Imaginative Experience

Ardianto—Imaginative Experience Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business September-December 2007, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 379–408 IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE A Narrative-Dialogic Ethnography of the Community Who Adores Its Idol Eka Ardianto Managing customer loyalty becomes an important activity in marketing management. One of the reasons is that loyal consumers tend to make good financial performances to producer. Unfortu- nately, gaining a loyal customer is not a trivial activity since there are gaps to understand consumer experience comprehensively. To fulfill the gaps, this article explores imaginative experience of the community who adores its idol in the light of cultural perspective. The members of the community who adores its idol experience the imaginative experience. The author argues that those phenomena are cultural perspective, because they are meaningful to the members. Through narrative-dialogic ethnography, the author builds the concept of imaginative experience that through the imaginative media, the members do narrative-dialogic between “the realm of areal” and “the realm of afotik” then activate the imaginative relations in “the realm of aktinik”. Every member constructs its imaginative relations into imaginative constructions formed in a personal story. Managing imaginative experience could benefit the company. It can be the “Imaginative Experience Management” (IEM) that accommodates imaginative consumers’ experiences with the company’s products deeply and sustainably through managing the story of its consumers’ imaginative experiences. It can also be linked to the customer loyalty programs. In this matter, IEM should be integrated with brand management. Keywords: community; consumer behavior; customer loyalty; consumer experience; imaginative; idol; culture; ethnography 379 Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, September - December 2007, Vol. 9, No. 3 Introduction of other people and the consequences that occurred. In general, people tend One of the major tasks of every to imitate the behavior of others when brand manager is to understand more they see that it leads to positive conse- closely how consumer experiences its quences, and they tend to avoid per- products (Schmitt 1999). Furthermore, forming the behavior of others when Holbrook (2000) argues that experien- they see that it leads to negative conse- tial perspective is one of the millennial quences. Vicarious learning is also consumers in the texts of our times. called modeling. Overt modeling in- Furthermore, consumer experiences volves consumers who are actually should be viewed in cultural perspec- observing the model (Peter and Olson tive (Spradley and Mc Curdy 1975). 2002). Secondly, the concept of refer- From that view, loyal customers tend ence group that involves one or more to relate to cultural experiences, because of a status symbol, and it is people that someone uses for a basis meaningful (Kelly 1987). for comparison or point of reference or frames of reference in forming affec- This paper explores imaginative tive and cognitive responses and per- experience of the community who forming behaviors. Reference groups adores its idol through a narrative- can be of any size (from one person to dialogic ethnography. In brand man- hundreds of people) and may be tan- agement literature, the brand image is gible (actual people) or intangible and one of ‘the sacred assets’ that should symbolic (successful business execu- be managed seriously (Keller 2003), tives or sports heroes) (Peter and Olson but there are gaps to understand closely 2002; Schiffman and Kanuk 2006). how consumers experience their prod- uct imaginatively. Moreover, ethnog- There are three types of reference raphy is effectively used when fresh groups can be described: aspirational, insights are desired about consumer- associative, and dissociative. related behavior (Mariampolski 2006). Aspirational reference groups are Therefore, the objective of this paper groups that we admire and wish to be is to build the concept of imaginative like but are not currently a member of. experience through a narrative-dialogic Associative reference groups are ethnography. groups that we do belong to. Dissocia- tive reference groups are groups whose attitudes, values and behaviors we dis- The Concept of Idol approve of and that we do not wish to In consumer behavior literature, emulate (Hoyer and MacInnis 1997). there are close definitions of the con- Those concepts relate to how the cept of idol. First, the concept of vi- model become a frame of reference carious learning that refers to process and could influence its consumers to by which people change their behav- do something, but there is still a gap iors because they observed the actions how the model could influence to its 380 Ardianto—Imaginative Experience consumers to activate its imaginative they focus on the past phenomena. experience. Even though it reveals the representation of image, there is still a gap to The Concept of Imagination understand how imagination can relate to the consumers –particularly the In some consumer behavior lit- fans- and its idol. Different from those erature, several authors state the con- concepts of imagination, I consider the cept of imaginative or imaginations or concept of imagination derived from imaginary. Stevens and MacLaran Casey (1991). It is the phenomeno- (2005), who study how women’s maga- logical point of view, that the defini- zines function as ‘dream worlds’ of tion of imagination is related to inten- shopping and how contemporary read- tional structure. Intentional refers to ers consume these imaginary shop- consciousness, that the internal expe- ping spaces, define imagination as a rience of being conscious of some- visual stimulation derived from ‘con- thing; thus the act of consciousness sumer gaze’ that blurs the boundary and the object of consciousness are between fantasy and reality. Martin intentionally related (Moustakas 1994). (2004) focused on a thematizing of the In short, imagination is a relational fantastic imaginary. The term concept, between the subject (as an thematizing refers to how the evoked imaginer) and the object (as an image). imaginary is given form as mental Furthermore, Casey states that struc- imagery that involves quasi-pictorial ture of imagination can be regarded representation. Martin argues that fan- into an act of imagining and an object tastic imaginary refers to the imagi- imagined. For Casey, imagination is a nary that is evoked and thematized in a creative activity in contrast to a fan- fantastic context. Besides that, tasy. Molesworth (2006) argues that the as- “Fantasy is mere nonsense, a fleet- pects of reality used to evoke the imagi- ing impression; but imagination is nary may vary, but they may also in- active, purposeful creation...A fan- clude brands as ideas that we are used tasy is more or less your own in- to daydreaming about. Brands may vention, and remains on the sur- therefore ‘connect’ fantasies to indi- face of personal things and con- viduals’ everyday experiences. Chronis scious expectations. But active (2005) argues that the state of “what it imagination, as term denotes, really was like” may take the form of a means that the images have a life mental picture or an imaginary narra- of their own and that the symbolic tive vignette that depicts a specific events develop according to their slice of life in the past. own logic“ (Casey 1991:4). Those concepts, on one side, are More over Casey argues that: blurred between the concept of imagi- “I construe the term “image” not nation and fantasy, on the other side in its usual meaning –i.e., as a 381 Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, September - December 2007, Vol. 9, No. 3 pictorial form of imaginative pre- son, in this paper, imagination con- sentation- but rather as the mode tains both imagining and imaging. of presentation with which imagined content is given to the The Concept of Experience imaginer’s consciousness. The image is not what is present to Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) awareness -this is the content in their monumental paper argue that proper- but how this content is fantasies, feelings, and fun as the “ex- presented “(Casey 1991:39, origi- periential view”. Since then, there are nal emphasis) because in imagina- various studies in the area of experi- tion, a “leap” between two wholly ence. For instance, Carù and Cova disparate states can occur, inde- (2006) developed a more detailed ap- terminacy and possibility conse- proach to the process of immersion in quently are the characteristics of a consumption experience using the the image“ (Casey 1991: 42). notion of operations of appropriation. Creative activity in imagination Besides that, Moisio and Arnould happens both in the structure of sub- (2005) studied the extended dramatur- ject-object imagined; it is the subject gical framework incorporates distinc- dominated (because the subject has tions between drama structure, drama motivation and intention) and the ob- interaction, and drama content and of- ject dominated (because one image fers marketing researchers and manag- lives and can appear synthetically with ers a more comprehensive understand- another image). The former is imagining of the ways in which cultural re- ing, and the latter is imaging (Casey sources, active consumer agency and 1991). Imaging is not only how certain formal components of shopping per- object looks but also how it might feel formances contribute to shopping ex- to the touch. By specifically sensory,

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