The marketing literature uses five different experience terms (brand, service, product, customer/consumer, and consumption experience) that are supposed to represent different streams of research. However, many papers do not provide a definition, most of the used definitions are unclear, the different experience terms have similar dimensionality and are regularly used interchangeably or have the same meaning. This paper proposes that brand experience be the term used going forward, as it captures all experiences in marketing. Most importantly, this paper re-conceptualizes brand experience as a multi-level concept, provides a new definition for brand experience, and provides an extensive research agenda.
The relationship between trust and outcome-related responses to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is well-established in research. However, researchers’ consideration and measurement of trust are rooted in, and limited by, the field’s origins in studying offline, interpersonal word-of-mouth, a perspective that does not align with the reality of the eWOM marketspace. In this paper, we conceptualize, and offer evidence of, the eWOM marketspace as a multi-level, interconnected system shaped by multiple persuasion agents with overt and covert agendas. Analyzing data from 27 in-depth interviews, we explain how consumers develop networked, multi-dimensional assessments of trust and manage skepticism in this contemporary environment by drawing on naïve theories and learning from experience. We contribute to a more refined, fluid, and experientially-rooted understanding of consumer trust, and trust assessments in the eWOM marketspace, and offer practical implications for review platforms and marketers.