Digital communication has altered the flow of global information,evolved consumer values and changed consumption practices worldwide.New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society provides an illuminating, challenging and thought-provoking guide for all upper-level students of marketing,branding and consumer behaviour.
Digital communication has altered the flow of global information, evolved consumer values and changed consumption practices worldwide. New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society provides an illuminating, challenging and thought providing guide for all upper-level students of marketing, branding and consumer behaviour.
Tailored for fashion students and equally relevant for fashion professionals, Pioneering New Perspectives in the Fashion Industry: Disruption, Diversity and Sustainable Innovation presents a ground-breaking, comprehensive and cutting-edge analysis of the challenges and opportunities reshaping the global fashion industry.
In the post-socialist countries, the subject of consumption has not received sufficient attention from the perspective of Consumer Culture Theory. The opinion has long prevailed among the majority of social scientists from this region that consumer society and consumptive behaviour is a socially destructive phenomenon and one of the main causes of problems in contemporary society. This impression has prevented them from scrutinizing the symbolic dimension of consumption and led them to a critical analysis of the social causes and environmental consequences of excessive consumption. The examination of symbolic aspects of consumer culture or the mutual interaction of culture and marketing communication, for example, have remained outside the realm of academic interest. The absence of comprehensive academic interest in the topic of consumer culture does not, however, mean that consumer culture is not a subject of research. Such research, instead, takes place outside of the sphere of the university in the commercial sector and is primarily focused on issues of how to successfully sell products and services. Due to competitive concerns, commercial research into consumer culture has led to the privatization of its results, which runs contrary to the ideal of science as an open and critical project. The goal of this book is to create a counterbalance to this “science in the shadows” and overcome the mutual distrust between the academic and commercial spheres and make possible the transfer of recent discoveries between the two parties. This publication is dedicated to the exploration of three areas of consumer culture: research on consumer culture and consumer behaviour in post-socialist countries (especially in the Czech Republic), new developments in the theory of consumer culture and innovative methodological approaches to its research and, finally, to recent criticism of consumer culture and consumerism. It emerged from the collaboration of a team of authors made up of leading European researchers in the field of consumer culture, such as Kate Soper (London Metropolitan University), Franz Liebl (Berlin University of the Arts) and Rainer Gries (University of Vienna), as well as promising young scholars from the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Sweden, Serbia, Poland and Portugal. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sociology, cultural studies, marketing and market research.
What fuels capitalism and what stops it from collapsing? Does marketing communications support and sustain the economic and political status quo? This book is not about describing the ways in which businesses can optimize the messages they put across or about adding to the marketing communicator’s toolkit. This book argues that marketing communications plays an increasingly important role in bolstering contemporary capitalism. Drawing on conceptualizations of the ‘market’ from political economy and sociology, it focusses on five logics that underpin and sustain the form of capitalism in which we live: the logic of competition, the logic of sustainability, the logic of individualism, the logic of objectivity, and the logic of distraction. It does this by exploring those arenas which are increasingly dominated by the communicative activities of business: sport, CSR, social media, statistics, and entertainment. Bringing theories from marketing and consumer research, sociology, cultural studies, technology and media studies to bear on marketing communications, this book is necessary reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students and academics who wish to understand the broader role of marketing communications in the reproduction of contemporary capitalism.
Understanding Personalization: New Aspects of Design and Consumption addresses the global phenomenon of personalization that affects many aspects of everyday life. The book identifies the dimensions of personalization and its typologies. Issues of privacy, the ethics of design, and the designer/maker's control versus the consumer's freedom are covered, along with sections on digital personalization, advances in new media technologies and software development, the way we communicate, our personal devices, and the way personal data is stored and used. Other sections cover the principles of personalization and changing patterns of consumption and development in marketing that facilitate individualized products and services. The book also assesses the convergence of both producers and consumers towards the co-creation of goods and services and the challenges surrounding personalization, customization, and bespoke marketing in the context of ownership and consumption. - Offers multiple perspectives on personalization, a pervasive and complex issue - Presents expertise and practical examples to help users understand personalization and its application to a variety of disciplines - Breaks new ground in defining and explaining personalization in the context of individualized and micro-marketing
What factors are contributing to the continuing growth in consumption of goods and services? At what point do the costs associated with consumerism begin to call our way of life into question? How are the problems of resource depletion, waste and pollution, and environmental impact being addressed? What is to be done about the consequences of our all-consuming way of life? Ever-increasing consumption and a relentless pursuit of growth in output are the twin pillars on which the modern economy and contemporary social life rest. But the consumer way of life is globally unsustainable. We can′t all live the consumer dream. This comprehensive, lively and informative book will quickly be recognized as a benchmark in the field. It brings together a huge set of resources for thinking about the development of consumer culture, its defining features, and global consequences. Adept in handling a complex range of classical and contemporary theoretical sources, the book draws on an impressive range of comparative material and provides a variety of contemporary examples to inform and enhance understanding of our consuming way of life. Smart writes with verve and feeling and has produced a stimulating book that enlarges our understanding of consumer culture and provides a timely critical analysis of its consequences. Clear, engaging, and original this book will be essential reading for all those interested in and concerned about our global culture of consumption including researchers and students in sociology, politics, cultural studies, economics, and social geography.
Jean Baudrillard′s classic text was one of the first to focus on the process and meaning of consumption in contemporary culture. Originally published in 1970, the book makes a vital contribution to current debates on consumption. The book includes Baudrillard′s most organized discussion of mass media culture, the meaning of leisure, and anomie in affluent society. A chapter on the body demonstrates Baudrillard′s extraordinary prescience for flagging vital subjects in contemporary culture long before others. This English translation begins with a new introductory essay.
Outlining the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas in the field, this book draws on contributions from prominent researchers to unravel the complexities of consumer culture by looking at how it affects personal identity, social interactions and the consuming human being. A field which is characterised as being theoretically challenging is made accessible through learning features that include case study material, critical reflection, research directions, further reading and a broad mix of the types of consumers and consumption contexts including emerging markets and economies. The structure of the book is designed to help students map the field in the way it is interpreted by researchers and follows the conceptual mapping in the classic Arnould & Thompson 2005 journal article. The book is organised into three parts - the Consumption Identity, Marketplace Cultures and the Socio-Historic Patterning of Consumption. Insight is offered into both the historical roots of consumer culture and the everyday experiences of navigating the contemporary marketplace. The book is supported by a collection of international case studies and real world scenarios, including: How Fashion Bloggers Rule the Fashion World; the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Commercial; Professional Beer Pong, Military Recruiting Campaigns, The World Health Organization and the Corporatization of Education. The go-to text for anyone new to CCT or postgraduate students writing a CCT-related thesis.
The work of motivation and consumer researcher Ernest Dichter was a milestone in the psychological creation of the modern consumer. This collection contextualizes Ernest Dichter within twentieth-century consumer culture and it charts the rise of psychological approaches to consumption in post-war Europe and North America.
