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If ever a literary genre were made for consumer research, that literary genre is allegory. The word comes from the Ancient Greek allegoreo, meaning to speak of the other in the marketplace. Buildin...

Weddings are collective rituals that enable couples to show their solemn commitment to an invited audience. In this sense, weddings can thus be viewed as important forms of ‘display work’. While there are clear commonalities between rituals and display work, particularly in terms of their emphasis on spectacle, demonstration and audience, little attention has been given to how display work can inform and indeed transform wedding rituals. We use display work as a lens for exploring how same-sex couples construct and enact their wedding. In particular we show how heteronormative, gendered traditions that underpin the wedding rite are negotiated. Our findings demonstrate the interplay between display work and normative ritual elements. We identify four tactics of ‘reflexive display’: strategic compliance; playful appropriation; annexation; and conspicuous absence. Together, these show how the wedding rite is done, undone or redone, to reflect each couple’s unique relationship and perspective on same-sex union.

During a roundtable discussion at the 2022 GENMAC Conference, a group of researchers specializing in religiosity and spiritual consumption, using examples from their own fieldwork, reflected on how (i) researchers’ subject positioning—including their gender and sexuality—shape fieldwork in multifaceted manners; (ii) investigations of religious/spiritual fields would benefit from a heightened sensitivity to issues of gender and sexuality; and (iii) greater sensitivity to aspects of religion and/or spirituality can help gender and sexuality scholars better understand consumers and markets. Based on the above, in this commentary paper, we call for intersectional reflexivity, attention to vulnerability and discomfort during fieldwork, and critical sensitivity to the religious “context of context” during theorization. Furthermore, we argue that specific spiritual/religious imaginaries can foster new research approaches that can contribute to more nuanced fieldwork and theorization in marketing and consumer research.

The present research explores the effects of imagined audiences, emotions, and feedback expectations on social media photo sharing. We focus on the audience-oriented approach to sharing and on how discrepancies between expected and received feedback might shape photo sharing behaviors. Twenty-four participants were interviewed using scenario-based semi-structured interview method. The participants were asked to develop an imagined story about two fictional individuals who decided to share a photo on their social media. The story was guided by questions about the characters’ motivations and incentives to post and explored three alternative scenarios representing the reception of usual feedback, better than usual feedback, and the absence of expected feedback, respectively. The results indicate that individuals often adopt their audience’s perspective when choosing a photo to post, and consider whether the chosen image would evoke sufficient interest to induce feedback. The participants believed that emotional photos engaged their audience and motivated the viewers to provide feedback. Furthermore, the study identified and analyzed the concept of feedback expectations. When received feedback exceeded the expectations, individuals experienced happiness. However, the replication of successful content was considered appropriate only if accompanied by a suitable caption and posted after a period of time. When received feedback failed to meet their expectations, individuals felt disconnected from their audiences and experienced disappointment. They employed rationalization and feedback dismissal as coping mechanisms and displayed two common behavioral responses to unsuccessful feedback; they attempted to repost the photo avoiding previous mistakes, and they changed the style of content they posted.

This chapter shows the differences between a common, taken-for-granted understanding of gendered representations in advertising, and a cultural perspective, which takes the culturally and socially constructed nature of gender into consideration. The chapter demonstrates that marketing managers may take one of four approaches in relation to their advertising strategies. These the authors define as traditional/complacent, traditional/subversive, cultural/complacent or cultural/subversive. These various positions are illustrated with examples from contemporary advertising campaigns. By sensitizing managers to wider macro issues, it is argued that more informed choices can be made about whether to sustain the status quo of conventional gendered representations (the complacent strategy) or whether to challenge these traditional representations and thereby offer something new instead (the subversive strategy).

This article explores how marketing influences ideologies of femininity. Tracing the evolution of femme fatale images in Vogue magazine in 1890s America, we develop a typology around four archetypal forms of the femme fatale that prevailed during this period. In doing so we respond to calls for more critical historical analyses on femininity. While studies on masculinity ideologies proliferate, there is a paucity of research on dissonant representations of femininity in popular culture media. The femme fatale, often a self-determined seductress who causes anguish to the men who become involved with her, is an intriguing and enduring challenge to traditional notions of femininity. Thus, in studying the femme fatale in her historical context and revealing the multiplicity of feminine ideologies contained within this trope, we contribute to a deeper understanding of marketing’s role in both reflecting and reinforcing societal assumptions, attitudes and problematics around gender norms.

Purpose This paper aims to use embodied theory to analyze consumer experience in a retail brandscape, Hollister Co. By taking a holistic, embodied approach, this study reveals how individual consumers interact with such retail environments in corporeal, instinctive and sensual ways. Design/methodology/approach The primary source of data was 97 subjective personal introspective accounts undertaken with the target age group for the store. These were supplemented with in-depth interviews with consumers, managers and employees of Hollister. Findings The authors offer a conceptualization of consumers’ embodied experience, which they term The Immersive Somascape Experience. This identifies four key touch points that evoke the Hollister store experience – each of which reveals how the body is affected by particular relational and material specificities. These are sensory activation, brand materialities, corporeal relationality and (dis)orientation. These may lead to consumer emplacement. Research limitations/implications The authors propose that taking an “intelligible embodiment” approach to consumer experiences in retail contexts provides a deeper, more holistic understanding of the embodied processes involved. They also suggest that more anthropological, body-grounded studies are needed for the unique insights they provide. Finally, they note that there is growing consumer demand for experiences, which, they argue, points to the need for more research from an embodied experience perspective in our field. Practical implications The study reveals the perils and pitfalls of adopting a sensory marketing perspective. It also offers insights into how the body leads in retail brandscapes, addressing a lack in such approaches in the current retailing literature and suggesting that embodied, experiential aspects of branding are increasingly pertinent in retailing in light of the continued growth of on-line shopping. Originality/value Overall, the study shows how an embodied approach challenges the dominance of mind and representation over body and materiality, suggesting an “intelligible embodiment” lens offers unique insights into consumers’ embodied experiences in retail environments.

Much has been written about myth and the marketplace. Consumer research has added immeasurably to academics’ appreciation of the myths that inhere in fabulous flagship stores and experiential retailing more generally. Studies of consumer mythopoeia, however, have tended to muffle the martial side of retailing, the heroic struggles that some customers undergo in-store. This article argues that the epic offers valuable insights into martial matters, and more. Although epic and myth overlap, they are far from identical. The former is characterized by conventions that can help illuminate consumers’ quests, not least their disturbing journeys through the underworld. These are considered in relation to Hollister (HCo), a phenomenally successful retail chain that’s renowned for its antithetical atmospherics and inky interior design. A qualitative study of Hollister lovers and haters casts light on the epic in action and adds to scholars’ understanding of immersive retailing experiences.

Beatriz Preciado's study of Hugh Hefner's pornotopian vision and projects take us on a fascinating romp through the rise and fall of the Playboy Empire. This is an insightful, historically and cult...

This is a study of glamour, its complexities and its relationship with and role within celebrity culture. We explore glamour in the context of Nigella, the London-born TV cook, food writer and self-proclaimed ‘domestic goddess’ of British culinary culture. In our study we consider the interconnections between glamour, specifically Italian-style retro-glamour, and performativity in Nigella’s career. We also address the role of embodiment and authenticity in the masquerade of femininity. Our analysis focuses on Nigella’s glamour over time, considering its creation, enactment and reaffirmation following scandal. We conclude by speculating on glamour’s complex and ambivalent relationship with celebrity culture, and the role of vulnerability in creating authentic and enduring glamour in contemporary consumer society.

Visual representations of violent women provoke a range of gender issues in contemporary consumer culture. This study offers a critical visual analysis of violent women in contemporary advertising and film. We discuss how violent women have been portrayed historically and how contemporary images are expressed in an art historical framework. Violent women in popular culture are often glamorised, trivialized and sanitized. We argue that images of violent women signify an artificially masculinized female predator and a superficial marker of power transformation.

This is a study of the dark side of anthromorphism, which explores the depiction of cows in contemporary advertising. The study begins by tracing the cow's representation in culture as an object that is simultaneously revered and profaned, tracing this to its long-standing association with nature and the feminine. It then offers a historical perspective on the representation of cows in advertising. This leads to a consideration of ecofeminism and related issues around this, such as environmentalism and gender. Applying an ecofeminist analysis, the authors identify an overarching narrative of 'benevolent mastery' in many cow advertisements that adopt anthromorphic devices. The study concludes by suggesting that an ecofeminist lens enables us to unmask the 'dark side' of anthromorphism in marketing, revealing fundamental prejudices in contemporary culture.

Compulsive buying is a serious, but under researched, aspect of consumer buying behaviour. Setting the review in a historical context, the review begins by addressing the earliest works on the subject and seminal papers by leading researchers in the field of compulsive buying. The review addresses the fact that Emil Kraepelin first identified compulsive buying in his 1915 textbook, before the subject faced an almost complete hiatus in terms of research until the late 1980s where the issue was addressed by a number of leading consumer behaviour researchers. The review will then proceed chronologically and thematically, addressing each issue and theme that has emerged from the literature. Previous directions of the research will be discussed, whilst guiding readers towards the current landscape of the research, and a suggestion of the next logical direction of the research

Gender is deeply embedded in marketing ideology, and it continues to be a topic of concern in the marketing academy. There is little attention paid by marketers, however, to related studies in other fields on aesthetic labour and emotional labour in relation to gender issues, despite the commonalities and intersections between them. This article seeks to incorporate aesthetic labour and emotional labour into the gender and marketing discussion. It concludes by calling for greater critical awareness of gender as a dominant motif in our ideologies, discourses and practices in marketing, offering suggestions for empirical research into this important topic.

Using the British Sikh community as its research context, this article explores the influence of the Bollywood film genre on what Vertovic refers to as the “diasporic consciousness” in relation to this community. Bollywood attempts to speak to the diaspora by conveying a new sense of “Indian-ness,” one that is less about citizenship and more about imagined identity and community. The authors investigate what they have termed the “Indian imaginary” and how the values embedded therein impact on the lives of young British Sikhs. The findings discuss three emergent core themes: (1) reaffirming pride in Indian heritage; (2) evoking romance and longing; and (3) reinforcing family values and a sense of kinship within the British Sikh diaspora. The overall contribution of the article is twofold. First, it illustrates how the globalization of Bollywood affects the Indian diaspora at a local level. Second, it shows how Bollywood provides an important space for negotiating and reconciling various tensions between family-based and more individualistic value systems. Ultimately, then, Bollywood offers young British Sikhs a particular, hybridized representation of courtship and marriage that is both romantic and familial, and that serves to reconcile Eastern and Western marital relationship ideals and oppositional cultural discourses.

This article draws on mythology, specifically archetypal images of womanhood and goddesses in Celtic mythology, to demonstrate how marketers refer to myths to endow their brands with powerful and compelling elements. It traces how cultural myths of womanhood have functioned in history, and how they are continually being re-created and re-presented in the marketplace in order to fire the imaginations of consumers. Such marketing strategies enable consumers to invoke and partake of the powerful associations encapsulated in perfume brands, associations that contribute to this product category's enduring appeal and allure in the marketplace.

This is a study of women's magazine consumption in the home. It explores issues of time and space, and addresses the importance the women who took part in the study place on magazine consumption in their lives, given the 'juggling' lifestyles experiences by most of them. The study reveals family life to be a landscape within which these women carve out what they perceive as valuable and rare time and space for themselves. The authors argue that in contemporary life women's magazines play a key part in the quest for me-time and time away from others, in both a tangible and experiential sense.

Critical perspectives on theory play an important and valued role in disciplines across the academy. Feminist perspectives might be expected to be at or near the forefront of critical engagement with consumer behaviour theory, especially given the importance of gender in consumer research. Following a brief upsurge during the 1990s, critical feminist voices have been muted of late. This paper explores some reasons for this. It begins with a brief overview of research on gender and consumer behaviour and how insights from feminist theories and feminist activism began to alter our understanding of gendered consumption. It then discusses how postmodern and postfeminist perspectives have diluted feminism as a critique of gendered consumption. Finally, it argues that a return to materialist feminism would open up possibilities for new and more critical analyses of gendered consumption.

This paper focuses on the consumer imagination and, more specifically, on the imaginary shopping spaces which women's magazines create. It addresses the anticipatory, imaginary and experiential consumption which this medium invites. The paper explores how women's magazines function as ‘dreamworlds’ of shopping; and how contemporary readers consume these imaginary shopping spaces. In order to illustrate what the authors term the ‘shopping imaginary’, they draw on findings from a study of women's experiential consumption of magazines, which show the multifaceted ways around which imaginary consumption is explored and enjoyed by women. The study suggests that women's magazines, like department stores, are spaces that facilitate and celebrate just looking and browsing, and, above all, they are shopping spaces that address the power of the imagination within them. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This study explores the concept of self for women in consumer culture, as it is played out in an experiential advertising campaign for a U.K. women's magazine called Red. The study qualitatively explores the tensions and ambivalences experienced by female participants in response to a campaign using the notion of self-indulgence and "me time" as they experience it in the context of their everyday lives. It shows how women attempt to reconcile the mixed emotions that the Red campaign evokes in them.

Ireland has struggled with its ‘feminine’ identity throughout its history. The so-called ‘chasmic dichotomy of male and female' is embedded in colonial and postcolonial constructions of Irishness and it continues to manifest itself in contemporary cultural representations of Ireland and Irishness. This study explores issues of gender and nationality via a reading of a 70-second television advertisement for Caffrey's Irish Ale, titled ‘New York’. The article suggests that, although colonial and postcolonial discourse on Ireland continues to perceive the ‘feminine’ in problematic terms, this is gradually changing as Irish women increasingly, in poet Eavan Boland's words, ‘open a window on those silences, those false pastorals, those ornamental reductions’ that have confined us.

Critical marketing studies are currently on the margins of the discipline, and the ideas and challenges to conventional marketing thought posed by these critiques are rarely examined in the marketing classroom. Drawing largely from debates in the management literature, discusses the problems and considers the possibilities of integrating critical reflection into the marketing curriculum.

By employing a research approach, known as subjective personal introspection - the critical "I" - four co-researchers wrote extensive autobiographical essays on their responses to an advertisement for Caffrey's Irish Ale. By delving in the shamelessly subjective this paper draws out the main themes by comparing, contrasting and critiquing the introspective insights of these four critical "I's". In doing so, it demonstrates that there can be no grounded interpretations of an advertising text, that the critical "I" can yield uniquely illuminating insights, and that its chief power, as a research method, lies in its capacity for creativity, imagination and discovery.

Explores the “glasshouse effect” that women marketing managers may experience as they carry out their marketing roles. Addresses, specifically, the invisible organizational environments which constrict and stifle values which are traditionally perceived as “feminine” in the workplace. Research with women in marketing management indicates that these barriers are not only vertical, as implied by the phrase “the glass ceiling”, but also horizontal, and are consequently more appropriately encapsulated in the image of a “glasshouse”, a colloquial term for a prison.

Explores the “glasshouse effect” that women marketing managers may experience as they carry out their marketing roles. Addresses, specifically, the invisible organizational environments which constrict and stifle values which are traditionally perceived as “feminine” in the workplace. Research with women in marketing management indicates that these barriers are not only vertical, as implied by the phrase “the glass ceiling”, but also horizontal, and are consequently more appropriately encapsulated in the image of a “glasshouse”, a colloquial term for a prison.

This cutting edge, innovative volume offers the best of current scholarship on feminist perspectives in marketing. Through many exciting and often controversial discussions, it highlights and challenges assumptions about women and gender in marketing theory and practice from both historical and current contexts

Before envisioning the future of marketing, as the conference theme suggests, it may be worthwhile examining our desire to envision the future of marketing. This paper argues that our need to imagine the future is part of an innate utopian propensity. It examines the relationship between marketing and utopianism, contends that marketing is inherently utopian in ethos, and concludes that, necessary though they are, future visions of marketing cannot and should not be enacted.

1. The Making of Mothers (Stephanie O'Donohoe, Margaret Hogg, Pauline Maclaran, Lydia Martens and Lorna Stevens) Part I: Motherhood as an Ideological, Mediated Project 2. Motherhood in the Movies, 1942-2010: Social Class Mobility and Economic Power (Elizabeth C. Hirschman) 3. Designing Mothers and the Market: Social Class and Material Culture (Alison J. Clarke) 4. How to be a Mother: Expert Advice and the Material Subject (Mary Jane Kehily) 5. Negotiations of Motherhood: Between Ideals and Practice (Malene Gram and Helle Pederson) Part II: Feeding Motherhood 6. "It won't do her any Harm" they said, "Or they wouldn't put it on the Market": Infant Weaning, Markets and Mothers' Narratives of Trust (Julia Keenan and Helen Stapleton) 7. Contesting Food: Contesting Mothering? (Bente Halkier) 8. Food, Cooking and Motherhood amongst Bosnian Refugees in Sweden (Helene Brembeck) 9. Images of Motherhood: Food Advertising in Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1950-2010 (David Marshall, Margaret Hogg, Teresa Davis, Tanja Schneider and Alan Petersen) Part III: Motherhood, Consumption and Transitions 10. Bouncing Back: Reclaiming the Body from Pregnancy (Lisa O'Malley and Maurice Patterson) 11. Managing Pregnancy Work: Consumption, Emotion and Embeddedness (Caroline Gatrell) 12. Engaging with the Maternal: Tentative Mothering Acts and the Props of Performance (Tina Miller) 13. Mothers and their Empty Nests: Employing Consumption Practices to Negotiate a Major Life Transition (Carolyn F. Curasi, Pauline Maclaran and Margaret Hogg) 14. Whose Work is it Anyway?: The Shifting Dynamics of Accountability and Responsibility in Family Mealtime Practices (Benedetta Cappellini and Elizabeth Parsons) Part IV: Consumption and Contested Motherhood Identities 15. Mothering, Poverty and Consumption (Lisa Glass, Kathy Hamilton and Katherine Trebeck) 16. On Markets and Motherhood: The Case of American Mothers of Children Adopted from China (Amy Traver) 17. Spectacular Pregnancy Loss: The Public Private Lives of the Santorums and Duggars at the Intersection of Politics, Religion and Tabloid Culture (Linda Layne) 18. Pregnancy, Privacy and Personhood in the Consumer Socialization of Expectant Mothers (The VOICE Group)

This chapter focuses on the festival shopping mall, in this case the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre in Dublin, offering a discursive, romantic, 'stream-of-scholarly-consciousness' approach by the two authors who explore the festival mall experience provided by this celebrated Dublin shopping centre. The authors also draw on key theoretical constructs of Mikhail Bakhtin, such as his concept of the carnivalesque, to help them evoke the inherent magic of the festival mall.