Abstract
Purpose - The paper develops the idea that consumers have relationships with their own recurring activities. Instead of the usual notion of investigating the relationships between actors, the paper looks at the relationship between an actor and a particular activity that the actor regularly participates in.
Design - The paper is conceptual and exploratory in nature. It transfers concepts from relationship marketing to consumer activity, and develops the idea of an activity as an entity that consumers can have a relationship with.
Findings – The paper presents the argument that consumers can be seen as having
relationships with activities, but only if the requirements on reciprocity, mutual action and personhood of the other party in a relationship are relaxed. The term “Customer Activity Marketing” is introduced and defined as helping customers to initiate, develop, maintain and terminate relationships with activities – both in terms of behavior and emotion – so that they over time can realize their own desired outcomes.
Implications - If consumers can be seen as having relationships with activities, marketers can start to consider how to support consumers’ relationships with activities. A lot of the existing knowledge about customer-business relationships can be transferred to this new context.
Originality/Value – The paper presents a novel perspective on relationships. It contributes to research on the customer dominant view of business, where the customers’ perspective is put in focus, and businesses simply serve as ingredients in the customer’s own context.
Design - The paper is conceptual and exploratory in nature. It transfers concepts from relationship marketing to consumer activity, and develops the idea of an activity as an entity that consumers can have a relationship with.
Findings – The paper presents the argument that consumers can be seen as having
relationships with activities, but only if the requirements on reciprocity, mutual action and personhood of the other party in a relationship are relaxed. The term “Customer Activity Marketing” is introduced and defined as helping customers to initiate, develop, maintain and terminate relationships with activities – both in terms of behavior and emotion – so that they over time can realize their own desired outcomes.
Implications - If consumers can be seen as having relationships with activities, marketers can start to consider how to support consumers’ relationships with activities. A lot of the existing knowledge about customer-business relationships can be transferred to this new context.
Originality/Value – The paper presents a novel perspective on relationships. It contributes to research on the customer dominant view of business, where the customers’ perspective is put in focus, and businesses simply serve as ingredients in the customer’s own context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings 23rd International Colloquium on Relationship Marketing (ICRM) : Relationship Marketing: Back to the Roots and into the Future |
| Editors | Johanna Gummerus |
| Publisher | Hanken School of Economics |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-952-232-289-0 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
| MoE publication type | A4 Article in conference proceedings |
| Event | 23rd International Colloquium on Relationship Marketing ICRM 2015 - Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Duration: 15.09.2015 → 17.09.2015 Conference number: 23 |
Keywords
- 512 Business and Management