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Despite the rise of digital sales channels, Deutsche Telekom continues to invest heavily in its physical retail operations. This case study demonstrates how the company leverages stores as strategic innovation hubs that extend far beyond their traditional sales function. The analysis highlights the role of store design, technological integration, and symbolic branding as key drivers of customer experience and brand equity. Flagship stores serve as a testing ground for testing new concepts, while local adaptations strengthen cultural relevance within communities. Findings suggest that in highly digital industries, physical retail remains strategically valuable – not as a relic of the past, but as a platform for differentiation, customer engagement, and innovation. Properly designed, physical stores complement digital channels and reinforce the overall brand experience.

Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies, has recently shifted its focus in event marketing to prioritize more personal co-creational communication on regional occasions, rather than largescale events. This paper outlines the three-part LAW-principle that Deutsche Telekom follows in its brand communication in Germany, providing examples for each of the three pillars. The co-creation resulting from brand communication is changing the role of marketing and brand practitioners

Statt unilateraler Markenkommunikation auf angemieteten Flächen, im Rahmen großer Veranstaltungen, hat die Deutsche Telekom angefangen, identifizierte Problemfelder zu adressieren und die eigene stationäre Oberfläche aus mehr als 500 Own- und Partnershops, für einen direkten, regionalen, Austausch mit Zielgruppen zu nutzen. Hierfür setzt die Telekom auf das LAW-Prinzip. Das bedeutet, dass für jede der vier Vertriebsregionen unter Berücksichtigung regionaler Besonderheiten/Unterschiede, eine maßgeschneiderte Kombination aus Leuchtturm-Projekten,
Aktivierungsmaßnahmen und Workshops ausgearbeitet und implementiert wird. Dabei sollen die regional angepassten markenbezogene Inhalte dafür sorgen, dass sich (potenzielle) Kunden und Kundinnen persönlich angesprochen fühlen und den persönlichen Austausch mit
dem Telekom Shop (Berater) vor Ort suchen. Der Deutschen Telekom geht es um die Intensivierung der sogenannten »Co-Creation« zwischenTelekom-Mitarbeitenden, der Marke, (potenziellen) Kunden und Kundinnen sowie weiteren Zielgruppen.

This paper investigates whether gamified experiences in a multi-actor service ecosystem can be used to encourage customers’ information exchange behavior. Furthermore, it examines the impact of customers’ knowledge sharing attitude on the relationship between experiential value and customers’ information exchange behavior. Structural equation modeling was used to assess these dynamic relationships and provide a scalable measurement instrument that can be applied to gamified experiences ranging from simple customer-interface interactions, all the way up to multi-actor service ecosystems. Our findings support the notion that managers can use gamification to foster information exchange and thereby value co-creation between customers and employees directly, without necessarily having to change customers attitudes first. The findings also suggest that gamification can be applied successfully in cases of large groups of people with widely varying characteristics, backgrounds, and motivations. Additionally, our research indicates that experiential value is a suitable candidate for a consistent measurement instrument for gamification. This study is the first to apply a holistic experiential value approach to a gamified experience that simultaneously accounts for customers’ interactions with a multisensory physical environment, their personal interactions with employees, and their interactions with other customers.

Interactions in service ecosystems, as opposed to the service dyad, have recently gained much attention from research. However, it is still unclear how they influence a customer’s experiential value and trigger desired prosocial behavior. The purpose of this study is to identify which elements of the multi-actor service ecosystem contribute to a customer’s experiential value and to investigate its relation to a customer’s interaction attitude and inter-customer helping behavior. The authors adopted a scale development procedure from the existing literature. Service, brand, retail and tourism management research as well as expert feedback is used to generate a pool of 33 items. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted. The scale was validated based on more than 468 responses to a CASI at one of the world’s largest trade shows. Scale-development procedure was followed by structural equation modeling. CFA supports that experiential value in multi-actor ecosystems comprises five dimensions. The functional value of personnel (professionalism), the perception of other customers’ appearance (similarity), the perception of other customers’ behavior (suitable behavior), multisensory stimuli (sensory appeal), and a customer’s enjoyment (playfulness). Experiential value positively and directly relates to a customer’s interaction attitude and inter-customer helping behavior. Furthermore, the effect of experiential value on inter-customer helping behavior is partially mediated by interaction attitude. Managers interested in getting more out of interactions with customers will develop an understanding for the interplay between the physical environment and individuals within a multi-actor ecosystem. Social scientists and managers can use the scale to assess experiential value, encourage a customer’s interaction attitude and utilize the customers’ influence on their peers. This paper synthesizes insights from existing research on experiential value, from various fields, in one scale. This holistic approach is the first to simultaneously account for a customer’s interactions with the multisensory physical environment, personal interactions with employees and interactions between customers in a multi-actor service ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate selling actors in multi-actor sales ecosystems. When selling actors start taking over tasks that were formerly performed by salespeople, the distribution of tasks, allocation of responsibilities and finally the role of the salespeople changes. However, little is known about salespersons’ perceptions of selling actors’ identities and participation behavior in multi-actor sales ecosystems. The authors conducted a World Café, a new qualitative method to the field of sales research, to obtain first data on selling actor identities in multi-actor sales ecosystems. Salespeople, who had the chance to observe and interact with more than 98,000 selling actors, disclosed their perceptions of selling actors’ participation behavior in a multi-actor sales ecosystem. Four different data sources were analyzed using qualitative content analysis to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic and to test validity through the convergence of information from different sources. Using identity theory, a salesperson–selling actor relationship/behavior typology for multi-actor sales ecosystems was developed. Eight different selling actor identities were identified: avoider, observer, receptive actor, prepper, expecter, savvy actor, challenger and coworker. The typology provides researchers and managers with a tool to better understand and evaluate sales ecosystems. This knowledge can be used as a starting point for the reassessment of the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for salespeople in multi-actor sales ecosystems and to improve their training and coaching. The firsthand experiences reported by the participants of the World Café enable salespeople to identify different selling actors faster and prepare fitting approaches for all selling actor identities.

How can the experiential value of experiential marketing be assessed holistically? Using scientific scale development procedure, we developed a five-dimensional experiential value scale to address this gap. Data was collected at one of the world’s leading experiential events for consumer electronics and home appliances. The scale items capture customers’ perception of the functional value of personnel (professionalism), perception of other customers’ appearance (similarity) and behavior (suitable behavior), multisensory stimuli (sensory appeal) and customers’ enjoyment (playfulness). Professionalism value may be interpreted as the value that customers derive from a personal interaction experience based on perceived knowledge, competence and valuableness of information. Similarity refers to the extent to which customers feel that they are similar to and can identify with other customers. Suitable behavior may be interpreted as the extent to which a customer feels that the other customers behave appropriately. The fourth dimension of the EVS-EM is sensory appeal. The findings support the notion of EM as a multisensory tool. Our findings suggest that an EM scale needs to incorporate olfactory, acoustic, haptic, as well as visual stimuli. Playfulness, the fifth dimension of the construct, refers to the customers’ enjoyment that comes from engaging in entertaining activities.

Understanding how the personal interaction between customers and salespersons influences value creation is important for any business. From research it is known that customers’ participation is essential for successful value co-creation. Whereas research has already surveyed the perspective of the customers’ self assessment, little is known about the salespersons perception of customers’ participation behavior. Thus, the goal of this study is to provide insights into the customer participation behavior from the salesperson perspective. Our results indicate that customer participation behavior is depended on the salespersons’ behavior. Thus, the assessment of customer participation from the salesperson perspective cannot be neglected. Our results suggest that different components and attributes must be added to the common view of customer participation behavior. These findings point to a set of interactional skills, salespeople need to develop and apply in personal interactions.