Interdependence between experience marketing and business strategy

Purpose – The extant literature on experience marketing takes a narrow functional approach engaging with issues like defining an experience brand and recommending strategies for creating a unique customer experience. The purpose of this research is to focus on the cross‐level interdependencies in the organization and examine interrelatedness between business strategy and experience marketing. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the extant literature on business strategy and experience marketing and investigating an in‐depth case study on experience marketing this article arrives at strategic principles of experience marketing. It uses an in depth analysis of a case study of an experience hotel brand covering multiple facets of its business strategy in all its complexities. Data were collected from six sources of evidence: documents, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant‐observation and physical artifacts. A total of 17 interviews lasting from one to several hours each were conducted with senior management. Analysis of the benchmark case was combined with extensive review of literature on business strategy to draw strategic principles of experience marketing which are amenable to further evaluation for enhanced generalizability. Findings – The six dimensions of business strategy: customer orientation, unique company capabilities, barriers to imitation, internal marketing, employee empowerment, and visionary leadership were found to be interrelated with experience marketing. This article also brings focus on research on cross‐level dependencies by outlining a detailed agenda for future research and operationalizing the constructs. Originality/value – The linking of experience marketing with business strategy is a novel perspective as the extant literature deals with the subject only in the context of the functional area of marketing.