During the last three decades, the concept of liminality has been used by consumer researchers to examine consumption‐related phenomena associated with ambiguous transitions and meaningful transformative events. Inspired by the richness of this concept, researchers have continuously applied and extended the theoretical lens it affords to new and emerging contexts. However, the literature on liminality remains fragmented, and it is sometimes confusing because of the complex relationship between liminality and consumption. To dispel this confusion, this study builds on the findings of a systematic literature review to clarify the interplay between liminality and consumption and to develop a comprehensive framework for examining their relationship with each other. This framework offers a theoretical lens for the conceptual investigation of this interplay and, ultimately, for the development of a theory of liminal consumption. Four different conceptual associations between liminality and consumption are identified: liminal products, liminal consumption, consumption‐caused liminality, and liminality‐caused consumption, and their unique manifestations are theorized. Using the notion of lifeworld existentials, this study also examines various types of liminal experiences and shows that they have four overarching modes: time, space, position, and the body. Important avenues for future research are also discussed.
Within the arts and culture sector, bundling is a commonly used strategy that consists in marketing a combination of products in a single package. Drawing from current examples in the arts and culture industry, the study presented in this article examines how different bundling strategies affect consumer decisions and perceptions. An experiment was conducted among a sample of 200 adult consumers where the complementarity of bundle items (complementary vs. noncomplementary) and mode of selection of bundle items (additive vs. subtractive) were jointly manipulated by means of a self‐administered questionnaire. Consistent with previous research, the results showed that consumers who construct an arts and culture bundle in a subtractive fashion end up with a greater number of items and a more expensive bundle. However, the impact of mode of selection on the bundle's perceived value was shown to depend on the complementarity of the items. These findings suggest that the recommendation of avoiding bundling noncomplementary products usually put forward in the bundling literature must be evaluated through a consideration of the type of strategy that is used to build the bundle.
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