Keywords

In the clutter of today’s saturated marketing landscape, connecting with consumers on an intimate level through immersive and interactive brand experiences can be managed by companies within a constructed and controlled brand environment such as a brand museum. A brand museum combines brand education in a museum atmosphere with the excitement of extraordinary and entertaining visitor experiences and allows marketers to connect with consumers on an emotional, social, and cultural level. Practitioners have embraced the brand museum format as a new and innovative form of interactive retail and brand management, evidenced in the growing number of brand museums globally. However, the brand museum as a contemporary topic in marketing theory remains underexplored resulting in theory lagging industry practice. Although brand museums are recognised as complex environments, housing both cognitively and emotionally stimulating experiences, guidance for practitioners on devising and delivering effective brand museum experiences has been rare. To address this gap in research, this study investigates the key dimensions of the brand museum experience that are most impactful in the structuration of visitor’s brand experiences, as identified from an industry and practitioners’ perspective. A case study methodology generates empirical evidence from the experience providers of an internationally renowned tourist attraction and brand museum, the Jameson Distillery Bow Street brand museum or ‘brand home’. Industry experts share their professional insights and views on what they perceive as the most influential dimensions of the curated Jameson brand museum experience for engaging customers. This practitioner perspective identifies brand heritage, the human connection and storytelling as core dimensions of the curated museum experience which visitors engage with to co-create their own unique brand experiences. We explore the managerial implications of these marketing assets for the firm. Faced with high costs, growing competition, and increasing levels of sophistication and technology being employed within brand museums a practitioner perspective from a globally successful brand home makes a valuable contribution to this evolving research area and highlight opportunities for further research.