Adopting the experiential values propositions as e-atmospherics:an illustration through the case of e-banking

For a couple of years now, the Columbia Business School and in particular Bernd Schmitt have been advocating for more work to be done regarding 'experiential marketing'. Taking the case of e-atmospherics in Turkish e-banking practices, we revisit the theory of strategic experiential modules which are sense, feel, think, act and relate. Two major ebanking experience providers' types of communication, product design, retail presence and epresence have been unpacked. These are Garanti Bank, who's known with its many award winning web site, and Akbank who has a standard web site. The Turkish banking at the border of the EU and under global influences has expended and liberalized dramatically over the last decade making the most of new technologies, hence offering an interesting perspective in a non-homogenous society where the technological divide remains important. First a qualitative content analysis of both bank's homepages is conducted. This is followed by 43 online surveys, where 18 is Garanti Bank consumer, 19 is Akbank consumer and 6 is both Garanti and Akbank consumer, to explore how e-atmospherics experiential features currently recognized by users. Our findings indicate that experiential marketing in e-banking can be expected to be the key to greater online migration of consumers and differentiation among the players. Yet, while the first two steps sense and feel are explicitly developed by both players, act and relate still remain poor. Moreover, 'think' is discovered to be a key moderator where both banks seem to lack clear strategy.

Using an experiential business game to stimulate sustainable thinking in marketing education

Recent years have seen a significant increase in the importance of environmental protection and sustainability to consumers, policy makers, and society in general. Reflecting this, most organizations are at least aware of this new agenda and wish to be seen as taking steps to improve behaviors in this regard. However, there appears to be a gap between this evolving agenda and the comparatively low level of knowledge that marketing managers actually have of the environmental impact of their own functional decisions. We suggest that this low knowledge level may be due, in part, to the marketplace focus of foundational marketing educational programs, and we attempt to show how broadening the horizons of marketing courses can help students (i.e., future managers) more deeply understand the environmental consequences of their actions. We demonstrate the use of a novel business game, based on the Life Cycle Assessment method, as the foundational cornerstone for the development of a broad understanding of the environmental impact of marketing decisions and actions for the entire life cycle of a product—from raw material extraction to ultimate disposal. The results of an empirical study show that this approach increases students’ appreciation for, and understanding of, these fundamental environmental sustainability concepts.