From caterpillar to butterfly: experiencing spirituality via body transformation

ABSTRACT

Consumers increasingly seek out the spiritual to enlighten their inner emptiness and find their inner selves. We add a physiological, embodied perspective, which has been commonly overlooked in extant research as a valuable opportunity for individual consumer spirituality. Interpretative investigation of body-transforming consumers uncovers a powerful reincarnation process that eventually leads to the self-renewal and reunion of body and mind. We find that the consumption of body-transforming substances initiates a mindful, spiritual consumer journey allowing consumers to actively develop and experience their inner spirituality through recurring cycles of reduction, reflection and release. These findings allow us to develop implications for a broader understanding of consumer spirituality where the active consumer seeks unity in the self and beyond.     

Faith,hope and love: doing family through consuming pilgrimage

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the consumption of Lourdes, a Catholic pilgrimage site in France. Based on a three-year ethnography, our findings focus on respondents’ ‘Lourdes stories’. Discussing themes of faith, hope and love, we illustrate the importance of the family in consuming Lourdes. Family members act as influencing agents in the initial and sometimes continuous consumption of Lourdes. Our findings differ from consumer research to date in that rather than furthering discussion of family structure or furthering discussion on family identity we suggest a new focus is the actual building of intimate family bonds and relationships – the ‘doing’ of family or ‘familying’ – with the context of the Lourdes pilgrimage offering consumers a unique setting comprising faith, fun and family.     

Pain,suffering and the consumption of spirituality: a toe story

ABSTRACT

The article addresses spiritual consumption from a corporal perspective, with a specific focus on pain and suffering as vehicles to a higher spiritual state. It applies a comparative auto-ethnography of the pain that people participating in two pilgrimages – the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain and the Quebec Compostela in Canada – feel in their toes and uses this to discuss how the experience and manifestation of pain actualises the spiritual experience. The results show that corporal pain transforms into a spiritual experience in the way that it connects to both the spiritual features associated with a particular context and the spiritual capital of the person experiencing the pain. They also reveal that displaying corporal pain during rituals – much like the sense of communion that is generated through the act of sharing – fosters further transformations leading to spiritual experiences.     

Understanding recreational shopping: A new approach

Abstract

In this article recreational shopping is of concern, the course of action whereby individuals experience enjoyment from shopping. The article reviews previous research in the area and suggests directions for further research. It is suggested that research in the area would benefit from drawing more upon research that focuses on the sociocultural, experiential, and symbolic aspects of consumption, such as, for instance, consumer culture theory (CCT). Thus, it is argued that recreational shopping needs to be acknowledged as a multifaceted activity that may be performed in various ways and embody different types of consumer meanings. It is also argued that there is a need to focus more on the influence of retail environments on individuals engaged in recreational shopping.     

‘It’s an illusion,but it looks real!’ Consumer affective,cognitive and behavioural responses to augmented reality applications

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates two augmented reality (AR) applications and corresponding consumer responses to their media characteristics. Firstly, it discusses the role of interactivity with AR technology. Secondly, it introduces augmentation as a salient media characteristic of AR applications and tests measurement items of perceived augmentation. Two experimental studies replicate the research design of Van Noort et al. [Van Noort, G., Voorveld, H. A. M., & van Reijmersdal, E. A. (2012). Interactivity in brand web sites: cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses explained by consumers’ online flow experience. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26, 223–234], applying it in the context of AR. The results show that perceived augmentation represents a fitting concept for understanding consumer responses to AR features and, furthermore, that flow mediates effects of perceived augmentation on consumers’ affective responses and behavioural intentions. AR features on the other hand do not increase perception of interactivity. Finally, implications of the study and further research directions are discussed.     

Practising gender: The role of banter in young men’s improvisations of masculine consumer identities

Abstract

Although consumer researchers have explored the social, cultural and consumption-related tensions involved in being and becoming masculine, prior research has tended to focus on individual men’s experiences. This paper reviews literature in this area together with theories of gender as performed, performative and social practice. Our ethnographic study of male friendship groups in central Scotland explores the gender processes involved in improvising their masculine consumer identities within and across various social settings and interactions. In particular, through consumption-related banter, they played for and played with their ideas of masculinity, thereby engaging in the practising of gender. The boundaries between ‘safe’ and ‘danger’ zones of consumption varied across social groups and contexts, highlighting the complexity and contingency of contemporary masculinities.     

‘If it comes from Juazeiro,it’s blessed’! Liquid and solid attachment in systems of object itineraries of pilgrimages

ABSTRACT

Building on an interpretive approach, we employ the multi-sited ethnographic methods of ‘following the thing’ and ‘following the people’ to track the movements of consumers and objects during a Catholic pilgrimage in the Northeast region of Brazil. We find a system of object itineraries that exemplifies how pilgrims liquefy and solidify attachments to objects to relate to God and saints during movements between their home and the sacred site. We expand perceptions by showing how materiality and relevance to the self can be important even in liquidity. Our findings have implications to the understanding of consumption of the spiritual and liquid/solid attachment to sacred objects.     

A State-of-the-Art Analysis of Food Consumption Studies

Abstract

A review of empirical food consumption studies is offered in this paper. A large number of recent food consumption studies from the areas of food and nutritional science, psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and consumer research are brought together. Twelve research themes are identified from the literature review and key findings and their implications are discussed. A heuristic and evaluative classification is developed to get a systematic understanding of the research issues covered by current food consumption research. A few suggestions for future food consumption research are mentioned on the basis of research gaps identified by the classification. To conclude, the theoretical prospects of studying food-related value conflicts and cross-cultural differences in emotional eating are spelled out in detail.     

Consumer spirituality

ABSTRACT

Consumers increasingly turn to the marketplace in search of spiritual well-being. In this introduction to the special issue, we unpack the concept of consumer spirituality. We define consumer spirituality as the interrelated practices and processes engaged in when consuming market offerings (products, services, places) that yield 'spiritual utility'. The market offerings are purposely designed to quench consumers’ thirst for meaningful encounters with one’s inner self or a higher external power. We identify three vehicles – materiality, embodiment, and technology – that consumers engage with to access consumer spirituality. By unpacking the concept of consumer spirituality along three themes - (1) shaping markets for consumer spirituality, (2) the means for accessing consumer spirituality, and (3) making sense of and researching consumer spirituality - we provide a future research agenda to advance scholarly explorations of consumer spirituality and to facilitate a systematic development of this nascent body of literature in marketing and consumer research.     

Consumption and Production in Two Oaxacan Communities

This paper suggests that the trend towards the conceptualisation of ‘post‐modern’ forms of consumption threatens the very basis of research into consumption and consumers. Arguing that although a fascination with the symbolic aspects of consumption has much to offer, the suggestion here is that the future of consumer research is potentially undermined by a preoccupation with post‐modern rhetoric which has in turn tended to divert consumer researchers away from their object of study. Examples of post‐modern consumer research are therefore critically discussed. In this context, the continued influence of modernist guises of consumption and the need for a datadriven prioritisation of consumer meanings is emphasised. The danger inherent in being seduced by the superficial attractions of a post‐modern mind‐set is therefore said to lay in the fact that post‐modernism operates as a disabling intellectual orientation which can only fulfil its potential if used in a more flexible and imaginative fashion than is currently the case.     

Discursive Confusion over Sustainable Consumption: A Discursive Perspective on the Perplexity of Marketplace Knowledge

This paper works towards a discursive, practice-based perspective on explaining the “knowledge-to-action” gap observed in the consumer policy literature on sustainable consumption. Based on an empirical study that focuses on fashion and clothing markets, the objective is to elaborate on the nature and implications of the discursive polyphony that consumers face when striving for more sustainable consumption practices. Overall, it is concluded that part of the gap can be attributed to the discursive confusion that arises from a simultaneous existence of multiple, continuously changing and partly clashing discourses of sustainable consumption as well as the associated discursive struggle that consumers need to deal with when trying to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in sustainable development.     

Comparing consumer-produced product reviews across multiple websites with sentiment classification

ABSTRACT

Online consumer reviews have been extensively studied. However, existing literature analyzing online consumer review data mostly relies on a single data source, resulting in potentially biased analytics conclusions. Many websites encourage consumers to post reviews of their purchased products, so that new consumers can evaluate these reviews for the same product across different websites to help them make purchasing decisions. Confusions often arise in this process, because there often exist substantial discrepancies in customer reviews across different retailers on the same product. Clarifying such confusions can help consumers reduce concerns to make up their mind for their purchases, therefore benefiting both consumers and retailers. Through text analytics and sentiment analysis, we comparatively examine the underlying patterns of online consumer reviews of three large retailers including Sears, Home Depot, and Best Buy for a same product. Afterward, we combine online consumer reviews from these large retailers and conduct an overall text analytics and sentiment analysis. The overall results are further compared with the results from individual retailers. The findings show that the sentiment of the online consumer reviews could vary substantially so relying on a single data source to make purchase decision is not a wise idea. Based on the results, we further devise a framework to comparatively examine and integrate multiple data sources for social media analytics of online consumer reviews. This study offers important managerial implications and identifies several new research directions for social media analytics.     

Cultural consumption,interactive sociality,and the museum

Abstract

Within marketing and consumer behaviour research, museums have been generally conceptualised as public consumption spaces where visitors benefit from a variety of affective, recreational, and cognitive experiences. As such, the social context has been largely subordinated to enhancing visitors’ cultural consumption experience in the physical environment of the museum. Our study takes a reverse path by highlighting how the cultural consumption experience in the museum nourishes ‘interactive sociality’ both inside and outside the museum. The analysis of our qualitative data (interpretive individual and group interviews and non-participatory observations) on Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow, UK, imply that by leveraging interactive sociality, managers can enhance the museum’s value proposition and societal worth in contemporary society.

The paper critiques museum studies’ over-reliance on (social) psychology theories and demonstrates the value of adopting alternative (sociocultural) approaches to the advancement of theory in the field. It provides evidence for the fact that cultural consumers’ interaction with(in) the organisation is not confined to the physical boundaries of a given context. People extend their varying experiences and sensibilities to other domains beyond the museum walls.     

Phenomenology of Aesthetic Organising--Ways Towards Aesthetically Responsive Organizations

Through explication of a visual research method, this paper theorizes how masculine identity interacts with consumption—of imagery, products, desires, and passions in advertising and consumer culture. We analyze the male body as a discursive “effect” created at the intersection of consumption and several marketing discourses such as advertising, market segmentation, and visual communication, balancing between brand strategy—what the marketer intends—and brand community—the free appropriation of meaning by the market. The paper’s contribution rests in extending previous work on male representation into historical, ontological, and photographic realms, providing a necessary complement between understanding advertising meaning as residing within managerial strategy or wholly subsumed by consumer response. We argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual culture and their impact on the production and consumption of advertising images leads to enhanced ability to understand how advertising works as a representational system and signifying practice.     

An heretical consumer research perspective on music,culture and heritage

ABSTRACT

This special issue presents both empirical and conceptual papers on music, culture, and heritage as a discursive site of human action and social interaction. The theme of this special issue of music, culture, and heritage are aspects symbolically embedded throughout the market, as well as within cultural and ritualistic practice. The work featured in this special issue captures the essence of the 2015 Heretical Consumer Research Revival conference held 28–30 September in New Orleans, LA (partially funded by Association of Consumer Research). This diverse gathering of critical thinkers and consumer researchers considered various avenues to enrich future directions for consumer culture research. In line with that conference, this special issue is oriented towards generating innovative, radical, and even heretical schools of thought in consumer culture research surrounding markets, music, culture, and heritage in a nonconventional, nonconformist manner.     

Why consumers exaggerate in online reviews? Moral disengagement and dark personality traits

Diffusion of digital media has led to extensive reliance on online reviews for purchase decisions. However, consumers may routinely exaggerate about their own consumption experiences. Using moral disengagement theory and the dark personality trait , the present study seeks to enhance the understanding of consumers' intentions to exaggerate about their consumption experience in online reviews. In order to demonstrate convergence of finding and replicability of the proposed relationships, four studies were conducted to examine consumers’ intention to exaggerate about their positive and negative experiences in online reviews for search and experience products respectively. Findings showed significant positive relationships between dark personality traits and intention to exaggerate in online reviews. Furthermore, moral disengagement significantly mediated intention to exaggerate for narcissists and psychopaths. The results reinforce the usefulness of the study for managers as these studies augment the understanding of consumer lying behavior in the context of online reviews and offer insights into mechanisms that might prevent the amplification of such reviews.     

How do consumers co-create their experiences? An exploration in the heritage sector

Abstract

Whilst the body of work around co-creation has grown, co-creation continues to be considered from a value perspective with key questions, such as what is actually being co-created, remaining unanswered. This article moves beyond value to experiences and explores co-creation of the consumption experience. The research examines the manifestations and antecedents of co-creation of the consumption experience from a consumer angle and presents a co-creation framework. Customer critic analysis with consumers from two exemplar heritage organisations is used to investigate co-creation. The findings illuminate three facets of co-creation: co-production, engagement, and personalisation. This paper addresses a gap in Service-Dominant Logic theory, arts/heritage, and broader marketing literature by distinguishing between co-creation of value and co-creation of the consumption experience and proposing a definitive conceptualisation of the latter. The proposed model progresses the co-creation discussion to an empirical level and provides a foundation for future research.     

What makes people choose within-domain versus across-domain compensation following a self-threat? The role of self-verification motives

ABSTRACT

Consumers who experience a psychological threat may compensate by acquiring a product that directly boosts the threatened aspect of their self-concept (i.e., within-domain compensation), or they may compensate by acquiring a product that boosts an unrelated aspect of their self-concept (i.e., across-domain compensation). The current research investigates how self-verification motives influence consumers’ preference between these two compensation strategies. In two studies, participants with a self-verification motive displayed an increased preference for within- (vs. across-) domain compensatory products following a self-threat. Underlying this effect, those with a self-verification motive reported a greater desire for products that re-confirmed the threatened domain of their self-concept.     

Exploring the Feelings and Thoughts that Accompany the Experience of Consumption Desires

Desires represent a central aspect of human motivation. Recent studies in the field of consumer behavior have shown the importance of the concept of desire to better understand the aspirations of consumers living in economically developed countries for whom most basic needs are satisfied. There has been however no previous attempt at circumscribing the feelings and thoughts that accompany the experience of desire. The present research addresses this gap in the literature. The objectives of the research presented in this article are threefold: (1) to identify the affective and cognitive responses that accompany the experience of consumption desire, (2) to develop a valid scale to assess these feelings and cognitions, and (3) to explore the theoretical links that these internal responses have with other concepts of interest in the field of consumer behavior, such as impulsive and compulsive buying, materialism, innovativeness, voluntary simplicity, self‐esteem, and life satisfaction. In order to address these objectives, five studies were conducted. The results of these studies have revealed that the experience of consumption desires is generally accompanied by psychological events that are affective (i.e., pleasure, discomfort, and guilt) and cognitive (i.e., control). This research contributes to a better understanding of the phenomena that surround the experience of consumption desires as lived and managed by consumers through the development of a reliable and valid measuring instrument that can be used to explore the relationships between these phenomena and other fundamental consumer behavior concepts.     

The Differential Impact of Price-Related Consumer Promotions on Loyal versus Non-Loyal Users of the Brand

Abstract

Consumer goods manufacturers regularly spend millions of dollars annually on sales promotions such as couponing, rebates, sweepstakes, and other premium offers. Although the impact of advertising on consumer purchase behavior has been documented in the marketing literature, the impact of promotions on purchase behavior has received relatively little attention. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between brand loyalty, purchase involvement, product experience, and their impact on the efficacy of consumer promotions. The results show that sales promotions have applications beyond their traditional role as short-term promotional tools. Managerial implications as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.