Essays on value creation in experiential marketplaces

This thesis broadens the scope for understanding the value of marketing events and trade shows through the lens of service-dominant logic and, more specifically, value co-creation. Indeed, despite the broad theoretical work on both experiential marketing as well as value co-creation, very few inquiries have examined these in conjunction, or complemented their arguments with empirical evidence. To address this, I argue that the empirical study of these experiential marketing contexts from the processual perspective of value co-creation enables a more holistic conceptualization of the event experience and its outcomes. This thesis comprises of an overview of theory and five essays. First, the introductory part provides a theoretical background for the studies by reviewing the theories of value creation and experiential marketing. Consequently, I argue that the outcomes of experiential marketing should be seen from a broader perspective that accounts for the variety of values created for different stakeholders, as well as the processes that contribute to these values. Moreover, this value stems from co-constructed experiences facilitated by the interaction between different actors. In this vein, I propose that this value co-creation can be typified in a two-dimensional matrix with the dimensions of value beneficiary and teleological structure. Subsequently, the five essays empirically explore these dimensions and related modes of value creation within experiential marketplaces. Essays I and III examine the the creation of organizational value, while Essay V adopts the perspective of an individual consumer. Moreover, from a teleological angle, Essays II and III share an emphasis on autotelic value co-creation, while Essay IV examines the co-creation of instrumental value. Conceptually, this dissertation contributes to the literature on value co-creation through the introduction of a new typology of co-created experiential values. Moreover, it provides further empirical support on the view that value is co-created through the interactions of different actors and their resources. From managerial perspective, this study provides organizers of experiential marketplaces such as trade shows, exhibitions, and events with new insights and approaches for designing and systematically analyzing the outcomes of experiences as well as tactics for engaging customers in co-creation. As a result, by studying these co-creation outcomes and processes, this thesis lays foundations for increasing the accountability of experiential marketing and provides insights for developing its practices as well as to refining the measures for its evaluation. Moreover, viewing these venues as platforms for interactions between different market actors directs the attention of event organizers, exhibitors, and attendees towards imagining more interactive participation practices.