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As a nation's purchasing options multiply, mass marketing techniques become less and less effective: As a result, companies may have to place more reliance on multiple‐option marketing.

Encapsulates the debate on the topics of confusion in consumption and the return of community. Starting with an ethnosociological analysis structuring the passage from modernity to postmodernity around the metamorphosis of the social link, aims at clarifying and explaining the different levels of the postmodern confusion in consumption. Modernity entered history as a progressive force promising to liberate humankind from everyday obligations and traditional bonds. As a consequence, modern consumption emphasized essentially the utilitarian value (“use value”) of products and services. Postmodernity, on the contrary, can be said to crown not the triumph of individualism, but the beginning of its end with the emergence of a reverse movement of a desperate search for community. With the neo‐tribalism distinguishing postmodernity, everyday life seems to mark out the importance of a forgotten element: the social link. Consequently, postmodern consumption appears to emphasize the “linking value” of products and services. Concludes with an exploration of the implications of postmodernity for rethinking marketing with the integration of the linking value concept.

Reviews the very wide potential for the application of multimedia kiosks. It is important that all retailing organizations understand the scope of these applications since kiosks have the potential for eroding the traditional boundaries between retailing, banking, education and training and the provision of information and advice, both to the general public, and also within organizations to employees. Potentially, applications in many of these previously distinct areas could be interlinked. Currently, multimedia kiosks are being tested in a number of different applications. Kiosks can be viewed as a medium through which it is possible to inform, educate, train, persuade or perform information‐based transactions. Their potential attraction in all of these roles consists of their relative novelty and the range of different media that can be used to reinforce the message. The future for multimedia kiosks remains unclear. The present tests in a wide range of different application areas should permit the identification of appropriate niches where they can achieve at least one of the following: more effective communication of information; increased sales, showing an appropriate return on investment; and improvements in customer service, in environments where they are a priority.