Companies devote significant resources to building lasting emotional connections with consumers. To achieve this, marketers frequently embed their products in depictions of human experiences. Some advertising campaigns position products as familiar fixtures in everyday routines, like a smartwatch worn during a daily commute. Other campaigns associate products with rare, memorable events, like wearing that same smartwatch while running a marathon.
This marketing divide raises a practical question. Do extraordinary events generate stronger emotional bonds between consumers and brands than routine touchpoints? Ying Ying Li of Susquehanna University and her colleagues designed a series of experiments to investigate how different types of experiences influence these bonds.
The resulting paper, published in the Journal of Business Research, focuses on “brand-shared experiences.” These are moments where a brand is present but is not the primary provider of the experience itself. For instance, a consumer might carry a specific brand of bottled water while attending a concert or walking through a local park.
The role of meaning in shared experiences
The researchers set out to map the psychological sequence of events that translates a consumer experience into emotional brand attachment. They hypothesized that extraordinary experiences differ from ordinary ones because they are unusual, memorable, and sit outside typical daily life. These qualities encourage people to reflect on personal significance.
According to the researchers, this heightened sense of meaning expands a person’s cognitive scope. When a brand is physically or conceptually present during a highly meaningful event, consumers are more likely to integrate the brand into their understanding of the memory. Instead of viewing the product as a passive object, the consumer begins to perceive the brand as an active participant in the event.
The study proposes that this sequence operates like a chain reaction. An extraordinary event increases a consumer’s sense of personal meaningfulness. This elevated meaning is linked to a stronger perception that the experience was shared with the brand. That perception of a shared experience then increases emotional attachment to the brand.
Testing the chain of events
To test this proposed sequence, the research team conducted four distinct studies using both imagined scenarios and physical consumption in a laboratory setting. The first study recruited 221 participants who were asked to imagine watching a show at a local theater while drinking a fictitious brand of bottled water.
To manipulate the type of experience, half of the participants were told they were attending a special 10th-anniversary showing of a beloved production. The other half were told they were attending a standard premiere. Participants in the anniversary group reported a significantly higher level of emotional attachment to the fictitious water brand than those in the standard premiere group.
A second study asked 238 participants to recall either an extraordinary or an ordinary experience involving their actual cellphones. Extraordinary prompts included attending a favorite artist’s live concert or visiting an extreme location. Ordinary prompts included watching a movie or taking a walk. Participants who recalled an extraordinary event reported stronger attachment to their phone’s brand.
The survey data from the second study also supported the researchers’ proposed chain of events. The extraordinary memory was linked to a higher reported sense of personal fulfillment and life enrichment. This increased meaning was then linked to a stronger belief that the cellphone shared the experience with the user, which in turn correlated with higher emotional brand attachment.
Replicating effects with real behavior
The researchers conducted a third study in a laboratory to observe actual behavior. They gave 232 college students a physical snack, a brand of potato sticks, to eat while completing an online shopping task. The students were directed to browse a department store website for a watch.
In the extraordinary condition, the students were instructed to shop for a watch as a self-gift to commemorate their upcoming graduation. In the ordinary condition, the students shopped for a watch to serve as a practical accessory for daily use. Afterward, the students answered questions about the potato stick brand they ate during the task.
The results mirrored the earlier studies. The students who shopped for a graduation gift reported higher meaningfulness from the shopping task. This elevated meaning was linked to a higher perception that the snack brand shared the experience with them, which resulted in greater emotional attachment to the snack brand itself.
The limits of extroversion
In a final laboratory study, the researchers introduced consumer personality as a variable. They focused on extroversion, defined as the tendency to direct attention and energy toward other people and external social stimulation. The researchers theorized that highly extroverted individuals prioritize human interactions and might place less weight on nonhuman relationship partners like brands.
The fourth study involved 199 students who ate the same brand of potato sticks while watching a video. To vary the experience, one group watched a video of highly skilled acrobats performing complex stunts on a talent show. The other group watched a mundane video depicting a high school student’s daily routine. Participants also completed a personality assessment measuring their level of extroversion.
The analysis confirmed that extroversion altered the final link in the chain of events. For introverted participants, the feeling of sharing an experience with the snack brand reliably translated into emotional brand attachment. For highly extroverted participants, this relationship was much weaker. Even when extroverts felt they had shared a meaningful experience with the brand, they did not convert that perception into emotional attachment to the same degree.
Implications for marketing strategy
The findings offer practical insights for companies designing marketing campaigns. The research indicates that advertisements portraying extraordinary experiences can be highly effective, provided the brand is visibly integrated into the event rather than serving as an incidental background prop. By embedding products in significant life moments, marketers can encourage consumers to view the brand as a participant in their personal narratives.
At the same time, the research highlights a distinct boundary condition regarding consumer personality. Because extroverted consumers derive their relational fulfillment primarily from other people, brand-centered shared-experience campaigns are less likely to resonate with them. The authors argue that managers should prioritize extraordinary experience appeals when targeting audiences known to have more introverted profiles, recognizing that different psychological strategies are required for highly extroverted consumers.
