New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The concept and characteristics of disruptive innovation.

How to examine the context of disruptive innovation?

Related theories that can help frame practical examples.

Some examples of how markets are being disrupted.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The way in which consumers use mobile devices to engage with fashion retailers online.

What external and internal stimuli can be used to engage with consumers and encourage online interaction?

The lens in with the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model is applied to understand consumer behaviour.

How marketing can used both to trigger consumption activities and to encourage more sustainable behaviours?

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

Understand the complex and nuanced nature of relationship marketing.

Define the relationship dimensions in human relationships and the variables relationship marketing which develop the customer–company relationship.

Develop a conceptual understanding of how these dimensions and variables build customer–company relationships.

Understand how the key characteristics of social media can be leveraged to build customer–company relationships.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The importance of big data in the information revolution.

The resource-based view of the firm and dynamic capabilities as they relate to big data.

The use of big data in marketing decisions.

Consumer security concerns over the storage and processing of big data.

This chapter explores food culture in social media. It focuses in particular on the affordances offered by social media platforms to create, develop and negotiate individual digital identities, which mediate personal, social and professional relationships with and investment in food, nurture and wellbeing. It examines the adoption of specific social media platforms for commercial and societal use, as well as the significant impact that the digitally curated food culture identities of influential others such as celebrity chefs, food bloggers, lifestyle gurus and self-styled ‘experts’ can have on their followers. There is, for example, Twitter’s role as a monitor of food choice decisions and a data source for food-related consumer behaviour research, and the use of Instagram by brands and companies in contrast to Facebook’s deployment as a community‑building social media tool where interest groups can share information, views and mutual support. The photogenic, young female lifestyle guru is the object of special scrutiny in which the apparent effortlessness with which they have achieved the self they present and their legitimacy to pronounce on health and nutrition is called into question. Finally, the chapter does not offer comprehensive nor conclusive findings on the experiences and exchanges depicted here which develop an overview of social media food cultures. Rather, it presents a flavour of the complex nexus of issues surrounding engagement with the topic in terms of reflections on society itself and on the role such interactions play in the creation of self-identity.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The connectivity between society, global events, current philosophy and trends.

How each period is characterised by available technology, knowledge and globalisation relevant to the time?

How culture is shaped by societal philosophies?

Emerging characteristics that capture the ‘zeitgeist’.

By the end of this chapter you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

Customer engagement (CE) as a multi-dimensional construct comprising of cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions leading to customer loyalty.

The digital evolutions that have led to the current omni-channel business environment prompting the need to understand the customer journey.

The concept of the ‘CE journey’ and its relationship to the customer purchase decision process and brand communication channels.

Through the examination of retail space, by the end of this chapter you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The use of space within retailing.

Lefebrve’s spatial triad: perceived, conceived and lived within a retail context.

Disruption innovation and the use of retail space.

Online retailing is continuing to grow at a time with many fashion brands are closing retail stores. Social media is now an essential component within the purchase journey of a fashion consumer. As social media networks continue to develop transactional capabilities, this has giving rise to the expansion of social shopping. Fashion brands need to consider how best to optimise social shopping opportunities as an extension of the retail shopping experience. Reviewing developments within retailing, a conceptual model of social shopping is proposed, which places mobile technologies as central to the social shopping experience both on social media and in store.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The concept of experience and growth of the experience economy.

The role of experiences in engaging consumers and sustaining business.

The importance of experiential marketing as a tool for marketers.

Practical examples of how experiences can be used to market different products and services.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The concept of brand purpose and ‘woke’ brand campaigns.

The theoretical underpinning of brand purpose.

Generation Z response to brand purpose and woke branding campaigns.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

How sustainability messages have diffused into mainstream discourse?

The role of behavioural economics, specifically nudge theory, in encouraging sustainable behaviours.

The visual elements in marketing that support nudge theory.

How businesses are aligning with consumer concern for sustainability to illustrate their ‘wokeness’ to social issues.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The impact of increasing competition occurring within the UK retail environment.

Consumers efforts to reduce the disparity between beliefs and behaviours, as conceptualised within cognitive dissonance theory.

The alignment with marketing, the wider economy and the retail sector as a means to identify ways to shape value creation.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

A dualistic approach to femininity and masculinity as determining a demographic profile that is progressively outdated.

Prescribed gendered characteristics and roles that have evolved over recent centuries.

Technological platforms that have enabled voicing of non-conforming identities and supported the challenging of patriarchal societal constructs.

Marketing’s provision of social commentary on gender and sexuality and its potential to advance societal integration of diverse identities to reflect sexuo-gendered discourse.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The theories of diffusion.

Diffusion and social movements.

Diffusion and the #MeToo campaign.