What experiences do Marvel and DC Comics provide to customers ?

Hey all !

We're back again with more knowledge...and fun !
Today, we're going to be talking about brand experience... But what is it ?

Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions and behavioural responses.
We can distinguish several experience dimensions as Josko, Brakus, Schmitt, Zarantonello highlighted it:

• Sensory
• Affective 
• Behavioural 
• Intellectual 

The brand experience scale is divided into these four different categories.

The first one is sensory; both Marvel and DC Comics provide a sensorial experience. Indeed, thanks to the different products such as video games and comic books, there is a tactile experience. People reading the comic books and playing video games use their hands to either hold the book or the gamepad. Moreover, both Marvel and DC Comics provide a visual experience, for example when one goes to see a Spiderman or a Superman movie, as well as read a comic book or play a videogame. 
If you look deeper and think about the cobranding DC Comics did with Oasis recently, you can add the taste and the sense of smell to the sensory experience. People are drinking Oasis while seeing DC Comics heros on the can.

Concerning emotions and affective, both brands provide emotions to the customers. When going to the movies, people are confronted to images that will induce emotions such as surprise, happiness, sadness, and anger …

Therefore, once you come out of the cinema after watching a movie either from Marvel (for example Spiderman) or DC Comics (Batman), you will experience certain behaviours. Indeed, children will want to buy a Spiderman or a Batman suit and walk about “POW”ing and “BAM”ing in the streets; adults will feel excited and most people usually make big movements, feel very powerful (at least a couple of minutes after coming out of the movies). There is a very specific sign most people do after watching a Spiderman movie, which is the hand sign to throw spider web like Spiderman does. Moreover, videogames tend to change user’s behaviour; on the short term, they will be more hyperactive, will scream or get annoyed at their screen…

Last but not least, intellectual experience is another dimension of the brand experience scale; people will become customers of several brands that have a partnership with Marvel or DC Comics. In the fashion business, Marvel and DC Comics influence brands (Marvel x Vans or DC Comics x Berluti). It also influences children, who will discover these brands, their superheroes, and will still be watching movies or loving Marvel and DC Comics even when they grow up, as adults. Moreover, it teaches younger children about good and evil, about heroes and villains.

To find more information about the Brand Experience Scale, please find the links below which have helped me to make this analysis !

> Developement of the brand experience scale, BH Schmitt, JJ Brakus (Advances in customer research, 2007, acrwebsite.org)
> Using the brand experience scale to profile consumers and predict consumer behaviour, L Zarantonello, BH Schmitt (Journal of Brand Management, 2010, palgrave-journals.com)
> Experiential Marketing: How to get consumers to sense, feel, think, act, relate. BH Schmitt, 1999

> http://editioncollector.fr/films/des-canettes-collector-oasis-super-heros.htlm

Thank you for reading guys !

By Cat Julia