Solomon (1998) calls
a `constellation' of products. Thus, as
53

Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook
envisioned here, the consumption of the
product becomes part of a holistic
experience.
THE SUBJECTIVITY IN RELATIONSHIPS
As a link between two or more subjects,
whether single persons or entire
organisations, a relationship involves
their whole identities. These identities
of the two actors carry high levels of
subjective involvement. This heightened
subjectivity applies at both the ®rm and
the customer levels Ð especially the
latter.
In order to support this claim that the
relationship between consumers and
®rms involves their heightened
subjectivities, it is useful to examine two
of the major concerns pointed out by
relationship marketers Ð ®rst, the
involvement of people; second, the
concept of trust.
The Involvement of People in an
Atmosphere
With respect to the role played by
people in a relationship, the Swedish
School of Industrial Marketing has
studied the dyadic relationship, and
their celebrated ®ndings are now well
known as the Interaction Approach
(HaÊkansson, 1982). These interaction-
approach authors study the relationship
as a continuous interactive contact in
which the opposite parties try to attain
their personal aims and to satisfy each
other in a balanced dependence.
Furthermore, in the long term, the
parties develop a sense of trust in each
other so as to make the relationship
pro®table for both of them.
Although the Swedish School deals
primarily with business-to-business
situations, there is no reason why these
characteristics could not also be applied
to the relationship between the ®rm and
a single consumer.
Further, the development of a
relationship relies on people. Human
resources are extremely important to the
forging of the relationship because they
are the true mediating locus through
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which the contact occurs. In particular,
it is through the construct of atmosphere
that the interaction-approach authors
construe the involvement of people.
With reference to business-to-business
marketing, they identify four
characteristics to describe a dyadic
relationship (Turnbull and Valla, 1985):
Ð the interaction process with its
elements, episodes, and long-term
relationship;
Ð the participants with their features
affecting the relationship;
Ð the external environment in which
the relationship is embedded;
Ð the atmosphere as the product of a
relationship that has been forged by
the entirety of attitudes and
behaviour of the parties during its
evolution.
Again, it seems natural to use these
dimensions to characterise the
relationship between the ®rm and a
single consumer.
From this perspective, because it is
de®ned as feelings and interpretations
of what is and can be done, atmosphere
is the central variable that incorporates
the effect of people's involvement:
`As seen from one of the parties, the
atmosphere can be de®ned as constituted
by the perceptions which one party holds
about the other party and the perceptions
the same party believes that the other
party holds regarding oneself . . . In other
words, it is a matter of your own feelings
vis-aÁ-vis your counterpart and the feelings
you perceive that the counterpart holds of
you.
To some extent, the atmosphere in a
business relationship can be discussed in
the same terms as the attitudes in the
behaviour of an individual. The
emotional setting, the atmosphere, may
thus be more or less intensively
perceived (HalleÂn and SandstroÈm, 1991:
113).
According to what some words of these
authors seem to imply (ie `perceptions',
`feelings', and `emotional setting'), it is
argued here that this kind of
perceptions-based atmosphere strongly

On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
depends upon the subjectivity of the
parties involved, where by subjectivity
is meant attitudes, personal needs,
mental schemes, and so forth. If it is true
that people and their subjective
perceptions are critically important in
industrial markets, where rationality
presumably plays a major role, the same
conclusion must apply with even
greater force in reference to the
relationship between the ®rm and a
consumer.
The Concept of Trust
The second key issue in relationship
marketing involves the concept of trust.
The relevance of this element stems
from the impossibility of controlling
and planning every single aspect of the
relationship. Hence, trust ¯ows from the
exchange experience as a long-term
asset that hinges on personal relations
and therefore, again, on subjectivity.
Trust has been studied by several
researchers in the business-to-business
context, where a social exchange takes
place when `the parties gradually may
build up trust in each other by
demonstrating a capacity to keep
promises and showing commitment to
the relationship' (HalleÂn and
SandstroÈm, 1991: 109). Many
researchers have stressed the fact that
inter-organisational trust involves
people and their orientation. For
example, a recent study by Doney and
Cannon (1997) has pointed out that, in a
buyer-seller relationship, the trust of the
buyer toward both the supplier ®rm and
its salesperson is important because `the
sales force often plays a key role in
interfacing with customers and
implementing marketing strategy' (p.
35). Doney and Cannon also de®ne the
antecedents and consequences of trust
in a supplier ®rm and salesperson.
Among the antecedents, they include
the ®rm and its salesperson as well as
the characteristics of the relationships
that the buyer has with both of them.
The relationship between buyer and
seller is also studied by Ganesan (1994),
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who demonstrates that the customer's
time orientation is very important for
marketing managers because it helps
them choose the more adequate
marketing tool. From our perspective,
this time orientation is simply a
manifestation of the customer's
subjectivity.
Further, the work by Zaheer et al.
(1998) has demonstrated, among other
things, that Ð although empirically and
theoretically distinct Ð the extent of
interpersonal trust affects the degree of
inter-organisational trust in an inter-
®rm dyad. Other authors such as Smith
and Barclay (1997) have stressed the
relevance of how the parties in a
relationship perceive their reciprocal
trust and behaviour. Again, because
they involve a person's mental schemes,
such perceptions are always matters of
subjectivity.
Useful as it has been to consider the
role of trust in industrial relationships, it
is still more worthwhile to examine the
comparable role of trust in the context of
interactions between the ®rm and a
single consumer. In this connection, the
ascendant role of subjectivity and its
impact on the relationship emerges in
several additional ways.
For example, Garbarino and Johnson
(1999) have demonstrated that the
customers' orientation determines the
kind of relationship they want to build
with the ®rm. In their study of the roles
of overall satisfaction, trust and
commitment for different kinds of
customers of a nonpro®t theatre
company in New York City, these
authors found that those constructs
interact differently according to the kind
of customer. They conclude that one of
the reasons why relationship marketing
is so hard to implement is that `®rms
may attempt partnering initiatives with
all customers, without regard to the
customers' relational orientation' (p. 82).
One of the most famous works
dealing with trust identi®es the
precursors of relationship commitment
and trust that, in turn, affect the parties'
55

Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook
behaviour (Morgan and Hunt, 1994).
The identi®ed precursors are
relationship termination costs,
relationship bene®ts, shared value,
opportunistic behaviour and
communication. This role of
communication in the relationship is the
major focus of some recent work by
Duncan and Moriarty (1998). These
authors argue that buyer-seller
communication is increasing in a trend
driven by a variety of `new generation'
marketing approaches like integrated
marketing, relationship marketing,
market-driven strategy, and so forth.
Such a perspective `emphasizes two-
way communication through better
listening to customers and interactivity
and the idea that communication before,
during, and after transactions can build
or destroy important brand
relationships' (p. 1):
`Communication is the human activity
that links people together and creates
relationships. It is at the heart of
meaning-making activities not only in
marketing, but also in a wide range of
political, social, economic, and
psychological areas' (p. 2).
So, to repeat, communication also lies at
the heart of the relations between
customers and ®rms. Again, these
relations are in turn anchored in
subjectivity.
Parenthetically, the same viewpoint
applies to postmodern perspectives on
the social construction of knowledge
wherein `knowledge is socially
constructed and depends on the
consensus of people interacting in
dialogues and discussions' (Holbrook,
1989: 3). As noted by Firat and
Venkatesh (1995), `postmodernists view
all knowledge to be a construction of
one sort or another and the product of
language and discourse' (p. 244).
Conclusion Concerning Subjectivity
The parties' characteristics, customers'
time orientations, interpersonal trust,
perceptions and consumers'
orientations toward the buyer-seller
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relationship, values, increasing
interactivity and communication are all
manifestations of individual subjectivity
and Ð due to the increasing importance
of customisation and relationships Ð
such subjectivity is becoming more and
more important. In this way, the
subject's feelings and personal beliefs
are emphasised at two levels Ð the ®rst
practical, the second theoretical.
Mass customisation is giving
relevance to the single consumer and,
thereby, now allows him or her to ask
for products able to satisfy his or her
personal and subjective needs.
Consumption now entails the request
for customised responses for every
single need, both individual and
collective.
Relationship marketing uses many
concepts closely linked to subjectivity in
its reliance on the involvement of
people and on the importance of trust Ð
as when addressing the roles of
communication, atmosphere,
perceptions, and so on.
This emerging phenomenon could be
designatedÐ both at the practical and at
the theoretical levels just noted Ð as an
explosion of subjectivity, which refers to a
deeper involvement of individual
subjectivity and its more widespread
pervasiveness in an increasing sphere of
consumption events. However, as
discussed in the following section, this
is not to imply that subjectivity is the
only crucial component of consumption.
CONSUMPTION AS INTERACTION
Every consumption event involves an
interaction between a subject and an
object (Holbrook, 1999b), where the
subject of interest is a consumer or
customer and the object of interest is
some good, service, event, person, place,
or other kind of thing. Subject and object
are concepts de®ned here in the
conventional manner of common usage.
In their interaction, these two entities
make different contributions to the
overall consumption experience, but
both of them are important for the

On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
consumption event. The product
embodies certain features or objective
characteristics (such as colour, price,
weight, shape, and so forth), while the
consumer embodies a personality
equipped for sensitivity to various sorts
of subjective responses (where use of
the term `responses' refers to various
facets of own psychology such as
beliefs, feelings, or loyalty related
habits). The value that the consumer
gains from the consumption experience
is created through that interaction,
involving a relationship between the
subject and the object so strong that the
two are sometimes considered to be
confused (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995).
Figure 1 summarises this subject-object
interaction as the minimum common
denominator in every consumption
experience (see Holbrook, 1999b).
However, one difference between
consumption experiences lies in the
relative weights assigned to subjective
responses and objective features in the
mix represented by Figure 1. For some
consumption experiences Ð for
example, the use of an Epson inkjet
printer Ð the objective features of the
product might weigh more heavily than
the consumer's subjective response.
Consumers are interested mainly in
what they can gain from the physical
characteristics or technical performance
of the product. The relevant set of
features serves as the channel through
which the consumer bene®ts
functionally from the use of the product.
This type of customer value Ð as well
as a product that tends primarily to
provide this type of value Ð is often
referred to as utilitarian in nature.
For other consumption experiences Ð
for example, appreciating a Mark
Rothko painting Ð the relative weight
of the consumer's subjective response is
greater than the weight of the objective
PRODUCT
CONSUMPTION
Objective Features Subjective Responses
Figure 1: The consumption event
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features of the product, as when we say
that `beauty is in the eye of the
beholder'. In such situations, the type of
customer value Ð as well as the sort of
product tending to elicit this type of
value Ð is often called hedonic in nature.
The role of the consumer's emotions
during the consumption experience is
one example of this subjectivity. In this
connection, for example, Richins (1997)
has developed a set of descriptors Ð the
Consumption Emotion Set Ð in order to
represent the range of emotions that
consumers usually feel in their
consumption experiences.
Finally, some products can have the
same or similar weightings of objective
features and subjective responses. Here,
both or perhaps neither the objective
and/nor subjective component are/is
important to the determination of
customer value. This latter type of
experience and the relevant product
categories can be called balanced in
nature.
In a graph with two perpendicular
axes that represent the weight of
subjective responses of the consumer
(horizontal dimension) and the weight
of objective features of the product
(vertical dimension) during the
consumption experience, the points on
the bisector of the quadrant represent
those products or experiences for which
objective features and subjective
responses have roughly the same
weights (balanced products), whereas
points above or below the bisector
represent those products or experiences
for which objective or subjective
responses predominate (utilitarian and
hedonic products, respectively). As
shown in Figure 2, this representation
distinguishes among utilitarian, hedonic,
and balanced products or experiences.
This two-dimensional diagram will be
of use to us in representing how
consumption phenomena have changed
CONSUMER over time.
The preceding argument receives
support from empirical studies that
have focused on two comparable
57
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Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook

Balanced products detergent), hedonic `outliers' (eg ice

Utilitarian products
cream or expensive restaurants), and

Weight of objective features

those with an equal balance of both
kinds of bene®ts (eg cars or blue jeans).
Clearly, these distinctions correspond to
what we call utilitarian products,
hedonic products and balanced
Hedonic products products, respectively.
Similarly, just as the shopping
Weight of subjective responses experience can provide a relatively
Figure 2: The weights in consumption of
more hedonic or utilitarian perceived
products value (Babin et al., 1994), the
consumption experience in general can
dimensions of the consumer's product- be relatively more utilitarian, hedonic,
related attitudes or brand evaluations. or balanced according to the respective
This ®eld of research aims at weights of the contributions by the
understanding the utilitarian and objective product-based and subjective
hedonic dimensions of the consumer's consumer-related components. This
evaluative judgments. Some studies does not mean, of course, that if a
have focused on consumer attitudes product or experience is categorised as
toward product categories (Crowley et hedonic (utilitarian), its objective
al., 1992). Others have dealt with features (subjective aspects) are totally
consumer attitudes toward both brands irrelevant. Rather, the question becomes
and behaviour (Batra and Ahtola, 1990). a matter of degree and concerns the
Others have studied both product issue of which component Ð objective
categories and brands (Spangenberg et or subjective Ð has the greater weight.
al., 1997). Still others have pursued Although plenty of ground in the
speci®c experiences (Babin et al., 1994). middle is covered by the balanced
However, what these studies share in products or experiences, consumption
common Ð with each other and with at the two extremes is very different and
our conceptualisation Ð is a two- compels an effort to understand such
dimensional approach whose phenomena. Here, we should once
components, as shown in Figure 2, are again clarify that our use of the subject/
utilitarian and hedonic. object dichotomy re¯ects the goal of this
This general two-dimensional paper Ð namely, to recognise the
approach can be viewed from the necessity of applying concepts
perspectives of different conceptual concerning experiential consumption in
orientations. Some scholars have a wider range of situations. In this
focused on consumer attitudes. Others connection, reference is made to the
have dealt with product judgments colloquial distinction between subject
stemming from consumption and object Ð commonly made in
experiences. Our focus pursues the two- ordinary discourse Ð without
dimensional approach as a basis for considering the interesting debate on
analysing the consumption experience the real meaning of objectivity and its
as a subject-object or consumer-product relationship with one's emotional side
interaction. (see Elliott, 1998).
For example, in their study of
consumer attitudes toward 24 product UTILITARIAN CONSUMPTION VERSUS
categories, Crowley et al. (1992) HEDONIC CONSUMPTION
distinguished among the product Utilitarian Consumption
categories as representing utilitarian By utilitarian consumption is meant the
`outliers' (eg cooking oil or dish consumption of utilitarian products

58 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 1, 1, 50±66 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817


On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
such as a ¯ashlight, a pen, a laptop or a
can of motor oil. The objectivity of the
features Ð say, of a common ¯ashlight
Ð is closely related to the functionality
of the product, which is the core value
for this kind of consumption. If we are
upset about something or especially
nervous or unusually happy, our feeling
has no impact on the way the ¯ashlight
works. In consequence, the ¯ashlight's
functionality regularises the interaction
between the product and the consumer
and renders the consumption event
constant or low-variance in nature.
Being rational and well informed,
people know in advance what to expect
from the functionality of a ¯ashlight Ð
namely, illumination pointed in a
direction that can be controlled by
means of hand movements. So Ð when
purchasing a ¯ashlight, knowing what
is being sought Ð characteristics of the
various available offerings can be
examined, competing brands ranked
according to preference, and the brand
chosen that best matches desirability
criteria. Here, a view of the consumer as
a decision maker appears entirely
appropriate insofar as the consumer
evaluates product or brand offerings on
the basis of the utility they provide.
Hedonic Consumption
As already anticipated, the kind of
utilitarian consumption just described
differs considerably from the nature of
hedonic consumption. The latter term
designates those facets of consumer
behaviour that relate to the
multisensory aspects of one's experience
with products where `multisensory'
means `the receipt of experience in
multiple sensory modalities including
tastes, sounds, tactile impressions and
visual images' (Hirschman and
Holbrook, 1982: 92). Further, such
hedonic experience arises from products
that tend strongly to evoke heightened
levels of fantasies, feelings and fun
(Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) and,
indeed, for which such aspects of
consumption are pursued as
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intrinsically valued ends-in-themselves
rather than as the extrinsically valued
means to some other end (Holbrook,
1999a). Examples of more hedonic
product-related experiences would
include entertainment or the arts in
general and responses to plays, movies,
books, or television shows in particular.
In such experiences, the subjective
reactions of the consumer are crucial to
the determination of customer value,
which hinges on a subject-object
interaction wherein the subject responds
to highly intangible, symbolic or
aesthetic aspects of product design.
Consequently, since the consumption
outcomes entail constantly evolving
aspects of subjective responses, they are
Ð almost by de®nition Ð variable.
When going to see, say, a movie, its
value hinges on the ability of the movie
to engage one's subjectivity Ð to arouse
feelings or to provoke emotional
reactions (Holbrook et al., 1990).
Further, because the main value source
is subjectivity, the result of the
interaction is not con®dently foreseeable
so that considerable uncertainty
prevails. Because people constantly
change, the relevant subject-object
interaction constantly evolves in the
direction of differences in how any
given hedonic product is consumed
(Holbrook, 1999b). This means that the
utilitarian functionality of a movie
cannot be rationally analysed. Rather,
its high degree of subjectivity-
dependent uncertainty eludes analysis
Ð even if this uncertainty could be
reduced by choosing a favourite actor,
looking for a well-known story, reading
movie reviews or talking to friends who
have already seen the ®lm in question.
In her contribution to conceptualising
aesthetic value, Wagner (1999) argues
that `aesthetic value shares two
assumptions with other categories of
value: ®rst, it involves interaction
between an object and a subject; and
second, it encompasses the entire
experience of perceiving, evaluating,
and judging an object, in this case an art
59
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Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook

object' (p. 128). It could be added that,
in the case of a hedonic object (artistic or
otherwise), the relevant interaction is
closely linked to the subjectivity of the
consumer. In this connection,
subjectivity might be more than just a
®lter, but an actualising creative force
that moulds the object (via a perception
of it) so as to shape the resulting
consumption experience (including
variable emotional reactions) in ways
that defy rational analysis. In the
extreme, on viewing a masterpiece, the
famous Stendhal syndrome is relived, in
which Ð like the author looking at an
artistic masterpiece during a trip to Italy
Ð consciousness of own selfhood is lost
due to the complete involvement in the
aesthetic experience. Others have
described this momentary
disappearance of the self-other
dichotomy as a state of ecstasy or rapture
(Holbrook, 1999b).
Figure 3 Ð based on a 45-degree
rotation of Figure 2 Ð summarises the
preceding discussion by describing the

Balanced products

Utilitarian Hedonic
products products

Weight of Weight of
objective subjective
features responses

Utilitarian Hedonic
consumption consumption

Functionality Interaction

Constancy Variability

Rationality Rationality & Emotions

Analysis Uncertainty

Use of the traditional Use of the

view of consumption experiential view of
(decision-making consumption
processes)

Figure 3: Utilitarian consumption versus hedonic consumption

60 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 1, 1, 50±66 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817


On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
two extreme kinds of consumption as a
result of different weights in the
interaction between the product and the
consumer. Further, Figure 3 points in
the direction of distinguishing between
appropriate views of consumption, as
pursued in the following section and
thereby represents changes in the
relevance of the experiential view.
TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS OF
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
The differences between utilitarian and
hedonic consumption help to explain
the reasons why two different views of
consumer behaviour are needed in
order to understand these different
kinds of consumption experiences.
Speci®cally, the decision-making
orientation refers mainly to utilitarian
consumption, whereas the experiential
view refers mainly to hedonic
consumption. According to Hirschman
and Holbrook (1982) and Holbrook and
Hirschman (1982), proponents of each
approach have chosen to focus on the
products, situations, or questions that
most strongly incorporate the elements
they wanted to address as a topic for the
research ®eld of interest.
The utilitarian aspects of
consumption have been studied by the
mainstream approach to consumer
behaviour Ð namely, the rational model
that sees the consumer as a machine- or
computer-like information-processing
decision maker. In this view, the
consumer is primarily guided toward
purchase commitments by rationality
aimed at achieving one or more goals or
objectives. After buying, the better the
post-purchase performance of the
consumed product ®ts with the
customer's expectations, the higher the
resulting level of satisfaction. This
traditional view represents the typical
consumer-choice model (Bettman et al.,
1991), wherein the consumer is a
rational problem solver who chooses a
brand in accord with the theory of
reasoned action or, in short, wherein
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`the consumer is a thinker'
(Venkatraman and MacInnis, 1985: 102).
In the case of the experiential view,
researchers often focus on particular
categories of product Ð that is,
products where emotions play a major
role (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982).
The emphasis on emotions is especially
pointed out by Schmitt and Simonson
(1997), who suggest that Ð because of
the multisensory capabilities of people
(wherein customers are driven by what
they see, feel, taste, smell and hear) Ð
®rms must develop the aesthetics of
their offerings (as in the case of luxury-
oriented products).
More recently, Schmitt (1999a, 1999b)
anticipates a totally new approach to
management in general and to
marketing in particular. In his view,
traditional marketing, which `has been
developed in response to the industrial
age, not the information, branding and
communication revolution we are facing
today' (Schmitt, 1999a: 55), is dying. A
new version of marketing is emerging
Ð experiential marketing, which
focuses on customer experiences in a
holistic and eclectic way Ð whereby
`experiences' he means `private events
that occur in response to some
stimulation (eg as provided by
marketing efforts before and after
purchase)' (Schmitt, 1999b: 60).
Furthermore, the experiential sphere
of the consumer is enriched by the role
of symbolism. This facet of consumption
is studied by many researchers
interested especially in the consumption
of artworks or in art as a channel for the
consumer to communicate his values Ð
eg via the study of the meanings of
signs in consumer aesthetics (Douglas
and Isherwood, 1979). This approach
dates back to the 1960s when Charles
Morris (¯eetingly) and then Daniel
Berlyne (persistently) developed the
study of experimental aesthetics
(Holbrook, 1987). Studies in this ®eld of
research depart widely from
conventional terrain. For example,
research has examined how marketing-
61

Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook
related imagery can give meanings to
artistic works (Holbrook, 1988) and has
argued that the status-symbol system
itself has become experiential, where
objects communicate as symbols
because they are linked to status-
symbolic experiences (Kelly, 1987).
Further, more recently, the issue of
symbolism has been addressed with
reference to many additional concepts.
From one side, the emerging literature
considers a larger range of different
products for which the symbolic
meanings are sources of personal value
(Hirschman, 1980; Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton, 1981). At the same
time, from the other side, many
researchers increasingly question the
individual character of these meanings.
In this perspective, the meanings
attributed to the objects Ð where the
term `object' is used in a very broad
sense, since it also includes our body
(see Thompson and Hirschman, 1995)
Ð result from social construction (Celsi
et al., 1993; Thompson, 1996; Slater,
1997; Thompson and Haytko, 1997; Ger
et al., 1999; O'Donnell, 1999).
Finally, the interpretation of
consumption as a holistic experience is a
further facet of the experiential view
that must be taken into account. In this
connection, Holbrook (1987, 1999b)
suggests that the artwork as a whole
must be considered Ð a Gestalt Ð not
just a sum of several parts and that the
ecstasy felt in appreciating a
masterpiece must be explained
accordingly. When applied more
generally, this holistic perspective
suggests that product usage is not
separate and isolated from the rest of
the consumer's world; rather it is
embedded in that world Ð that is, the
product is closely related to a person's
feelings, other products, relationships of
the person, the surrounding society, the
consumer's whole lifeworld. Solomon
(1998) refers to this concept via the term
consumption constellation, which
identi®es a set of products used together
to de®ne, communicate and perform
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social roles. Accordingly, marketers
should consider creating interrelations
and relationships between experiences
because, when something is consumed,
the experience depends not only on a
single product but also on its holistic
interaction with various other products
as part of a consumption system.
AN EXTENDED USE OF THE
EXPERIENTIAL VIEW
The two different kinds of models
(decision-oriented versus experiential)
typically used to study the two extremes
of consumption (utilitarian versus
hedonic) do not force a restriction of
horizons entirely to the dictates of this
contrast. Rather, it is argued, the
experiential point of view can and
should be used to study most, if not all,
products.
This point has been stressed by
several researchers, but none has tried
to explain the reasons. For example,
Pine and Gilmore (1998) acknowledge
the emergence of what they call the
Experience Economy. In this connection,
these authors view experiences as the
next step in `the progression of
economic value' wherein commodities
! goods ! services ! experiences.
Viewing (say) Disney as the ideal, they
argue that every business can sell
experiences, if only it makes the
experiences memorable:
`Experiences have always been at the
heart of the entertainment business Ð a
fact that Walt Disney and the Company
he founded have creatively exploited. But
today the concept of selling an
entertainment experience is taking root in
businesses far removed from theaters and
amusement parks' (p. 99).
At this point, one would expect to ®nd a
detailed explanation of why people
should be persuaded that everything
can be consumed as an experience.
Instead, in their original article, Pine
and Gilmore (1998) provide the reader
with no real argument along these lines.
In a later work, Pine and Gilmore (1999)
do point out four reasons for an

On the conceptual link between mass customisation and experiential consumption
evolution toward the experience
economy:
(1) technology;
(2) increasing competitive intensity;
(3) the nature and progression of
economic value that goes from
commodities to goods, to services,
and ®nally to experiences;
(4) rising af¯uence.
But, despite this elaborated discussion,
it seems that something Ð a piece of the
puzzle Ð is still missing.
A further explanatory step concerns a
more advanced level of progression that
Pine and Gilmore (1999) refer to as the
next stage:
`Experiences are not the ®nal economic
offering . . . When you customize an
experience, you automatically turn it into
a transformation, which companies create
on top of experiences (you've heard the
phrase ``a life-transforming experience''),
just as they create experiences on top of
services, and so forth (p. 165).
According to these authors, every
experience can be turned into a
transformation, no matter what it relates
to. Hence, after the Experience
Economy, the Transformation Economy
will emerge.
At this moment, it seems that
speaking about the Transformation
Economy (the transformation stage for
every single experience) is, at best,
somewhat premature Ð especially since
the relevance of experiences for almost
all products is yet to be widely
recognised. A more persuasive view,
perhaps, recognises that subjectivity is
increasing with a consequently
deepening impact on consumption seen
as an interaction between a product and
some consumer. In this connection,
Figure 4 expresses the changes in the
relevance of the experiential view that
marketing managers should recognise
and take into account whenever they
present an offering to the market.
The effect of this explosion of
subjectivity coheres with results from
the study conducted by Spangenberg et
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Weight of objective features
Weight of subjective responses
Figure 4: Impact of the explosion of subjectivity
on consumption
al. (1997). As noted earlier, these authors
addressed the possibility of measuring
both the hedonic and utilitarian
components of attitude. Hence, they
developed a two-dimensional scale.
This measurement approach showed
that the consumer's level of
involvement is positively and
signi®cantly related to the levels of both
hedonic and utilitarian value:
`Although we expected high levels of
involvement to lead to high levels of
hedonic value, it was interesting to ®nd
that high levels of involvement also lead
to high levels of utilitarian value' (p. 239;
see also Mano and Oliver, 1993).
It is therefore suggested that subjectivity
has the same effect as the level of
involvement. If the level of subjectivity
increases, then the weight of subjective
perception also increases. Moreover, as
shown in Figure 4 and according to the
results just cited, it is likely that the
weight of objective features will also
increase, but by a lesser amount so that
the balance will shift toward subjective
experience. However, corroboration of
this conjecture will require further
research.
The continually increasing impact of
subjective responses in the interactions
between consumers and products is an
invitation to make greater use of the
experiential view of consumer
behaviour. In other words, nowadays,
marketing and consumer researchers
should use the experiential view of
63

Michela Addis and Morris B. Holbrook
consumption with reference to many
products hitherto construed as topics
for decision-oriented modelling. By
`many products', is meant the inclusion
of products very different from the
typical sources of hedonic experiences
such as a play, a movie, a musical
recording, and so forth. Include the
automatic teller machine. The
household pet. The personal computer.
The Internet. The sun. The moon. The
stars.
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