Experiential Engagement: A Scale for Experiential Contexts
Summary
This paper develops and validates a short, unidimensional six-item scale of “experiential engagement” designed to be generalisable across experiential contexts such as sport, music and the arts.
The authors conducted a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 25 context-specific engagement scales, extracted 466 items and iteratively reduced and adapted items to reflect three recurring facets—behavioural involvement, intimacy and influence—while producing a concise six-item reflective measure.
Four empirical studies (student lab studies in sport and music, a field study at a track-and-field event, and a large online sample) show the scale is reliable, convergent and discriminant, and stable across nomological networks. The scale predicts relevant downstream outcomes (e.g., fantasy play, betting, music knowledge, willingness to pay for premium streaming) and explains more variance in sponsor brand outcomes (brand equity and word of mouth) than alternative measures such as sport involvement or a single-item fandom measure.
Key Points
- The authors define experiential engagement as cumulative behavioural and emotional exposure, involvement and interaction with an observable context.
- Three theoretical facets underlie the construct: behavioural involvement, intimacy (including parasocial connection) and influence (social advocacy/co-creation).
- A six-item unidimensional scale was adapted from 466 items across 25 prior scales and validated in four studies (sports, music, track & field, and a large online sample).
- The scale demonstrates strong psychometrics (high CR and AVE) and performs well in confirmatory factor analyses and SEM nomological tests.
- Experiential engagement predicts managerially relevant outcomes (e.g., willingness to pay, betting/fantasy participation, brand equity and WOM) and explains more variance in sponsor outcomes than sport involvement or a single-item fandom measure.
- The short, generalisable measure is intended to be usable across contexts and useful for comparing contextual effects in sponsorship, placement and influencer marketing.
Why should I read this?
Want a quick, practical way to measure how much people are actually into an event, artist or sport — and whether that engagement helps sponsors? This paper gives you a tight six-item scale that’s been tested in labs, in the field and online. It’s short, robust and built to compare contexts, so you can stop guessing and start measuring whether your experiential marketing is working.
Author style
Punchy: the authors cut through decades of fragmented engagement measures and present a concise, evidence-backed tool. If you work on sponsorship, brand placement or experiential campaigns, the paper is important — read the methods and validation closely; the scale could change how you evaluate context-driven ROI.
Context and Relevance
As brands increasingly invest in experiential platforms (sports, festivals, gigs, esports), a short, generalisable engagement measure matters. The scale lets researchers and marketers compare engagement across different properties, attribute brand effects to context engagement, and refine sponsorship portfolios. It also responds to the trend towards shorter measures while preserving conceptual breadth by covering behaviour, intimacy and social influence.
Limitations noted by the authors include US-only samples and an English-language literature review; they recommend cross-cultural tests and translations to confirm broader generalisability.
Source
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.70026?af=R
