To investigate possibilities for integrating recent interdisciplinary research on materiality with basic issues in consumer culture theory, this chapter discusses understandings…
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate possibilities for integrating recent interdisciplinary research on materiality with basic issues in consumer culture theory, this chapter discusses understandings of materiality-based concerns and concepts in consumer research and maps possibilities for the future.
Methodology/approach
A review focuses on concepts of materiality, agency, and intention that mark a shift to a relational metaphysics in consumption contexts. Drawing from design theory, digital humanities, and philosophy, notions of flickering and witnessing evoke models of relations and interactions between consumers and consumption objects.
Findings
In this chapter, a disciplinary proposition emerges: consumer research is a form of materiality studies wherein the consumer is designated an element of interest in the relationships and interactions that bring forth the world.
Research implications
An awareness of the fundamental role played in consumer research by materiality-related assumptions may inspire concomitant animation and explication of a relational metaphysics, opening opportunities to recognize processes and practices at the core of consumer behavior previously obscured by prevailing interpretations governed by a singularly agentic, autonomous, and effective human subject. Power relations must not be ignored.
Originality/value of chapter
The chapter makes several contributions: organizes and explicates often taken for granted concepts such as materiality, materialism, and agency, connects consumer research to high-level theorizations of materiality, and synthesizes diverse discussions in consumer culture theory with the possibilities of new materialities.
Details
Keywords
Janet L. Borgerson and Jonathan E. Schroeder
This paper examines visual representation in marketing communication from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race…
Abstract
This paper examines visual representation in marketing communication from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race theory. An ontological approach is offered as an alternative to phenomenologically based approaches in marketing scholarship that use consumer responses to generate data. Suggests ways to clarify complex issues of representational ethics in marketing by applying a semiotically‐based analysis that places ontological identity at the center of societal marketing concerns. Analyzes representations of the exotic Other in disparate marketing campaigns, including advertising, tourist promotions and music, as examples of bad faith marketing strategy. Music is an important force in marketing communication, yet marketing studies have rarely considered music and its visual representations as data for inquiry. Feels that considering visual representation within marketing from an ontological standpoint contributes additional insight into societal marketing and places global marketing processes within the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and representation.
Details
Keywords
Jonathan E. Schroeder and Janet L. Borgerson
This paper offers an ethical analysis of visual representation that provides criteria for and sheds light on the appropriateness dimension of marketing communications. It provides…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper offers an ethical analysis of visual representation that provides criteria for and sheds light on the appropriateness dimension of marketing communications. It provides a theoretically informed framework for recognizing and understanding ethical issues in visual representation.
Design/methodology/approach
An interdisciplinary conceptual review and analysis focuses on four representational conventions, synthesizing ethical concerns, to provide a broader context for recognizing and understanding ethical issues in marketing representation: face‐ism, idealization, exoticization and exclusion. This framework is discussed and applied to marketing communications.
Findings
It argues that valuations of communication appropriateness must be informed by an awareness of the ethical relationship between marketing representations and identity. It is no longer satisfactory to associate advertising solely with persuasion, rather advertising must be seen as a representational system, with pedagogical as well as strategic functions. We conclude by discussing the theoretical, research, and managerial implications that arise from an ethics of visual representation.
Originality/value
Urges moving beyond an advertising=persuasion model to encompass representation and culture in marketing communication studies. Contributes to understanding the ethical implications of marketing communication. Challenges marketers and researchers to broaden their conception of marketing communication to one more consistent with an image economy.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a careful articulation of one’s perspective of a key construct (in this case agency) can facilitate critical reflection and move the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a careful articulation of one’s perspective of a key construct (in this case agency) can facilitate critical reflection and move the field forward (by bridging two hitherto separate agency debates).
Methodology/approach
Four years of engagement with 24 consumers involving prolonged observations and unstructured depth interviews provided the empirical evidence for this paper.
Findings
Even humans who perceive their personal capacity to influence events as limited (whether due to actual or perceived limitations in physiological capabilities, material resources, and/or interpersonal networks) can assemble a network of persons, possessions, and practices to signal the agency to themselves, and to others. These assemblages, which invariably feature indexicons, allow people to construct semiotic agency in ways which are shaped by their habitus.
Social implications
This research has important implications for social and housing policy because disadvantaged consumers are more likely to rent than own, which limits their capacity to assemble semiotic agency.
Originality/value
This research introduces the new concepts of semiotic agency and indexicons to consumer culture theory and shows how even disadvantaged consumers can deploy these to signal agency to themselves and others.
Details
Keywords
Mats Edenius and Janet Borgerson
Identification, generation, transfer, storage and efficient integration of knowledge occupy today’s corporate managers, and there is increasing interest in different strategies…
Abstract
Identification, generation, transfer, storage and efficient integration of knowledge occupy today’s corporate managers, and there is increasing interest in different strategies for managing knowledge. Many strategies correspond to different kinds of information technology, for example, intranet. An intranet can be regarded both as an information and strategic management tool in the context of knowledge management. A lack of reflexivity in intranet use is based on the assumption that an intranet is a tool in its masters’ hands. Key elements in managing an intranet (such as, activity level and information input) are not just tools to control the transportation of information and knowledge in a convenient and efficient way. Rather, as constituents, these elements create the intranet. Several empirical examples suggest how information presented in an intranet – and knowledge about the information – is co‐created in the process of using an intranet. A Foucauldian vision of knowledge as discursive practices, including representation, extends the overly static realist version of knowledge found in much KM. Furthermore, if highest demand for intranet activity levels were met, professional investment managers would be forced to become generalists
Details
Keywords
Kira Strandby and Søren Askegaard
This chapter builds on Georges Bataille’s analysis of waste as a constitutive element of social life. We argue that two separate but intertwined dimensions included in the idea of…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter builds on Georges Bataille’s analysis of waste as a constitutive element of social life. We argue that two separate but intertwined dimensions included in the idea of waste, waste as sacrifice and waste as competition, can enhance our understanding of the role of the lavish wedding in contemporary consumer society. We suggest four categories of waste as constitutive of the meanings of the wedding universe: pure waste, lavish waste, simulated waste and anti-waste.
Methodology
We use a combination of netnography and long interviews to explore notions of waste in Danish weddings. The netnography was conducted in a Danish wedding forum, where informants for the long interviews were also recruited among the members.
Findings
We find that the four dimensions of waste suggested in our theorization are indeed found in the way consumers plan and enact their weddings. In particular, the notion of sacrificial expenditure – what we call “pure waste” in our context – is indeed present in contemporary weddings.
Research limitations/implications
This research is undertaken in a Danish context, which represents a particular historical and cultural framing of the wedding ceremony and its types of expenditure. We encourage research in other cultural contexts to elaborate on our findings.
Originality/value of chapter
Without denying the fundamental symbolic character of consumption activities, we argue that, more generally, a Bataillean perspective on consumption and waste can further our understanding of the limits of the symbolic character in consumer research, since it underlines the more corporeal experience of certain consumption rituals.
Richard Kedzior, Douglas E. Allen and Jonathan Schroeder
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach
The significance of the topic is reviewed and themes related to the selfie phenomenon and marketplace issues are discussed in connection with extant research. The contributions of each paper are briefly highlighted and discussed.
Findings
Although the selfie is a relatively new phenomenon, both marketing practice and scholarship have noticed its prominence in consumer lives and potential for generating marketplace insights. Despite its frequently presumed triviality, the selfie is a multifaceted phenomenon of significance to key marketing areas such as branding, consumer behavior or market research. Possible avenues for future research are outlined.
Originality/value
Key issues relating to research into the selfie phenomenon for marketing scholars are illuminated.
Details
Keywords
Marylyn Carrigan, Svetla Marinova and Isabelle Szmigin
This paper is a general review contextualising the current debate on ethics and international marketing. The aim of the paper is to present an overview of historical and current…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is a general review contextualising the current debate on ethics and international marketing. The aim of the paper is to present an overview of historical and current trends as a background for this special issue edition of International Marketing Review focusing on international marketing ethics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines how ethics in international marketing have evolved and progressed towards the current “ethics era” and presents discussion surrounding the role and value of an ethical approach towards marketing in a global marketplace.
Findings
Essentially the paper argues that marketers should creatively embrace the complex challenges of the international marketplace by rethinking their approach to marketing ethics.
Originality/value
Gives an overview of the special issue.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to address a fundamental research question on behavioral branding, as how behavioral branding experience in reference to self-congruence, brand attributes and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address a fundamental research question on behavioral branding, as how behavioral branding experience in reference to self-congruence, brand attributes and vogue leads to a positive influence on behavioral branding.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on the qualitative information gathered from 25 purposively selected respondents using semi-structured research interviews in the Mexico City. The respondents belonged to the young executive segment within the age group of 20-40, who had trendy knowledge of fashion accessory brands and exhibited behavior toward buying high profile consumer brands. The respondents were located in the northern (Roma Sur) and southern (Coyoacan) municipalities of Mexico City representing 28 per cent male and 72 per cent female sample population.
Findings
Brands following the vogue in the market engage consumers emotionally toward its use and public expressions. The effect of vogue in fashion accessories was found to be greater for women. This effect influences personality traits, and comparison of appearance and social status. Brand attributes reveal a set of characteristics that identify the physical character and personality traits of the brand, congruent with the consumer emotions through which consumers identify themselves. Brand personality traits include brand image, responsiveness and trust among consumers. Consumer brand knowledge during the survey was explored in reference to the behavioral branding by gathering answers to what consumers identified as their favorite fashion accessory brands. Consumer perception on brand image, perceived use value and societal recognition to the brand drive the brand attachment feeling among consumers. Consumers personify the brands at an accelerated pace, and they get associated to these brands.
Research limitations/implications
Like many other empirical studies, this study also has some limitations in reference to the research methodology, sampling, data collection and generalization of the findings. As this study is qualitative in nature, there are possibilities of subjectivity in the responses, which might not be compatible with the quantitative data, if researched with such methodology.
Practical implications
This study prompts specific managerial implications allowing managers with insights to better understand the consumer perceptions on fashion brands, vogue and the cognitive dimensions in adopting the behavioral brands of the fashion industry. The study demonstrates that the process of co-creation of fashion brands, and setting up vogue in the society is based on the social needs and consumer engagement in the vogue.
Originality/value
There is paucity of qualitative research literature on brand behavior in reference to hispanic consumers in general and in reference to Mexican consumer in particular. Hence, this paper contributes to the existing literature. There are not many empirical studies that have addressed these questions either in isolation, or considering the interrelationship of the above factors. The determinants of brand behavior analyzed in this study can be further explored broadly with the consumer value and lifestyle management.