EXPERIENCE COMMUNICATION, VIRTUAL COMMUNITY AND VALUE CREATION IN ON
LINE BUSINESS
Vittoria Marino – Associated professor in International Marketing - University of Salerno Italy
vmarino@unisa.it
Giada Mainolfi - Contract researcher in Business Administration - University of Salerno Italy
gmainolfi@unisa.it
Debora Tortora - Phd in Communication Sciences - University of Salerno - Italy
dtortora@unisa.it
Paola Zoccoli - Phd in Public Management - University of Salerno – Italy
pzoccoli@unisa.it

Though being the result of shared considerations by the searchers, the work sections have been dealt with as
follows: par. 1 by Vittoria Marino, par. 2 by Debora Tortora, par. 3 by Giada Mainolfi, par. 4 and 5 by Paola
Zoccoli.
EXPERIENCE COMMUNICATION, VIRTUAL COMMUNITY AND VALUE CREATION IN ON
LINE BUSINESS
1.Foreword; 2. Marketing and communication in the experience economy; 3. Experience space in on line
business: the community role; 4. Virtual community contribution to the value creation of the firm; 5.Conclusions;
Select Bibliography
Abstract
Accelerating the replacement of satisfactory objects and the emergent socializing vs
cocurrent subjectiveness of consumption lead to qualify and valorize the space of existence
and the “area of living” through situations in which the customer can experience affective
and emotional states associated with consumption. In this context firms have been engaged
in the correct creation and communication of real situations. The first section of the paper
provides background information on the development of marketing studies up to
"experience economy”. Then opportunities for on line business are discussed offered by
means of a virtual community, creating a value system for the consumer from which a
sustainable advantage for the firm is derived.
1. FOREWORD
The acceleration in replacing objects, the transitory pleasure of possessing, but also an
exquisitely democratic dimension of the self social expression - thanks to a more
autonomous and personal access to lifestyles that are no longer expression of class
belonging, but refer to individualized dimensions - lead today to a different meaning of the
concept of “consumption”. The action of consumption, no more only a sphere of activities
like other functions carried out by the individual, is qualified as “a cultural sphere, capable
to produce its own view of the world, a system of values and a structure of peculiar
personalities” (Siri G., 2001), expressing a new “area of living”, appealing to principles of
plurality and social mutability. If the whole existence of modern man is characterized by
“search”, his aware and voluntary participation into manifold projects sets itself as a
necessary preliminary basis for the “social construction of one’s identity” (Di Nallo E.,
1998).
Sharing this process, the customer is necessarily recognized as a scant, and,
consequently, precious and yearned for resource, becoming the focus of a new policy of
appreciation of the individual, in the pursuit of the individual expectations that outline a
“unique person”. Therefore, the firm needs to be cast into a new dimension, basically a
project one, in which its own market interlocutors appear to be, above all, “people and their
dreams”. In fact, if a firm is viable when proposing new renewed values, in order to achieve
consonance with its demand (consumers’ requirements), the customer himself and his
consumption ritual become the ultimate element of the firm changing process. A
reconsideration, in an interactive key, of the relations with the customer system becomes
thus necessary; in fact a satisfied customer (though with all his different ways of
expressions) is the necessary starting point to have a loyal customer, representing the real
patrimony, perhaps the most precious one, on which every business sets its opportunities of
development and bases its actual survival. Consequently, if for a long time the success of
online marketing has expressed itself through the profitable combination of the ideas of
convenience and practicality of the economic relation in order to stop the customer and tie
him to the firm web site, on the contrary, the contemporary trend goes toward an
organization capable to communicate with the customer through emotions, involving him in
the purchase, making him feel a protagonist in his choice and satisfied with it. On the other
hand emotion contributes to solve the issue of how to arrange knowledge and actions,
within a context that the navigator (as well as the firm) can never totally know and in which
he is meant to act with limited resources. The future of marketing, especially of web
marketing, starts from these background evaluations.
2
2. MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION IN THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY
If we analyze the physiological evolution of online markets, we can observe a
progressive saturation of the demand for products and services. At the same time we can
notice another typology of demand, in which the primary needs of the cyberconsumer are
replaced by others connected to time - as a fruition moment to be valorised as a scant
resource - and to the emotional sphere - characterizing itself as a search for sense and
identity in the supply and in the navigation action itself. Consumption, as “narrative
development”, capable to express new meanings in the interaction between the supply and
the way it is perceived by the consumer, leads necessarily to such an analysis. On the other
hand, “consumption innovation” refers to a search for novelty as a virtual use of
consumption situations or different contexts, outlining how the motivations underlying
certain navigation and, consequently, purchasing processes, involve considerably different
clusters of customers, according to the consumer perspective, such as efficiency, game
dimension, excellence, aesthetics, status, ethics, esteem, spirituality.
The concept of experience consumption, as a particular condition of on and off line
marketing research, is emerging just in this field, even if with alternate tension in time.
Understanding the phenomenon referring to the experience dimension, however, has a
sense under a previous analysis of the interpretations of the idea of experience brought
about in different scientific fields: as activity (or passivity, meant as absence of action)
producing a modification, in terms of growth of knowledge, in the subject involved (Carù
A., Cova B., 2003). Therefore, if the conceptual matrix, outlined by experimental science,
qualifies the notion of experience as a function of the reproducibility of the observed
phenomena, these being based on objective and generalizable data (1), on the contrary,
philosophical studies safeguard the individual/personal dimension, producing not universal
knowledge but knowledge belonging to a single actor. Similarly, the sociological and
psychological approaches to this issue emphasize the individual cognitive dimension of
experiential activity through which human beings build up their own identity. All this leads
to the interpretation, supported here, of the category of experience as personal real life,
though caused by external stimuli, controllable by the firm and often loaded with emotions.
Thus views of sure interest in the tradition of management and business studies get started.
On the other hand, without going over all the studies on consumer behaviour again,
already in the early Eighties the issue of the consumer as a not perfectly rational entity,
unlike the way economic sciences had pointed out, had emerged attracting the attention of
these kinds of analysis. The so-called utilitarian studies have as its object of study the
consumer decisional problem in front of getting supplies and, consequently, of picking up
different goods. They solve the question proposing a perfectly rational customer choosing
the offer that provides the highest utility – or likely to do so – on the basis of its
characteristics. The hedonistic thought, instead, following the view of the "consumer as an
experiential being that buys for fun (Vescovi T., Checchinato F., 2003), recovers the role of
emotions as meaningful consumption experiences, not only connected to hedonic assets
(Addis M., 2002), as at the beginning, but also linked to daily consumption supplies (figure
1).
From this moment on, consumption starts to be conceived as a holistic experience, both
by the customer - that judges the performance on the basis of the involvement and the
general value he receives, not only in terms of price/quality relation of the supply (2) - and
by the firm, required to plan events, situations, real life contexts and not simply products. In
fact “consumption is an experience coming out of the interaction between a subject – the
consumer – and an object – a product, an event, an idea, a person, a place, or any other
thing within a given context” (Addis M., 2002).
In such a perspective experience becomes a new form of purchasing, like a suspension
between need and desire (Bucchetti V., 2004).
In Rifkin’s words: “in the age of material capitalism and property the emphasis was on
assets and services sale; in the cyberspace economy, the transformation of assets and
services into goods becomes secondary compared to the reification of human relations. In a
more and more frenetic and changeable network economy to keep customer attention high
means to succeed to control most of their time. Moving from moderate market transactions,
limited in time and space, to relations/goods unlimited in time, the new economic sphere is
able to subdue a wider part of daily life to profit” (Rifkin J., 2000). This is the real essence
of the modern supply system, in which the customer oriented perspective ends up to prevail
3
on the production system itself, developing in terms of “access to the customer” and
willing to establish lasting relations (not only commercial) with him (3). At this point the
challenge, especially when referred to electronic interactions, is set more and more as a
matter of relations (and control) of the consumers community. The aim of the firm, both as
a click and mortar and as a click and click kind - from production to sale, to the
management of long term relations – becomes more and more to create value (not only
economic one) for the customer, grouped within individualized micro personal clusters,
almost as if every single individual is considered as a unique and special fragment of a
society searching for unusual socializing and aggregating patterns. Just these relations and
formulas of aggregation seem to represent the present emerging, critic requirement of the
consumption system, whose defence, then, ensures the competitive advantage aimed at.
Thus the firms that succeed in this aim reap the fruits of their capacity to appeal to a
common and reciprocal feeling of understanding, apt to put back together these fragments
into “tribal” unities, urban sub groups, expressing life rules (emotional) to which the
product/service already belongs.
This is the essence of tribal marketing (Lasalle D., Britton T. A., 2003) that can put
together rituals and phenomena of emotional “polysensorial” collective consumption, thus
determining the connection values of the fragment/ subgroup. “[the firm] will communicate
to fragment/ subgroups, to neo tribes, through devoted media thanks to a new sociological
structure of its intelligence database […] This will happen without ever pushing the
purchase or for a utilitarian purpose aimed at selling, thus showing real empathy and tribal
sympathy. In the future the brand will share collective backgrounds, hobbies and tendencies
as an involved observer, sharing the socio-antropological “affective ties” of the new-tribes,
just making it known it was there as well. Within the tribe fragment an authentic totemic
role will be played by opinion leaders. Testimonials, in other words ‹whitch doctors››, will
be the aruspices of the bribal phenomenon, capable of starting the clapper board for a new
scene: the passage from customers to costum-actors” (Alvisi M., 2004).
Values are recognized in four main components, originating a shared common sense:
sense of belonging, as the awareness to be part of a neo-tribe, allows group members to
experience a feeling of emotional, affective, physical, economic safety and of identification
with the micro-group, with which to share an exclusive symbolic system; influence,
reciprocal and bi-directional, of the individuals on the group and of the tribe on individuals;
integration and the needs satisfaction coming from belonging to a specific community (4);
finally, shared emotional connection, that is the availability of a common story, possibly
shared between group members, that increases group cohesion through events, rituals,
repeated and shared positive experiences. All that is highly claimed in virtual communities.
Emerging neo tribes, namely consumer communities, on the one hand and the
opportunity of relation with them, using a shared value-symbolic register, on the other
hand, allow to try out relational nets supporting transactions between firms and consumers.
In other words, there is a new situation, with a high informative, emotional and sensory
content, that allows the “tribal” consumer, or the cyber consumer, to enjoy real events and
experiences, these becoming themselves an object of interest. The relation with the firm is
built well beyond a mere mediation between the parts, being based, above all, on
“generative communication”, whose aim is “to generate”, to produce and to spread sense,
identity, sharing of purposes, through the activation of emotional alarms, capable to give
meaning to such enunciative activity. Within marketing communication, incorporating
emotions has a key function, leading the individual narrative process first, and the
collective one on a second relational stage, towards perception of the experience.
In order to convey the ready-made experience correctly, if communicative processes
strongly direct and influence the consumption system they sponsor (and they are set in), the
system gives shape and substance to the communication processes themselves, that ensure
visibility and expression. Such interdependence develops a spiral pattern showing the two
dimensions in continuous progress with ever different and innovative forms.
In other words, consumption experience succeeds in becoming an appreciable economic
proposal of value if the capability to do stands side by side with the capability to make it
known (5), that is to make it visible outside (Siano A., 2001). In other words, consumption
experience has its substance in the degree of communication it assumes to take shape.
Experience, in fact, shows and feeds in itself a strong communicative need, that supports its
vitality with the opportunity to be recognized by the customer and be endowed with value.
All this states the need of communication of the experience.
4
On the side of communicative needs it is possible to observe, above all, an alteration of
the space-temporal structure of the consumption routine. Together with this, the productive
critical role of consumption so far described and the renewed centrality of the
communicative agreement between consumption and its elaboration re-consider the
theoretical and practical interpretative pattern used in firm communication up to now.
Experience, therefore, individuates in the action itself (that is in its being carried out and
reproduced) its own medium, the channel/ means to connect itself to the external world,
thus creating its own space of influence, namely the consumer community using it.
The absolute necessity of communication, therefore, appears to be a decisive intangible
factor for the survival and development of an experience producing firm, provided that the
communication need is a faithful representation of the inspiring values of the system. The
hypothesis supported here gives an interpretation of the concept of experience that doesn’t
only limit its field of action to a dramatization of the event performed, intentionally made
spectacular by the firm (Pine J. B. Gilmore J. H., 2000) – also following a cognitive model
that is self-portrayed in the consumer/navigator’s mind, given certain expectations, whose
form is clearly defined while being put into action - but is related to the context (portal,
firm web site etc.) in which the event is lived and to what has been previously known from
business interactions. With regard to this, we can justify the trend inversion according to
which the orientation to the image (by the firm offering experience proposals), meant as
mere appearance coming out of an advertising formula with limited action in time and
effects - is replaced by orientation to transparency in firm business communication. So,
firm communication is transparent when, conveying its own corporate identity, allows
superior systems to perceive the underlying corporate personality. This aims at reaching a
balance between corporate identity (as the whole of the visual elements of the system
organization) and corporate image (the way communication is perceived by the external
audience at a given time).
The codification of experience, seen as a commercial offer or, at least, as an integrant
part of it, gets its features first of all from institutional (traditional) communication strategy.
This carries out the conversion process from corporate identity into corporate image
(Ferraro G., 1998) through a clear expression of the competence of the firm, what it is, its
corporate personality (6).
What has been fundamentally noticed is that the customer no longer falls within a
generic definition of public, passively assisting to a show performed by the firm. In fact the
value of the experience is recognized to be just in the customer/ navigator’s involvement in
the show. As a consequence, in order to be realized in its experiential form, the
performance must be able to originate an interaction, if not physical, at least emotional,
with its user. That is to be able to cause a modification in him. These are the bases the value
model is essentially built on. In fact “We have all experienced times when, instead of being
buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate.
On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of
enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life
should be like. This is what we mean by optimal experience” (Csikszentmihalyi M., 1990).
In the consumer perspective, therefore, customer experience as a rewarding human
expression, is experienced when the psychic energy involved is carried on not only as high
emotional involvement but also as control of the situation (Mathwick C., Rigdon E., 2004).
In literature it is referred to as “flow experience”. Taking as reference points two
dimensions, that is the grade of ability the situation requires, and the grade of challenge
perceived by the user, namely the psychic energy involved, it is possible to go through
alternative experiences, depending on whether the user perceives a limited energy to be
applied in front of little involving (in which case a sense of bore and apathy will be felt) or
more involving competitions (which will produce a feeling of worry, anxiety and
excitement). The increasing capacity level will lead to a relaxing feeling first, and then a
sense of control with increasing challenge level, up to the flow experience, in which both
dimensions are active. Of course these kinds of experiences are not lived in the same way
by all customers, the point of view being typically subjective and so individual.
Therefore, “Contrary to expectation, «flow» usually happens not during relaxing
moments of leisure and entertainment, but rather when we are actively involved in a
difficult enterprise, in a task that stretches our mental and physical abilities. Any activity
can do it. Working on a challenging job, riding the crest of a tremendous wave, and
teaching one’s child the letters of the alphabet are the kinds of experiences that focus our
5
whole being in a harmonious rush of energy, and lift us out of the anxieties and boredom
that characterize so much of everyday life” (Csikszentmihalyi M., 1990). In our opinion,
however, “flow experience” does not necessarily qualify a category of events connected to
extraordinary modifications of the Web user, as it has usually been interpreted - extreme or
epiphanic experiences - but can be referred, instead, to all those events that stimulate a high
level of attention in the customer, causing him a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. This
seems to rightly involve the shopping experience too.
A correct interpretation of the tipology of the experience created for and with the
support of the customer becomes fundamental not only to verify at any moment the
direction undertaken and the coherence with what has been planned and with the aims of
the firm, but also to quantify the significance produced by the considered event compared
to the sacrifice. That is the engagement the consumer is required to make use of.
It’s evident that market oriented firms, aiming at objectives of excellence, find in customer
satisfaction their differentiating plus, compared to their competitors. This happens
especially when customer satisfaction can be enhanced through high quality of the
goods/services supplied, thus not only as abstract and intangible added value, but as a result
of concrete actions. Carrying out a flow experience, however, is also part of the capacity to
limit the sacrifice required of or experienced by the customer within low levels, amplifying
the effects of satisfaction. In fact sacrifice, meant as the difference between what the
customer demands in the specific situation (his wishes) and what he contents himself with,
can be removed, or at least balanced, appealing to the product in itself, modifying,
therefore, its functions, or acting on its representation (communication, packaging, brand
etc). Varying or keeping one of the mentioned aspects, with regard to different sacrifice
typologies of the consumer, we can point out four approaches to mass personalization
applicable by the firm, thus identifying an effective solution in increasing the value of
global experience. This is different from planning the offer referring to a medium customer,
previously defined as a conceptual abstraction and, therefore, expressing a solution that can
displease almost everybody (consequently amplifying rather than reducing sacrifices). A
first kind of sacrifice the consumer undergoes concerns making multidimensional decisions,
in order to satisfy needs that are not satisfied by mass offer. Collaborative personalization,
in such a case, allows planning solutions directly getting information from the user, who is
offered an exploration experience (of the possible alternative solutions). Adaptive
customization, instead, is used to eliminate a kind of sacrifice linked to the difficulty of
selection in front of business proposals characterized by wide and deep ranges. By
promoting customer direct participation in selecting a functionality-to-be-personalized pre
existent in the supply, experimentation experience is enhanced at the same time. Cosmetic
customization, instead, allows supplying a different standardized product to satisfy different
customer requirements, playing on its presentation (commercialisation, label or package).
This way, the consumer lives a gratifying experience, because he finds the firm supply
(though unchanged in its basic functions) arranged according to his personal cues (for
example the web site eshirt.it gives the opportunity to personalize clothes and accessories
you want to buy with pictures, photos and printings or to pick up the package and labels to
post presents). Finally, the elimination of the unwished intrusion by the firm - with
consequent simplification of the interactions - obtained through transparent personalization
(that is personalizing the supply in the following interactions, on the basis of the customer
spontaneous indications in the first contacts and stored in special databases), allows the
purchaser to appreciate the essential nature of the supply without having to concentrate on
repetitive and borings details. In such a way, the sacrifice of a continuous repetition is
pulled down (escaping experience). All this represents the ground on which the surprise to
be stimulated in the customer has to be based. Such a surprise comes from a “romantic”
interpretation of the experienced offer, proposing unexpected, surprising uses, thus getting
detached from the past. Though simple in its content, surprise makes the experience
extraordinary, that is particular, thanks to the unexpected it contains. From an operative
point of view, combining the 3 S model (sacrifice, satisfaction, surprise) with the impact the
event has on the customer – as to utilitarian and emotional participation, that is as the
importance the event has within the individual’s significance system – it is possible to
determine the value that has been produced or that can be proposed from the experience
(figure 2).
Provided that the outcome aimed at by the firm is the transformation of sacrifices into
surprises, that is rewards (obtained as the margin between customer perceptions and
6
wishes), it is possible to outline a score system from 1 to 3, where 1 identifies acceptable
sacrifice or ordinary surprise and 3 is for any unbearable sacrifice or priceless experience.
The aim is to express in quantitative terms the whole value experienced by the user (7).
Customer loyalty is evidently aroused when a higher score is obtained (in absolute terms)
for surprising events, that is for extraordinary and priceless events, compared to the score
for experiences within sacrifice dimension (8). Understanding the potentialities in a
surprise-causing consumption situation, together with the attraction power played on the
cyber-consumer, therefore, provides elements explaining the complexity of consumption
behaviours themselves and of the experiences carried out. Experiences end up representing
real options of life, often pre-existent to firm intervention, but endowed with meaning only
if properly recognized by the customer thanks to a supply and communication plan capable
of making them come out.
3. ON LINE EXPERIENCE SPACE: THE COMMUNITY ROLE
The cyberspace represents, without any doubt, a place where the web navigator can go
through new extremely involving shopping experiences, in which his whole attention is
focused on specific activities or experiences. Virtual space is in itself a stimulating and
challenging place, ideal to create situations that can catch the mental energy of the user,
who remains the only director of his navigation route. Of course, the probability for the user
to experience amazing conditions decreases with increasing electronic surfing. In fact Web
browsing will mainly go through favourite links, previously appreciated.
The firm aim will be to spot the moment when the Web navigator can reach the "zenith"
of his positive experience on the Web. Only through searching this experiential space, there
will be the opportunity to get precious information to improve on line services. It is
necessary to specify that connection to the net is not sufficient to guarantee the realization
of flow experiences; these, in fact, as already pointed out, are more likely to take place
when more conditions occur at the same time, both exogenous (connection speed, presence
of catching multimedia elements, etc.) and endogenous (customer predisposition and
attitude, absence of disturbing factors and time limitations). Analysing the various
behaviours of Internet users during their navigation, therefore, becomes particularly
important (Prandelli E., Verona G., 2002). From this point of view, two perspectives can be
pointed out, the first referring to the case when Web navigation answers to a specific aim
(goal-oriented mind set), the second being typical of navigation aimed at searching new
experiences (experiential mind set) (figure 3).
Such an analysis becomes fundamental if we consider that the firm is now worried
about the necessity of monitoring customer needs through all the phases of goods and/or
services exchange, and of getting to know, soon and better, possible latent needs or
discrepancies in the perceived value. Compared to the past, being present on the market
space through interactive relations is no longer sufficient to get deep knowledge of the
significant differences between customer groups. A forum, in which consumers interact,
exchanging their opinions, perceptions and feelings, is moved into Web micro-systems,
reproducing a social dimension where hypermedia communication can avoid its traditional
limits (9). The participants’ diversity, characterizing the virtual community, recovers, in
part, the emotional content, otherwise absent in similar communicative forms. The use of
“emoticons”, namely icons representing facial expressions connected to specific feelings, is
only an example of the electronic vocabulary used by on line tribal communities. From this
point of view, the privileged place for the users to communicate their own experience,
whether positive or negative, will be, without any doubt, the virtual community.
The power of the community consists in including the two big macro-categories of
Web users, that is active and passive one. The former can be essentially referred to a
communication set where privileged interactions between firm and consumers take place
(one-to-one). The latter, instead, is similar to mass communication customers, “passively”
subject to the different communication actions present in the cyberspace (one-to-many).
Communication, occurring within the community, can be defined by the relation many-tomany, as the participants carry out informative exchanges without a unique recognized and
legitimate source (10) (figure 4).
At the beginning of the Internet phenomenon it was thought that it was communication
technology that determined the public mind set, so mass communication users were
7
exclusively associated to traditional market. This position, however, lost sight of the
enormous potentialities the market space can offer for the development of effective
relational marketing strategies. The navigator’s mind set is not only of an
exploratory/hedonistic type, thus characterized by an almost “obsessive” desire to
experience new situations. Web users are, in fact, also a mass audience, thus not necessarily
obsessed by the need of always being active (Prandelli E., Verona G., 2002).
Creating a virtual environment, where to develop effective relational marketing
strategies, must allow both interpersonal communication (one-to-one) and mass
communication (one-to-many). The Web user wants to gain the option of interactivity,
autonomously deciding when to activate it.
In this perspective, the community creates the space in which the relation firmcustomer can appeal to the value of loyalty. In fact the deep knowledge given by such
virtual space allows the organization to supply personalized and, subsequently, customized
services. The invisible participation to the community, hidden in the role of an active
member, allows perceiving useful signals to arrange offers modelled on the needs expressed
by members, without these being aware of their role of information spreaders. The
participants’ indirect involvement in the project phase of on line goods and/or services
supply, allows the firm to optimize its own resources, aiming at specific policies of
differentiation/personalization. This way, in fact, the firm can “approach” a variegated
range of users, though within a limited portion of market, namely the community.
The benefits of this activity can reveal themselves to be extremely different from one
field to another. For example, for highly informative activities, the firm can succeed in
producing considerable low cost advantages for the customers. In other cases, instead
(cosmetics, car, etc.), customer benefits meet very high costs for the firm. Firm
participation to independent communities as a hidden member answers to purely
informative requirements. However when the firm decides to focus on the management of
its own virtual community, the value to be communicated has to be different. In this sense
the community is depicted as a precious source of value, as interactions between
participants inevitably confirm, explicitly or implicitly, either the success or the failure of a
brand and/or of a business. The organ of government will have to exorcise the danger of
betraying the expectations of its brand community and be careful to “watch” its interactive
and developing dynamics in order to prevent the possible reverse of the medal. The greater
risk is to see the virtual community being transformed from a supporter of the brand
development and management into a ruthless enemy that, if not listened to and fulfilled in
its more pressing requests, can cause considerable damages to the business image, as well
as considerable losses. In order to avoid the danger of such metamorphosis, the firm will
have to appeal to the consumer’s feeling of identification with the brand, supported by an
informative exchange giving value to the spontaneity of the communication between
members of the community (many-to-many).
Community marketing can become, therefore, a winning business model if the firm is
willing to invest on the community, activating learning processes based on collaboration
with its customers.
4. VIRTUAL COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION TO THE VALUE CREATION OF THE FIRM
The firm and its management staff have to get informed and be aware of situations,
behaviours and values so as to be able to stimulate and integrate them through their best
proposal of views, services, and goods. Moreover their offer can be strengthened through
exchange of the experiences that the individual consumption actor carries out with other
consumption subjects, succeeding in combining the need of subjectivity with the one of
globality/socialization of the experience. Those needs would otherwise keep their
dichotomy, leaving dissatisfaction in the individual. Such dialectics between the two
dimensions of a person gives birth to a reciprocal exchange in which the dimensional union
creates a cognitive memory effect. This is not simple recollection (as remembering
something from the past), but also the capacity to renew itself (viable memory) (Morace F.,
2003).
The acceptable basis of the business supply is normally found in the price-quality
relation, operating a synthesis based on the relation between the creation of the firm value
and firm performance itself. In an overall vision, the price-quality relation expresses the
8
degree of the consumer trust about the capacity of the firm to realize a suitable product to
satisfy a specific need.
Price is the sacrifice the consumer stands by employing his assets to get satisfaction.
The consumer, therefore, weighs, also in perceptive terms, the firm activity, connecting his
judgement to the expected quality in a positive way and to the sacrifice planned to get the
goods in a negative way. The qualitative level the firm manages to reach in the consumer
perception is the means, for the government organ, to meet its obligations with the whole
“consumption system”. Consumer sacrifice and his longed for satisfaction are variables on
which the relation firm -“consumption system” is built. The ways to manage the sacrifice
stand in the capacity of the interacting systems and their ability to be open.
The dynamics of consumption system are characterized by a mutual change, sharing
value and visions. The two systems have common areas of interests that drawing a common
field of action drawn with the value system (figure 5). Inside the relation there is
construction of value. Its contents and its dynamics are in the nets of communications.
Infact, value creation has its roots in the experiential relation in which consumer has a proof
of the process, relation and performance benefit (Cantone L., 2002).
Sharing the experience through a H2H (Human-to-Human) (11) approach favours the
consolidation of links of familiarization about emotional cognition. They improve the
satisfaction with an influence on perceived sacrifice. The contribution of the experience to
the performance will be in the direction to lessen the effective sacrifice. The consequence is
a value adding more proportional than isolated satisfaction or sacrifice.
Satisfaction and loyalty processes activate learning and co-development processes –
creating the “inter-organizational” set of the system, emerging from the systemic
interaction firm/consumption - and allow managing the relation with the creating-value
consumption “system” (Barile S. et al, 2001) (figure 6).
The firm can affect these processes and, in particular, the loyalty relation, influencing
perception and preference dynamics that start the inter-systemic relation. The kind of need
to satisfy is the first move to the search and characterizes the interactive availability of the
consumption system. The symbolic content of the firm output is the factor that starts the
interaction of the firm-viable system with the consumer /consumption system and outlines
the degree of the perceived satisfaction. It can be affirmed that the symbolic content of the
product affects the degree of opening, together with the relation intensity (criticality and
impact power), within the relation with the consumption system.
In the exchange relation, therefore, the firm can create suitable situations to
communicate the experiences looked for by the customer. The objective is the creation of a
value system just by starting the relation (D’Amato A. et al., 2003) - sharing for changing thus creating occasions for group experiences and for long lasting connections within the
group, in order to originate opportunities and communication of experienced situations and
meanings. The clan comes into being as a moment of the operating integration and of
information in the creation of a value system for the customer, from which the firm value
derives too. Here is the clan, an organizational or proto-organizational structure (as a viable
system) in which “members are bound together over a very long run (Ouchi W. M., 1984).
A clan is formed both in front of uncertainty concerning which goods/services to
provide for customer satisfaction and in front of the subsequent difficulty in estimating the
individual contribution to creating the product (Ouchi W. M., 1980).
A clan outlines a proto - organization through which it is possible to establish a mutual
relation of reciprocity and exchange and make it work. This allows a continuous renewal of
the relation and provides the basis not only for estimation but also for continuous
transformation of the mutable. It’s basically what happens in virtual communities where
common values and traditions are used to create the necessary cohesion and trust towards
the existence of the community. Some of these present virtual clans appear to be viable and
autonomous; rather than merely representing a public, they will be an efficient and effective
means to organize efforts towards the uncertainty of the knowledge and mutability
characterizing the present context of global and individual consumption. Sharing values,
beliefs and traditions and having community and solidarity of purposes, allow realizing the
transition space in which exchange between community members takes place. This
situation creates new spaces of experience by outlining a shared ludic dimension within
which new forms of consumption are created.
It would be interesting to identify a conceptual basis of analysis allowing going beyond
intuition, thus outlining new replicable paths (Lanzone G., 2003). Such basis is given
9
through the sacrifice/satisfaction approach – that allows outlining a path giving way to
customer definition of values – and through the virtual community clan, that creates an
interactive connection, almost a physiological relation between members of the group. Such
relation is founded on a relational exchange between subjectivity of the individuals taking
part into it and communication of their experiences (Nonaka I., Toyama R., 2003).
Thus a learning process is realized allowing, through everyday interaction within the
virtual space, to share individual knowledge. Once being communicated to the group, this
leads to innovation as a possible new experience. A further result would be that of a
consumption experience lived in a transitive way, allowing preservation of a viable
memory. This is meant as a living opportunity to include “the possibility to valorise space
and time surrounding us”, as a “replicable event of experiences and stories lived by a
people” (Morace F., 2003).
Not only does virtual community/ clan memory appear as alive and replicable, but also
and above all as renewable. This is possible thanks to its capacity of re-elaboration of new
experience in which the emotional past is not only a memory store, but is re-combined
through socialization – thus giving inspiration and stimulus towards new horizons for
creativity in matters of new forms of consumption and experiences and even identifying the
objects through which this can come true.
Ensuing from the socialization process inside the community are the processes of
internalisation and externalization (knowledge being expressed through conversation and
reflection), realizing the necessary synthesis for a new equilibrium in the firm-customer
relation. Within this relation the customer is no more a simple endogenous component of
value, but an essential component in the enlarged structure of the firm as a viable system,
this being plunged in the relation with the consumption system and vice-versa.
The firm can become a member of this clan, taking part as an outside subject or as a
subject not identified as a firm. Thus it will play an active part, sharing its customers’
consumption experience (table 1).
Value mix - as supply of provided value, represented by the whole of the elements
given to the customer in terms of concrete product, by the service content and by the
capacity to create new situations – is changed and renewed just by creating opportunities
and exchange situations. Thus the firm is given the bases on which to re-define its action,
its role and its main interlocutor’s (the customer). Actions like the
optimisation/reorganization of the chain and the entry into new markets identify strategies
for long term keeping of the competitive advantage of the firm and thus of its sustainability
itself.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Consumption, recognized by Mauss as a global social fact in which the individual
experiences his own existential realization, combining everyday his individual and civil
dimension, proposes a new interaction field for the firm. The firm doesn’t only have to
outline, but it also has to be able to create an emotional interaction with its customer, that is
to originate consumption experiences leading to the creation of something new.
Business on line appears to be particularly suitable to establish a reciprocal exchange –
first between groups of consumers and then between customers and firm – of consumption
experiences. This allows the virtual opening apt to establish, between consumers and firm,
the necessary dialogue to start an exchange flow. This will allow containing within low
levels the sacrifice the customer supports, amplifying the effects of satisfaction, through
experiencing particular or extraordinary situations. In order to achieve this, the firm needs
not only to carry out a dialogue one to many through Web interaction (e.g. forums), but also
to test, monitor and create, through communication and reception of the emotions the
consumer/customer feels about its proposals. The consumer/navigator that surfs the Web
with an exploratory spirit, led by a ludic and cognitive motivation, participates in the
communities, activating a relation many-to-many as he carries out informative exchanges
without a unique and identified source of authority. This source will be identified just in the
group within which the customer will share his experiences, values and also, in time,
traditions. These features belong to organizational systems that are based on the structure of
the clan in which the relational component, consolidated in sharing a common belief or
intent, prevails. Thus it becomes possible for the groups and the firm to find a common
10
field of action where the customer has the opportunity to create his own satisfaction just as
his needs come out, while the firm can re-position itself along the continuous progress that
it will be able to outline even together with its target customers. Thus the firm will be able
to identify the changes in behaviour as they occur, so as to go on creating value and
keeping its own competitive advantage.
Selected bibliography
ADDIS M., “Nuove tecnologie e consumo di prodotti artistici e culturali: verso
l’edutainment”, in Micro & Macro Marketing, n. 1/2002
ALVISI M., Da consumatori a consum-attori, www.mymarketing.net, 2004
BARILE S., BUSACCA B., COSTABILE M., “L’innovazione negli studi sui processi di
consumo: vettori evolutivi e percorsi di ricerca”, in Sinergie, n. 55, 2001
BUCCHETTI V., (a cura di), Design della comunicazione ed esperienze di acquisto, Franco
Angeli, Milano, 2004
CANTONE L., "Creazione di valore per i clienti e relazioni tra imprese nei mercati business
to business: i cambiamenti indotti dalle nuove tecnologie dell'informazione e della
comunicazione, in Congresso internazionale “Le tendenze del marketing”, École
Supérieure de Commerce de Paris-EAP, 25-26 Gennaio 2002
CARÙ A., COVA B., “Esperienza di consumo e marketing esperienziale: radici diverse e
convergenze possibili”, in Micro & Macro Marketing, n. 2/2003
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI M., Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Perseus Book, New
York, 1997
D’AMATO A., TORTORA D., ZOCCOLI P., “La customer satisfaction e il sistema di consumo:
ipotesi per la creazione di un differenziale competitivo”, in Esperienze d’impresa, S/1,
Special Series, 2003
DI NALLO E., Quale marketing per la società complessa?, Franco Angeli, Milano, 1998
GOLINELLI G. M., L’approccio sistemico al governo dell’impresa. L’impresa sistema vitale.
vol. I, Cedam, Padova, 2000
GRANDI R., Cultura d’impresa e corporate identity: valori, credenza, fiducia, cambiamenti
e centralità del punto di vista semiotico, in FERRARO G., (edit. by), L’emporio dei segni,
Meltemi Editore, Roma, 1998
LANZONE G., “Complessità del mondo e scenari di previsione”, in Sviluppo &
Organizzazione, n. 197, May/June 2003
LASALLE D., BRITTON T. A., Priceless, Etas, Milano, 2003
MATHWICK C., RIGDON E., “Play, Flow, and the Online Search Experience”, in Journal of
Consumer Research, Vol. 31, September 2004
MORACE F., “Il marketing dell’esperienza, la felicità, i generi e le generazioni”, in Sviluppo
& Organizzazione n. 197, May/June 2003
NONAKA I., TOYAMA R. , “L’impresa che crea conoscenza", in Sviluppo & Organizzazione,
n. 197, May/June 2003
OUCHI W. M., “Markets, Bureaucracies and Clans”, in Administrative Science Quarterly,
25, March, 1980
OUCHI W. M., “The M-form organization”, in Human Resource Management, Summer
1984, vol. 23, n. 2
PINE J. B.,GILMORE J. H., L’economia delle esperienze. Oltre il sevizio, Etas, Milano, 2000
PORTER M.E., Il vantaggio competitivo, Edizioni Comunità, Milano, 1987.
PRANDELLI E., VERONA G., Marketing in rete, McGraw-Hill, Milano, 2002
RIFKIN J., L’era dell’accesso. La rivoluzione della new economy, Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore, Milano, 2000
SIANO A., “Comunicazione per la trasparenza e valori guida”, in Sinergie, n. 59/02
SIANO A., Competenze e comunicazione del sistema d’impresa. Il vantaggio competitivo tra
ambiguità e trasparenza, Giuffrè Editore, Milano, 2001
SIRI G., La psiche del consumo. Consumatori, desiderio e identità, Franco Angeli, Milano,
2001
VESCOVI T., CHECCHINATO F., “Luoghi d’esperienza e strategie competitive al dettaglio”,
Congresso Internazionale “Le tendenze del marketing”, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia,
28-29 November 2003
11
Notes
(1) In this case we can distinguish the experience of the individual, based on common sense
and generating individual knowledge, from the scientific one, bringing universal
knowledge.
(2) Thus single subjective experience gains value to the detriment of general models.
(3) Here goes the flourishing of marketing studies, pointing out the increasing attention to
the customer centrality, first in terms of relations (relational marketing), then of cognitive
and emotional involvement (experience marketing).
(4) This component evidently acts as a strengthening element, fortifying, just thanks to the
experienced satisfaction, the integration with the group that makes it possible.
(5) There is a new challenge for the firm: in order to conquer competitive advantages, to be
able “to do” is no more as crucial as to be able to make this firm specific ability visible.
New must “to make it known”, through explicit communication of one’s own distinctive
competences. This is a dichotomy played on ambiguity and transparency, the former to
protect distinctive knowledge, the latter as a necessary preliminary condition of explicit
communication and a new difficulty for the firm.
(6) In his work on the issue of business culture and its realtion to corporate identity,
Grandi, following Berstain’s study, mentions three kinds of identity, aiming at outlining the
idea of corporate identity. Accordino to it, we can speak of “identity as sameness, which
implies the principle of coherence; as individuality, which implies the link with personality;
as mark, identifying the owner, which implies identification of the brand”. According to
Berstain, therefore, corporate identity outlines planned visual messages, capable of
symbolizing the firm, thus allowing the public to recognize and distinguish it. In the
author’s opinion, the limit of this position consists in linking the issue of visual identity
only to a communicative dimension. Instead, Grandi himself defines the concept in a
different way, conveying into the idea of corporate identity all that has to be valorised and
communicated about the firm. In doing this, he considers a series of interpretative ties
(concerning tangible aspects, such as firm structures and markets, and pre-existent matters
leading to the firm history, present – its mission – and future – strategic planning; finally
ties coming from the interpretation of the firm positioning and product) emerging just in the
attempt of outlining credible identity features.
(7) It has to be noticed that in ordinary events the score attributed to surprise - almost non
existent or not such as to be perceived by the customer - and to sacrifice – acceptable, as
being expected before buying, such as in front of ludic, esthetic, educative experiences - is
identical.
(8) For example, if the customer has been involved in an ordinary experience and two
extraordinary ones (for a total score of 1 + 2*2 = 5), three unacceptable experiences
(sacrifices) and an intolerable one (2 * 3 + 3 = 9), the negative experiences, that is what has
been experienced along the sacrifice dimension, overcome the positive events (along the
surprise dimension) for a score of 9 to 5. That means no value experience has been
perceived.
(9) Mediated communication, as impersonal communication, is considered little exciting;
the highly informative content that characterizes it, in fact, corresponds to a modest social
content, because of the lack of not oral codes.
(10) Another way to communicate on-line is the many-to-one type in which several Web
users address the same interlocutor. An example is that of the virtual auction.
(11) Human to Human approach is employed as Human Resource Management approach.
In our vision, the relation with the consumer is inside the system of value of the firm and,
then, inside of it.
12
Figure 1 - Connecting consumer studies
Consumption
Experience
Instrumental
orientation
Hedonic
orientation
Satisfaction
pursuit of
maximum utility
Relation
Pleasure
Action
pursuit of fantasies,
feeling, fun
Stimulus
emotion as characteristics of
the product and consumption
emotion as a form of perception
of the product characteristics
Figure 2 - Events-experience matrix
=
Customer
perceptions
>
Customer
expectations
Sacrifice
=
customer
wishes
>
acceptable
performance
Surprise
=
Customer
perceptions
>
customer
wishes
KINDS OF EVENT/ FEELING PERCEIVED
Satisfaction
surprise
ordinary
experience
priceless
extraordinary experience
experience
Zero or modest impact experience
satisfaction
acceptable
experience
sacrifice
low
unacceptable
experience unbearable
experience
medium
high
IMPACT
13
Figure 3 - Types of Web customer mind-sets
NAVIGATOR’S MIND SET
Deliberative
Operating
Exploratory
Goal-oriented mind set
Types
of
BtoC
web
sites

Stand
alone


Isp
Intelligent
agent
Hedonistic
Experiential mind set


Vortal
Generalistic
e-tailer

Auction

Virtual
stores

Customerfocused e-tailer


Forum
Virtual
community

Blog
Rational
factors’
influence
Emotional
factors’
influence
Figure 4 - Communication types in Web market
Web Market
one-to-one
many-to-many
many-to-many
one-to-many
(community)
(
Figure 5 - Firm – consumption system interactions
Consumption
system
Legend:
relation
price
interaction
satisfaction
product
Sub-systems
for value creation
Production
system
firm
PPPrrrooocccuuurrreeem
m
meeennnttt
H
H
m
R
M
m
Huuum
maaannnR
ReeesssooouuurrrccceeeM
Maaannnaaagggeeem
meeennnttt
TTTeeeccchhhnnnooolloloogggyyydddeeevvveeello
m
loopppm
meeennnttt
FFFiirirrm
i
n
f
r
a
s
t
r
u
c
t
u
r
e
m
i
n
f
r
a
s
t
r
u
c
t
u
r
m infrastructuree
IIInnnbbbooouuunnnddd
LLLooogggiisisstttiiciccsss
O
O
Opppeeerrraaatttiioioonnnsss Outbound
Logistics
Value for
customer
M
M
&
Maaarrrkkkeeetttiin
innggg&
&
SSSeeerrrvvviicicceeesss
SSSaaalleleesss
Consumption
system
14
Figure 6 - Value system
Source: adapted from PORTER M.E., Il vantaggio competitivo, Edizioni Comunità, Milano, 1987
Table 1 - The centrality of the customer: Views and tools
Principles
Customer-Focused
Proposition
Customer-Driven
Organization
Customer relation
means
“Traditional” View (Segmentation+ “Value” View
Marketing mix)
(value mix + value profile)
+ Value System
Formulating a portfolio that satisfies Formulating a value system to satisfy
profitably homogeneous groups of profitably customer value profile.
customers.
(Value Profile of Perceived value)
(Segmentation)
Placing the portfolio on the market Placing the value proposal on the
integrating it with functional market integrating it with components
components of customer satisfaction. of released value for customer
satisfaction.
(Marketing Mix)
Value system:
Enacting the relational exchange
satisfaction-sacrifice through intersystemic interaction.
Carrying out action and exchange
through
consumption micro structures such as virtual communities
for on line business
Source: adapted from LASALLE D., BRITTON T. A., Priceless, pag. XXVIII
15