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Experiential marketing – or memorable customer experiences – is proving a popular tool amongst businesses seeking to make an impact in a competitive world. Yet the scramble to achieve a presence among experience providers has led many companies to design and implement experiential marketing without integrating it with their overall marketing strategy. These companies often end up dissatisfying their customers rather than delighting them. This research anthology investigates different angles of experiential marketing. The 16 chapters are organised in six sections. The first section considers whether memorable customer experiences result from the use of traditional marketing practices, perhaps implemented more effectively than previously, or require entirely new practices with new foundations that turn companies into experience providers. Section two details ways businesses seek to build brands through putting experiential marketing into practice, while section three asks whether there are general principles that can be applied to the design of customer experiences which ensure successful outcomes whatever market you may operate in. Section four examines how companies manage their customer experiences once they have made the strategic decision to provide them, and section five looks at methods available to evaluate the success of these customer experiences. "Experiential marketing changes everything!" claim the management gurus, but is it really so significant that not joining this race is dangerous? The last section of the book offers a much needed critique of experiential marketing. Reviews: "The editors have assembled an impressive collection of papers on the elusive topic of experience marketing. From conceptual foundations and brands through the design and management of customer experiences, the topics covered by papers in this volume provide needed insight to any manager hoping to improve the ability of their offering's experience on customers. I heartily recommended it for both managers and academics." – Valarie A. Zeithaml, David S. Van Pelt Distinguished Professor, Kenan-Flagler Business School,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 'This is a very timely and important collection of papers that provides contemporary thinking on key issues of 21st century marketing in a well-structured and well-balanced format. The editors have done an excellent job in choosing contributions that offer a rich source of insights on customer experiences that meet the needs of academics and practitioners alike. They have skilfully avoided over-hyping ‘experiences’ and include thought-provoking critiques of experiential marketing. I would highly recommend the book. It does what good books should do—it makes you think!' —Prof. Steve Baron, University of Liverpool, The United Kingdom 'Reading this book is itself a memorable experience. The editors promise that the chapters come at the topic of consumer experience from different angles, and it is clear that they do—ethnographic, experimental, structural equation modeling, theoretical, methodological, critical, and more. The chapters take both managerial and behavioral approaches to the topic of consumer experiences and cover a wide variety of experiential contexts including magazine shops, Las Vegas strip resorts, automobiles, hot chocolate, and package tours. They also introduce a rich variety of experiential elements including luxury, authenticity, scents, and surprise. Some of the best of the materials is found in the concluding section with chapters by Brown and Holbrook offering critiques of experiential marketing. Other chapters also examine what can go wrong in delivering memorable consumer experiences, such at the work by Basil and Basil on ultra-fine dining experiences. All in all, this book provides a much richer examination of consumer experiences than most of the earlier academic and managerial books on the topic.' —Professor Russell W. Belk, Schulich School of Business, Canada ispartof: Memorable Customer Experiences : A Research Anthology pages:195-208 ispartof: pages:195-208 status: published

How will places continue to compete for the attention of potential investors, migrant workers, traders, students or tourists in an overcrowded, globalised and increasingly online market? This book provides a new perspective on the subject of Place Branding. In particular, it capitalizes on gaps across the virtual and physical global economy and builds a comprehensive and structured overview of the relevant principles, philosophies, fundamentals and models. Beyond logos and slogans, spin and gloss, it links concepts of place identity, projected image, product offering, consumption experience and perceived image in full coverage and in an orderly, theoretically modelled manner, dividing the book into relevant parts and chapters. Each part consists of a theoretical chapter and relevant research based case studies. A unique, recurring and scrupulously analyzed, best-practice, signature case study is Dubai, but also examined are Flanders (Belgium), Florida, Morocco and Singapore, the Canary Islands, The Netherlands (and its province of Zeeland), and Wales. The concluding part of the book then provides a practical, but comprehensive model that guides practitioners, students and researchers in the application of place branding. Reviews: 'This book makes a very useful addition to the rather scarce literature on the subject. What I always look for, and what I'm particularly gratified to find in this book, is a prominent acknowledgement of the 'deeds not words' school of thought which I devote most of my energies to communicating.' - Simon Anholt, Government Advisor; Author of the Anholt Nation Brands Index and Competitive Identity (Palgrave); Member of the UK Foreign Office's Public Diplomacy Board 'Robert Govers and Frank Go's new book brings a new level of intellectual rigour to the often misunderstood subject of place branding.' - Nicholas Ind, Managing Partner of Equilibrium Consulting; Author of Living the Brand (Kogan Page) and Branding Governance (Wiley) 'This book is a valuable addition to current thinking on the subject of place branding. It offers fresh insights and perspectives. I thoroughly recommend it for practioners and students of place marketing' – Roger Pride, Marketing Director of Visit Wales and co-author of Destination Branding, Creating the Unique Destination Proposition (Elsevier) 'I truly appreciate this book's attempt to approach the practice of place branding from an (applied-) academic perspective.' - Sicco van Gelder, Founder of Placebrands and author of Global Brand Strategy-Unlocking Branding Potential Across Countries, Cultures and Markets (Kogan Page). nrpages: 344 status: published

Brussels is currently facing an identity crisis, which can only partly be explained by the fact that the old national narrative –telling Brussels as the capital of Belgium- is fading away. Due to the lack of both coherence and cooperation among all the different European, Belgian and local institutional stakeholders, the new narration strategies of city imaging based on common identities are not applicable to Brussels. As a result, the existing void is not being replaced by new hegemonic regionalist or ‘European’ narratives. At first sight, the absence of so-called ‘visionary leadership’ seems to hinder the development of alternative future trajectories for the city. In this chapter, however, it is argued that this lack of both a hegemonic narrative about the city and a strong urban political regime provides the opportunity for developing more inclusive processes of constructing representations, based on cultural heritage and identities, hopefully leading to, amongst other things, more sustainable forms of tourism. ispartof: Cultural Resources for Tourism: Patterns, Processes and Policies pages:185-196 ispartof: pages:185-196 status: published