THE IMPACTS OF EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING ON THE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN RETAIL STORES: THE PROPOSAL OF A THEORETICAL MODEL

Due to the rising of personal incomes and living standards, consumers are more focused on their personal style and taste. Consumption patterns are also changed from the past ‖industrial economy,‖ to ― service economy,‖ and now to ―experiential economy.‖ Therefore, in the experience economy we live through; marketing theorists and implementers are in search of unique and entertaining experiences to create customer dependence. In this context, strategies of marketing world has changed and developed to provide consumer experience rather than selling product and service. Experience is the main component of experiential marketing and it aims to make consumers respond, act actively to purchase and gain different feelings, different perceptions in consequence of their experiences. Its purpose is to appeal to the emotional senses of the customers and to influence their choice decision. The literature revue reveals that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision-making. Across different domains, important regularities appear in the mechanisms through which emotions influence judgments and choices. The purpose of this paper is to study the role of emotions and analyze the impacts of experiential marketing on the consumer behavior in retail stores in Morocco. Our research has theoretical and managerial interests. The theoretical one is a twofold interests: The first is revisiting the decision-making approaches by completing the cognitive dimension by an emotional one. The second interest is proposing and testing a model that relates the role of emotions and experience in the decision-making process. The managerial interest is enabling companies to identify the elements able to generate favorable emotional responses, which will influence the consumer behavior and their decision-making process.