The Processing and Evaluation of Experiences

I present a framework to explain how experiences are different from products, and how these differences influence consumers' processing and evaluation of experiences versus products, before choice. I define an experience as an event or series of events that a consumer lives through, while a product is a tangible object, kept in one's possession (Van Boven and Gilovich 2003). Experiences are central to consumers' lives and to businesses, but most consumer research so far has focused on tangible objects, paying less attention to intangibles such as experiences (Carter and Gilovich 2012; Holbrook and Hirschman 1982; Sun, Tat Keh, and Lee 2012). My framework has two parts. In the first part I suggest that the evaluation of experiences is associated with uncertainty and multidimensionality and that, as a consequence, experiences are better evaluated through holistic processing rather than analytic processing. In the second part I study how these differences influence consumers' processing and evaluation of experiences compared to products. I suggest that experiences are evaluated closer to the self, more vividly, and more in the form of narratives