Consumer Research

Dissecting preference heterogeneity in consumer stated choice

by marcucci edoardo

Consumer implications of the WCRF's permanent update on colorectal cancer

by Federico Jose Armando Perez-Cueto Eulert

Please cite this article as: Pérez-Cueto, F.J.A., & Verbeke, W., Consumer implications of the WCRF's permanent update on colorectal cancer,
Meat Science 2012; 90:977-978, doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2011.11.032

The last update published by the World Cancer Research Fund on colorectal cancer shows that there is convincing... more The last update published by the World Cancer Research Fund on colorectal cancer shows that there is convincing evidence that physical activity could contribute to the prevention of this type of cancers, while highlighting redmeat and meat products consumption and alcohol among the factors that increase the disease's risk. The main message of this document is that the best prevention of colorectal cancer is the combination of higher physical activity with a fibre-rich and meat products poor diet. This information is useful the consumer who should make his food choices according to the scientific evidence. This contribution highlights challenges in communication and possible effects from the consumer perspective.

The golden ties that bind: boundary crossing in diasporic Hindu wedding ritual

by Ekant Veer

The interpretive research in this article goes beyond considering how diasporic consumers cross borders between home... more The interpretive research in this article goes beyond considering how diasporic consumers cross borders between home and host cultures, to examine how they cross boundaries within their home culture. In keeping with ethno-consumerism, the authors utilize Hindu meaning categories of sacredness, purity, and auspiciousness to examine the wedding ritual among diasporic Hindus. The authors unpack the transformation of outsider fiancées into insider daughters to show how gold is employed to separate, link, and cross boundaries in extended families. This article demonstrates the agency of the relationships between the gold and its givers, in collectively co-creating an aesthetic subject who is a visual representation of a daughter embedded into the collective self of the extended family. In doing so, the authors demonstrate how diasporic Hindus utilize the cultural code of gold to shape and reaffirm collective identity.

Being Online: How the Internet is Changing Research for Consumers

by Ekant Veer

The last ten years have seen significant change in consumers’ lives; changes that are too numerous to document in one... more The last ten years have seen significant change in consumers’ lives; changes that are too numerous to document in one article. However, one change that has made, and continues to make, a difference to consumers’ behaviour is their interaction with the Internet and Social Media. In this article I discuss the role that the Internet has played in consumers’ lives as well as the importance of understanding consumers’ interactions online. By being online, consumers are able to live experiences that are far different from their offline interactions. I close with some predictions for consumer welfare and online interaction as well as a look to the future of Research for Consumers.

Too Old to Choose? The Effects of Age and Age Related Constructs on Consumer Decision Making

by David Woisetschläger

Co-authored with Heiner Evanschitzky, published in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 35, 2008

Motorcycling edgework: A practice theory perspective

by Stephen Murphy

Journal of Marketing Management , Co-author Maurice Patterson

In an effort to elucidate a deep understanding of the experience of dangerous motorcycling behaviour we... more

In an effort to elucidate a deep understanding of the experience of dangerous motorcycling behaviour we employ a practice theory perspective; drawing out connections between the practice, the consumption of objects, and the meanings surrounding both. Using the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM), we offer possible explanations as to why, in the face of troubling accident statistics, some motorcyclists continue to drive at excessive speeds. Narrative accounts portray dangerous motorcycling practice as autotelic, impulsive edgework, incorporating a strong connection between rider and machine, and embedded with symbolic, emotional values that cannot be accounted for by traditional rational choice models. Our findings allow for the potential of policy makers to address such motorcycling practice in ways more meaningful to those engaged in it.

Goddesses of Consumerism: An Interpretivist Study of Young Female Consumers in Contemporary India

by Anoop Bhogal

‘To buy or not to buy?’ Emotions, Impulsive Behavior, the Consumer and Marketing Implications.

by Izabella Warner

It seems that quite often we don’t even get a chance to ask ourselves that question before a purchase makes its way... more It seems that quite often we don’t even get a chance to ask ourselves that question before a purchase makes its way into our shopping trolley.  The urge to posses can be an unexpected, sudden and exciting force, very much tied with emotions, expectations and promises of instant albeit fleeting gratification.  The contemporary market place is a 24-hour jungle where shoppers can indulge their impulses in the hunt for goods and services not only in vast shopping malls but also from the comfort of their living rooms.  Many marketing efforts today aim to make shopping an effortless activity that doesn’t require a significant resource investment.  Actually many of them don’t even require us to think much- we just have to want something. As marketing techniques geared towards low consumer involvement became more prevalent so does the incidence of impulse buying.  It’s a self-perpetuating cycle where the consumer is successfully lured by a marketing expert and in return entices the marketing expert to invent more novel ways of encouraging spontaneous, deeply hedonistic purchases. Given the right mix of marketing elements and high limit credit cards, a customer can be made to buy almost anything on impulse.  But is marketing creating or merely exploiting an already existing, innate urge to buy?

“It’s the feeling of I want that, and by God I’m gonna get it!”
– female 48 describing a dress (Rook, 1987 p.193).

Let’s listen to them: Podcasts as a source of data for consumer culture research.

by Daiane Scaraboto

Meaning and mattering through transformative consumer research

by David Mick

Consumer research and semiotics: Exploring the morphology of signs, symbols, and significance

by David Mick

Pursuing the Meaning of Meaning in the Commercial World: An International Review of Marketing and Consumer Research Founded on Semiotics

by David Mick

published in Semiotica, 2004

A Comparative Analysis of the Consumer’s Behaviour in Portugal and Romania

by Cristiana Artenie

Understanding Value Co-creation in a Co-consuming Brand Community

by Jonathan Schroeder

Marketing Theory, published in September 2011
Co authored with Siwarit Pongsakornrungsilp
Walailak University, Thailand

Recent research has suggested that consumers collectively co-create value through consumption practices. This paper... more Recent research has suggested that consumers collectively co-create value through consumption practices. This paper provides additional insights into value creation by
demonstrating how individual consumers play distinct roles in the value creation process. By focusing on micro dimensions of co-consuming groups, we show how individual consumers
engage in value creation processes in the context of brand culture. We bring together concepts of value creation, working consumers, and double exploitation to demonstrate the roles played by consumers and communities in value co-creation. We focus on value creation in a particular type of co-consuming group: an online football fan community. Results show that co-consuming groups are platforms for value creation. We argue that double exploitation is not necessarily a threat to consumers because it may instead enable them to play active
roles in value co-creation and gain power against brand owners. This paper contributes to the existing literature on brand community and the value co-creation paradigm by: 1)
demonstrating the dynamic roles played by consumers in the value co-creation; 2) revealing new forms of consumer organisation; and 3) illustrating how working consumers work
among themselves in managing brand communities.

Trusting, Complex, Quality Conscious or Passive? Constructing the Food Consumer in Different European National Contexts

by Paolo Magaudda

(with B. Halkier et al.) in «Journal of Consumer Culture», Vol 7(3): 379–402.

Abstract

In the new European food policy following the BSE crisis, the consumer is called upon to take an... more Abstract

In the new European food policy following the BSE crisis, the consumer is called upon to take an active and responsible role. But in the political and organizational restructuring processes following the European Union policy, diverse constructions of the food consumer can be identified in different national contexts. The article analyses the discursive framings of the food consumer in four national settings: Norway, Denmark, Italy and Portugal, based on interview data from a comparative research project, TRUSTINFOOD. The main discursive framings that in each national context were shared by all types of actors in the food sector were: `the trusting consumer' (Norway); `the complex consumer' (Denmark); `the quality conscious consumer' (Italy); and `the unprotected consumer' (Portugal). These consensual constructions tie in with national survey results illuminating consumers, self-understandings of individual agency and acting. But consumer responsibilities for food issues also fuel conflictual representations, in the northern countries between different food issues and in the southern countries between different types of actors. Both consensual and main and conflicting framings relate to national organizational institutionalizations in the food sector. It is concluded that references to the European consumer are misleading.

Investigating early modern Ottoman consumer culture in the light of Bursa probate inventories

by Eminegül Karababa

This study investigates the development of early modern Ottoman consumer culture. In particular, the democratization... more This study investigates the development of early modern Ottoman consumer culture. In particular, the democratization of consumption, which is a significant indicator of the development of western consumer cultures, is examined in relation to Ottoman society. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century probate inventories of the town of Bursa combined with literary and official sources are used in order to identify democratization of consumption and the macro conditions shaping this development. Findings demonstrate that commercialization, international trade, urbanization which created a fluid social structure, and the ability of the state to negotiate with guilds were possible contextual specificities which encouraged the democratization of consumption in the Bursa context.

Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject

by Eminegül Karababa

Co-authored with Güliz Ger

We examine the sociohistorical formation of the consumer subject during the development of consumer culture in the... more We examine the sociohistorical formation of the consumer subject during the development of consumer culture in the context of leisure consumption. Specifically, we investigate how an active consumer was forming while a coffeehouse culture was taking shape during early modern Ottoman society. Utilizing multiple historical data sources and analysis techniques, we focus on the discursive negotiations and the practices of the consumers, the marketers, the state, and the religious institution as relevant stakeholders. Our findings demonstrate that multiparty resistance, enacted by consumers and marketers, first challenged the authority of the state and religion and then changed them. Simultaneously and at interplay with various institutional transformations, a public sphere, a coffeehouse culture, and a consumer subject constructing his self-ethics were developed, normalized, and legalized. We discuss the implications of the centrality of transgressive hedonism in this process, as well as the existence of an active consumer in an early modern context.

Qualitative Marketing Research: A Cultural Approach

by Johanna Moisander

For sale at:
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book227142
http://www.amazon.com/Qualitative-Marketing-Research-Cultural-Introducing/dp/1412903815

Sage Research Methods Online:
http://www.srmo.sagepub.com/view/qualitative-marketing-research-moisander/d3.xml

Qualitative Marketing Research unpacks the emerging cultural approach in the field of marketing and consumer research... more Qualitative Marketing Research unpacks the emerging cultural approach in the field of marketing and consumer research and provides an interesting and informed study for anyone interested in cultural approaches to economic and social theory. 

Construction of Consumer Choice in the Market: Challenges for Environmental Policy

by Johanna Moisander

published in International Journal of Consumer Studies, co-authored with Annu Markkula and Kirsi Eräranta, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2009.00821.x/abstract

Drawing from the literature on analytics of government, the paper discusses marketing as a form of government,... more Drawing from the literature on analytics of government, the paper discusses marketing as a form of government, elaborating and illustrating the many ways in which consumer choice is shaped, modified and directed in the market through practices and techniques of consumer marketing. The aim is to critically reflect upon and render problematic the individualistic ideas of the green consumer as a powerful market force and to provoke discussion on the conceptualization—and construction— of consumer subjectivity and social problems in marketing. Taking examples particularly from the fashion and clothing industry, the paper discusses the ways in which marketing activities come to shape consumer conduct by operating through the choice of individuals who freely pursue their needs and desires, and by working on the environment within which this freedom of choice is exercised. The paper contributes to the literature on green consumerism by systematically interrogating and elaborating on the modes and practices of marketing thought and expertise through which consumers and consumption are rendered intelligible and actionable in the market.

Ethical Dimensions of Sustainable Marketing: A Consumer Policy Perspective

by Johanna Moisander

co-authored with José-Carlos García-Rosell, published in the proceedings of European Advances in Consumer Research, 8, 2010-2015.

This paper works towards a better understanding of sustainability and social responsibility in business practice by... more This paper works towards a better understanding of sustainability and social responsibility in business practice by elaborating on the prevalent approaches to environmental ethics and social responsibility that inform the discussion on sustainable marketing in the literature. Three different approaches to normative environmental ethics are identified (consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics), and the roles and responsibilities that different market actors have in each approach are analyzed. Conclusions are drawn particularly for environmental and consumer policy.