Critical Opinion as a Tool in the Marketing of Cultural Products: The Experiential Label

This article deals with the concept of the experiential label. This label conveys subjective information provided by an expert (critic) on the quality of the consumptive experience. The purpose of this empirical study was to assess the impact of the experiential label on the market for classical compact discs. The findings were that: (1) experiential labelling has a significant global impact on sales, (2) experiential labelling has a word-of-mouth effect, and (3) four specific consumer behaviours are related to perceived self-expertise and the credibility of experiential labelling. Marketing implications are discussed.