The decision to customize and its effect on brand experience

Nowadays brands are using customization strategies to reach their consumers with experiences that perfectly fit their preferences. At the same time, with customization consumers could effectively dilute the impact of the company's brand. Despite the robust literature on customization, little attention has been paid to how the decision to customize is linked to the brand experience. This paper aims to better understand the mechanisms behind customization choice in terms of preferences and assess the role of brand experience in this decision. We hypothesize a positive relationship between customization and brand experience. Moreover, since customization has a strong emotional component, we also analyze the moderating role of cognitive and psychological factors in shifting consumer preferences-from technical performances to emotional and symbolic ones. Through a two-equation model that encompasses a number of factors, we find strong support for the main effect of an improved brand experience when consumers are permitted to customize the offering.