Matthew Alexander and Kathy Hamilton
The purpose of this paper is to explore how community involvement can support the authors who are guided by the following research questions: how do community residents contribute…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how community involvement can support the authors who are guided by the following research questions: how do community residents contribute to heritage marketing strategies that represent their local area? How does community involvement in heritage marketing encourage place identification? How can organisations facilitate community participation in heritage marketing?
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on an ethnographic study of the adopted railway stations in Scotland. They use in-depth interviews and participant observation alongside visual and archival data.
Findings
The authors present and discuss three themes: community involvement in heritage activities, community heritage marketing and place identification, facilitating community participation through Adopt a Station.
Research limitations/implications
Initiatives that empower residents should be prioritised to capitalise on their latent knowledge, skills and expertise. The authors suggest that bringing heritage outside the museum space into key places used by local residents will support the increased accessibility of heritage.
Originality/value
While there are often strong arguments in favour of local community involvement in place marketing, it is much less common to find successful reports of this working in practice. Research either questions the capabilities of local residents to make meaningful contributions or hints at a tokenistic form of involvement. The authors contribute by offering insights into successful heritage-based community activity. Unlike previous research which focuses on the economic impact of place marketing, this paper focuses on place identification for local residents. The authors also observe how offering a sense of ownership and freedom allows community management of the heritage message to flourish.
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Ashleigh McFarlane, Kathy Hamilton and Paul Hewer
This study aims to explore passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere and addresses two research questions: How does passion animate passionate labour? How does the emotion of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere and addresses two research questions: How does passion animate passionate labour? How does the emotion of passions and the discipline of labour fuse within passionate labour?
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a three-year netnographic fieldwork of replikate fashion blogger-preneurs. Data are based on in-depth interviews, blogs, social media posts and informed by the relationships developed across these platforms.
Findings
Throughout the findings, this study unpacks the “little passions” that animate the passionate labour of blogger-preneurs. Passions include: passion for performing the royal lifestyle, the mobilisation of passion within strategic sociality and transformation and self-renewal through blogging. Lastly, the cycle of passion illustrates how passions can be recycled into new passionate projects.
Research limitations/implications
This study offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics.
Practical implications
This study raises implications for aspiring blogger-preneurs, luxury brand managers and organisations beyond the blogging context.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study lies in the cultural understanding of passion as a form of labour where passion has become a way of life. The theorisation of passionate labour contributes to existing research in three ways. First, this study identifies social mimesis as a driver of passionate labour and its links to class distinction. Second, it offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics. Third, it advances critical debate around exploitation and inequality within digital labour by demonstrating how passion is unequally distributed.
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Kathy Hamilton and Matthew Alexander
The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of the mobilities paradigm by exploring the role of tourist mobilities in destination marketing. This is important as studies that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of the mobilities paradigm by exploring the role of tourist mobilities in destination marketing. This is important as studies that explore the impact of modes of transport on the development of destinations, or compare the transportation experience with the destination experience are lacking.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the context of the Jacobite steam train, which runs in the Scottish Highlands. It draws on multiple qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews and netnography.
Findings
The study explores the spatial, temporal and social mobilities associated with the journey and the destination, reveals how a rail journey becomes a “destination-in-motion” and, in turn, transforms what might otherwise be a neglected destination.
Practical implications
The study demonstrates how modes of transport that offer rich embodied experiences to visitors can present an important differentiation strategy and become core to a destination’s product and service portfolio.
Originality/value
By approaching destination marketing from a mobilities perspective, this paper recognises the significance of human and objects mobility to tourist experiences and offers a new perspective to existing research which biases a geographically bounded understanding of destinations.
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Abstract
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The purpose of this paper is to focus on low‐income families who are excluded from consumer culture. It explores their experiences and responses to material deprivation, social…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on low‐income families who are excluded from consumer culture. It explores their experiences and responses to material deprivation, social deprivation and stigmatization.
Design/methodology/approach
Given the need for identification and calculation of exclusion thresholds to be supplemented by the voice of the excluded themselves, the study is based on qualitative analysis of 30 in‐depth interviews with low‐income families who encounter consumption constraints in the marketplace.
Findings
While the harsh realities of consumer exclusion cannot be denied, findings also present a more positive outlook as excluded consumers can achieve empowerment through employment of stigma management strategies, creative consumer coping and rejection of the stigmatizing regime.
Research limitations/implications
Research is based only on families with children under the age of 18; future research on older people and exclusion would prove a useful comparison.
Practical implications
The research raises a number of important policy issues in relation to social barriers to inclusion and the role of marketing in contributing to consumer exclusion.
Originality/value
Social policy studies surrounding social exclusion in terms of separation from mainstream society tend to focus on employment. This paper highlights that a social exclusion discourse can also provide a useful perspective to investigate exclusion in relation to consumerism.
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Kathy Hamilton and Beverly A. Wagner
The purpose of this paper was to develop a framework linking the concept of nostalgia and experiential consumption, articulating the transformation of a mundane activity to a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to develop a framework linking the concept of nostalgia and experiential consumption, articulating the transformation of a mundane activity to a special experience, using the context of the small business and afternoon tea.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is based on a grounded theory approach and draws on multiple methods of data collection including participant observation, in-depth interviews with afternoon tea room managers, researcher introspection and consumer interviews.
Findings
By employing nostalgia cues through product, ritual and aesthetics, an idealised home can be constructed emphasising belonging and sharing. The small business owner can be effective in transforming an ordinary activity to an experiential event. Contemporary tea rooms do not replicate tradition; they use it as a cultural resource to construct something novel.
Research limitations/implications
This paper demonstrates how the careful configuration of the retail space can be a key success factor, not only for marketers in large flagship brand stores, but also for smaller, independent and local businesses. The essential interplay between product, ritual and aesthetics creates positive moods of belonging and sharing and may increase satisfaction.
Practical implications
Understanding the emotional value of everyday experiences is a point of differentiation in a crowded marketplace and may directly influence consumer loyalty. Staging experiences is a key competitive strategy.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few to empirically assess links between the nostalgia paradigm and experiential consumption. Existing research has emphasised large retail spaces; in contrast, the authors demonstrate how consumer experiences can be staged in smaller, independent and local businesses.
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Hilary Downey, Kathy Hamilton and Miriam Catterall
The aim of this paper is to explore researcher vulnerability and identify the ways in which research with vulnerable consumers can impact on consumer researchers.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore researcher vulnerability and identify the ways in which research with vulnerable consumers can impact on consumer researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
Provides a review of research literature aiming to raise awareness of researcher vulnerability.
Findings
Researchers working in the domain of vulnerable consumers need to be aware that feelings of vulnerability may be reflected back to the researcher.
Originality/value
Methodological concerns surrounding the research of vulnerable consumers tend to focus on the welfare of respondents; researcher vulnerability has been largely neglected within the consumer research literature. Historically, problems arising in the research process have tended to be disguised so as not to elicit negative feedback. This paper creates an awareness of such aspects of unthought‐of ethical and methodological problems.
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Andrea Tonner, Kathy Hamilton and Paul Hewer
Our paper is centred on exploring the experiences of opening up closed doors to strangers in the context of home exchange.
Abstract
Purpose
Our paper is centred on exploring the experiences of opening up closed doors to strangers in the context of home exchange.
Methodology/approach
This paper is based on a year-long research project which has drawn on multiple qualitative methods of data collection. A bricolage approach was adopted to enable the authors to gather data which is sensitive to multivocality and conscious of difference within the consumer experience.
Findings
Our findings demonstrate that home exchangers treat their home as an asset to be capitalised, to allow them to travel to places and communities otherwise unreachable. Home exchangers simultaneously engage in the symbolic creation of home in a temporary environment and utilise the kinship and community networks of their home exchange partner.
Practical implications
Our paper adds depth and an insight to the increasing media coverage of the home exchange phenomenon.
Social implications
As a consumption practice that is witnessing widespread appeal, home exchange uncovers evidence of trust amongst strangers. While it is common practice to open the home in order to build friendship, it is less common for this invitation to be extended to strangers.
Originality/value
We extend the extensive theorisation of the home as a symbolic environment and reveal that the home can also be used in an enterprising fashion.
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Kathy Hamilton and Louise Hassan
Whereas much previous research focuses on the ways consumers strive to gain social approval, consumption that may result in social disapproval must be considered. In order to do…
Abstract
Purpose
Whereas much previous research focuses on the ways consumers strive to gain social approval, consumption that may result in social disapproval must be considered. In order to do so, the purpose of this paper is to explore consumers' self‐concepts within a risky consumption context, namely smoking. Self‐concept discrepancies and the resulting emotions and coping strategies are identified.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative methodology based on 30 focus groups conducted across ten European countries is employed.
Findings
Findings demonstrate self‐concept discrepancies between both the actual self and ought/ideal guiding end states, as well as between the “I” and social selves. Such discrepancies generate negative emotions and result in emotion‐focused coping strategies. In addition, the accuracy of smokers' social self‐concepts with reference to the actual perceptions of non‐smokers is discussed.
Practical implications
Important implications for the design of effective anti‐smoking advertising are discussed, based on the findings. It is suggested that counter advertising should encourage dialogue between smokers and non‐smokers and that message themes should centre on building the self‐efficacy of smokers.
Originality/value
The reason why the social context should be an integral part of consumer self‐concept research is highlighted. Moreover, the importance of moving beyond merely understanding the existence of self‐discrepancies, to focus on the emotions that are generated by these discrepancies and the consequent coping strategies employed to resolve them is identified. As such, the potential contributions that may arise by recognising the intersection between two bodies of literature that are often treated separately, namely, consumer coping and the self‐concept, are highlighted.