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This paper reflects on the protocol suggested for using shopping with consumers (SWC) as a means for gathering high‐quality, naturalistic text in the field.

The original SWC method combined accompanying consumers in the field as they shopped with in‐depth interviews.

This paper reflects on how SWC has been used in past research, including new and innovative applications of the method to a variety of research phenomena.

The primary limitation of the approach is the amount of time required to implement SWC thoroughly.

SWC has the advantages of a multi‐method research design. In addition, SWC hastens trust and rapport with informants, potentially yielding richer data.

This paper is unique in terms of reflections on how a variety of scholars have used SWC to investigate phenomena of interest beyond that investigated in our original data collection. In addition, we offer suggestions for future research in areas that could clearly benefit from application of the method.

The purpose of this research is to explore the product-agency benefits that emerge as consumers interact with products, and how these benefits shape consumer experiences and marketing-related outcomes.

Sixty-one depth interviews were conducted, and 78 written narratives were collected from informants, which explored how products had changed consumers’ lives. The authors applied the tenets of grounded theory in the analysis of their text, creating abstract categories or tropes that reflected consistent patterns in their consumers’ experiences.

The findings support that the conceptualization of agentic benefits should be broadened. The research identifies five salient product-agency benefits: regulation, clarification, transcendence, discovery and growth.

Prior conceptualizations of agency in marketing focus almost solely on control, yet the authors find that multiple product-agency benefits emerge, supporting the need for a broader understanding of product-related agency. The authors also find these benefits can be anticipated or unanticipated. It is also important to note that the benefits can be paradoxical, in that while they often yield positive outcomes, at times they can produce unintended and even negative consequences.

Incorporating consumers’ (vs researchers’) benefit perceptions into theory building and preference models will enhance understanding of consumer behavior and improve predictive power of preference and choice forecasts. The five salient product-agency benefits provide mechanisms for segmentation and building meaningful relationships with consumers, can propel product development and assist in creating more effective marketing–communication strategies.

The paper offers a broader, more nuanced conceptualization of agency beyond control. It identifies five types of product-agency benefits that reflect a wide spectrum of consumers’ lived experiences.

This paper explores the phenomenon of collecting a plethora of memorabilia associated with a specific brand – in this case, the British Royal Family (BRF) brand. We explore the lifeworld of “Elizabeth,” an über-collector of BRF memorabilia, and describe how her collection can be interpreted as extensions of three separate identities – Collector, Business Owner, and Media Expert. Within these three identities, Elizabeth expressed different emergent roles to the various social networks within whom she interacted (e.g., as a collector, she often acted as “Rescuer,” taking in others’ BRF collections in order to preserve them). We illuminate these different roles and offer suggestions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of four main attributes of food products for consumer’s choice. These are price, taste, environmental friendliness and healthfulness, tested across hedonic and utilitarian food products (milk and ice-cream). The weighting of attributes involved in food choices is a complex phenomenon, as consumers must consider contradictory requirements when making their choices. Consumers’ decision-making processes might also be influenced by food category. Some food products are mostly consumed for pleasure, whereas others are consumed because of their nutritional value.

The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes.

The results indicate that price and taste attributes are rated as the most important for both hedonic and utilitarian food products. However, when the authors group consumers according to their product preferences, the relative importance of product attributes changes. Specifically, the importance of environmental friendliness and healthfulness is much higher among the health-conscious and environmentally conscious segments than for other segments.

To the knowledge, this is the first study comparing the importance of this combination of product attributes (price, taste, calorie content and eco-label) across hedonic and utilitarian foods in a choice-based conjoint setting. Moreover, a new way of grouping consumers according to their ethical-value profiles enables the authors to create a psychographic description of these segments, and to relate it to their food attribute preferences.

We are grateful for the privilege of editing this book and organizing the conference that it celebrates. We thank our universities, departments, and organizations for their generous support, the many people who helped organize the conference, and the reviewers acknowledged below. Most of all, we thank our presenters, participants, and authors for their interest and energy.

The aim of this paper is to provide an advanced understanding of the dynamics of a scholarly career.

An assemblage of a theoretic lens was adopted to help make sense of how the focal scholar came to have certain capacities and characteristics and how these evolved over time.

The critical determinants of the capacities of this scholar have arisen from intersections with the institutions she has been a part of and individuals with whom she has been privileged to interact.

This paper is the first to adapt an assemblage theoretic lens to make sense of a professional’s career accomplishments and trajectory and to draw inferences for career management from this perspective.

This study aims to offer insights into the embodied concerns that underpin men’s personal grooming practices through which they experience their body as the “existential ground of culture and self” and manage their everyday bodily presentation.

This study analyses 16 interviews with male consumers of age between 20 and 76. The interpretative analysis is informed by both Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the body-subject and the sociology of the body as discursively constituted.

This study proposes four bodily identity positions that link individual personal grooming practices to specific embodied concerns. These bodily identity positions underline the different ways the male body is called upon to carve out a meaningful existence.

The research findings are not intended to generalise or to be exhaustive. Rather, it is hoped that they may stimulate readers to think more deeply about the role of the body in aiding male consumers to seek maximum grip on their life-world.

The study findings provide marketers with rich narratives for brand positioning and image development beyond the traditional sexual and/or alpha male-themed marketing and advertising. They also offer preliminary insights for mental health practitioners into how the male body shapes men’s identity development and experiences of well-being.

The study identifies the different ways personal grooming can become assimilated into an individual’s system of beliefs and practices. It also offers empirical support for a definition of the body as active and acted upon, especially with respect to male grooming.