KOREASCHOLAR

Studies regarding the relationship between purchases and happiness have consistently found an experiential advantage: people are happier when purchasing experiential products (e.g., vacations and concerts) than material products (e.g., clothes and electronics) (Caprariello & Reis, 2013; Carter & Gilovich, 2010, 2012; Pchelin & Howell, 2014; van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). This phenomenon (i.e., experiential advantage) may make marketing efforts of service firms or any companies selling experiences relatively more effective and productive in that consumers will derive a great amount of purchase happiness. On the other hand, the same phenomenon may indicate innate challenges and hurdles for firms selling products carrying materialistic features. Considering the material-experiential spectrum, approximately 50% of the industries are seeming faced with this issue. In this research, we propose a solution with which mainly material-focused products can loom more experiential, thereby benefiting from the experiential advantage. In other words, we investigate how material goods can be perceived as experiential and they can offer greater purchase satisfaction compared to when they remain as merely materialistic. Specifically, noting that reasons for experiential advantages are originated from social aspects of experiential goods (e.g., self-presentation to other people, conversational values, reputation-building, etc.), the current study shows that posting on social media can imbue social aspects, which is a key drive of the experiential advantage.

• Seunghyeon Cho(Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea)
• Jeonghwa Seo(Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea)
• Hakkyun Kim(Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea)
• Sangdo Oh(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)