Home The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences

  • Philippe Taupin EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 7, 2019

Abstract

Innovating new experiences is an innovation strategy that increases product differentiation and the perceived value of offers for future autonomous cars. Young Chinese customers are a relevant target group of lead users to co-create those experiences. We address the co-creation of memorable and engaging experiences with targeted potential users and the building of the meaning of experiential imaginary that results from innovations (based on digital media) echoing the need for sensory atmospherics while strolling in the city. We aim at understanding how customers can co-create meaningful experiences. We analyze the narrative structures of the experiential imaginaries, considering the narratives as a major component of ambiance experiences and imaginary. With an empirical approach that associates projective techniques to semiotic analysis of the corresponding narratives, we describe the structural system of the experiential imaginary of young Chinese customers when imagining driving in the city in tomorrow’s cars. Semiotics offers a novel contribution to innovation marketing and idea generation of experiential innovations. This theoretical stance valorizes the outside-in paradigm of future lead-users as co-creators of innovative experiences, whose imaginary narratives are raw materials for creativity. This approach is an alternative to brainstorming and its limits for creating disruptive innovations.

Acknowledgements

I express my thanks to Pr Ma (majun.tongji@foxmail.com) (my fieldwork in China) and my both thesis Directors Pr Polack (jean-dominique.polack@sorbonne-universite.fr) and Berthelot-Guiet (karine.berthelot-guiet@sorbonne-universite.fr) for their kind support.

References

Amabile, T. M. 1998. How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review 76–87. (September-October).10.4135/9781446213704.n2Search in Google Scholar

Amabile, T. M. 2012. Componential theory of creativity. In Eric H. Kessler (ed.), Encyclopedia of management theory, PAGE NUMBERS. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.Search in Google Scholar

Barbier, René. 2003. L’imaginaire du corps dans la Chine contemporaine. http://www.barbier-rd.nom.fr/textesymposiumRB.pdf (accessed 20 June 2019).Search in Google Scholar

Barthes, Roland. 1966. Introduction à lʼanalyse structurale des récits. Communications 8. 1–27.10.3406/comm.1966.1113Search in Google Scholar

Bobrie, François. 2008. Les valeurs de consommation de J. M. Floch vingt ans après et le long dialogue de la sémiotique et du marketing. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bobrie_Francois/publication/321385789_Les_valeurs_de_consommation_de_Jean-Marie_Floch_et_le_long_dialogue_de_la_semiotique_et_du_marketing/links/5a2016b6aca272088b23fc60/Les-valeurs-de-consommation-de-Jean-Marie-Floch-et-le-long-dialogue-de-la-semiotique-et-du-marketing (accessed 20 June 2019).Search in Google Scholar

Boddy, C. 2005. Projective techniques in market research: valueless subjectivity or insightful reality? A look at the evidence for the usefulness, reliability and validity of projective techniques in market research. International Journal of Market Research 4(3). 239–254.10.1177/147078530504700304Search in Google Scholar

Brown, Tim. 2008. Design thinking. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking (accessed 20 June 2019).10.5040/9781474282932.0020Search in Google Scholar

Chesbrough, H. W. 2003. Open innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Search in Google Scholar

De Certeau, Michel, Luce Giard & Pierre Mayol. 1990. L’invention du quotidien. Paris: Gallimard.Search in Google Scholar

Diehl, M. & W. Stroebe. 1987. Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53. 497–509.10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.497Search in Google Scholar

Donoghue, S. 2000. Projective techniques in consumer research. Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences 28(1). 47–53.10.4314/jfecs.v28i1.52784Search in Google Scholar

Filser, M. 2002. Le marketing de la production d’expérience: Statut théorique et implications manageriales. Décisions Marketing 28. 13–22.10.7193/DM.028.13.22Search in Google Scholar

Floch, J. M. 1989. La contribution d’une sémiotique structurale à la conception d’un hypermarché. Recherche Et Applications En Marketing 4(2). 37–59.10.1177/076737018900400203Search in Google Scholar

Gatignon, H., D. Gotteland & C. Haon. 2016. Making innovation last: Sustainable strategies for long term growth. New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-137-57264-6Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, Algirdas Julien. 1983. Du sens II. Paris: Seuil.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, Algirdas Julien. 1966. Éléments pour une théorie de l’interprétation du récit mythique. Communications 8. 28–59.10.3406/comm.1966.1114Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, Algirdas Julien & Joseph Courtés. 2011 [1979]. Sémiotique: Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, vol. 2. Paris: Hachette.Search in Google Scholar

Hatchuel, Armand. 2013. La conception, un voyage dans l’imaginaire. https://blog.ensci.com/innovationbydesign/2013/02/18/la-conception-un-voyage-dans-limaginaire-intervention-darmand-hatchuel/ (accessed 24 May 2019).Search in Google Scholar

Hirschman, E. C. & M. B. Holbrook. 1982. Hedonic consumption: Emerging concepts, methods and propositions. Journal of Marketing 46(3). 92–101.10.1177/002224298204600314Search in Google Scholar

Holbrook, M. B. & E. C. Hirschman. 1982. The experiential aspects of consumption: Consumer fantasies, feelings, and fun. Journal of Consumer Research 22(9). 132–140.10.1086/208906Search in Google Scholar

Levitt, Theodore. 1986. Marketing imagination. New York: Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Morrison, M. A., E. Haley, K. B. Sheehan & R. E. Taylor. 2002. Using qualitative research in advertising: Strategies, techniques, and applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.10.4135/9781412986489Search in Google Scholar

Musso, Pierre, Stéphanie Coiffier & Jean-François Lucas. 2015. Innover avec et par les imaginaires. Paris: Editions Manucius.Search in Google Scholar

Nagamichi, M. 1995. Kansei engineering: A new ergonomic consumer-oriented technology for product development. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 15(1). 3–11.10.1016/0169-8141(94)00052-5Search in Google Scholar

Osborn, A. 1974 [1953]. L’imagination constructive: Créativité et brainstorming, G. Rona & P. Dupont (trans.). Paris: Dunod.Search in Google Scholar

Parnes, S. J. & A. Meadow. 1959. Effects of “brainstorming” instructions on creative problem solving by trained and untrained subjects. Journal of Educational Psychology 50. 171–176.10.1037/h0047223Search in Google Scholar

Paulus, P. B., M. T. Dzindolet, G. Poletes & L. M. Camacho. 1993. Perception of performance in group brainstorming: The illusion of group productivity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19(1). 78–89.10.1177/0146167293191009Search in Google Scholar

Propp, Vladimir. 1970. Morphologie du conte. Paris: Editions du Seuil.Search in Google Scholar

Torgue, Henry. 2010. Architecture et territoire: Matières et esprit du lieu. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00503805/document (accessed 24 May 2019).Search in Google Scholar

von Hippel, E. 1978a. A customer-active paradigm for industrial product idea generation. Research Policy 7(3). 240–266.10.1016/0048-7333(78)90019-7Search in Google Scholar

von Hippel, E. 1978b. Successful industrial products from customer ideas: Presentation of a new customer-active paradigm with evidence and implications. Journal of Marketing 42(1). 39–49.10.1177/002224297804200109Search in Google Scholar

Wunenburger, Jean-Jacques. 2003a. L’imaginaire. Paris: PUF.Search in Google Scholar

Wunenburger, Jean-Jacques. 2003b. The urban imaginary: An exploration of the possible or of the originary? Barcelona: Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2019-09-07
Published in Print: 2019-10-25

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
  3. A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
  4. New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
  5. Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
  6. Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
  7. Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
  8. Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
  9. Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
  10. Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
  11. Regular Articles
  12. Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
  13. Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
  14. The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
  15. Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
  16. Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
  17. Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
  18. Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
  19. Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
  20. Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
  21. Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
  22. The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
  23. Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
  24. Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
  25. The semiotic web of the research proposal
  26. Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Downloaded on 24.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2018-0005/html
Scroll to top button