Getting Lost ‘Into the Wild’: Understanding Consumers’ Movie Enjoyment Through a Narrative Transportation Approach

As consumers enjoy watching movies for many reasons, this paper takes an existential-phenomenological perspective to discuss movie consumption as holistic private lived experiences. By using interactive introspection, the two researchers examined their own individual private consumption experiences with the recently released movie Into the Wild (US 2007) as a complex tapestry of interrelated factors. The introspective data indicates that a consumer’s personal engagement with the movie narrative, its characters and underlying philosophy is of particular importance for one’s enjoyment of the movie. This allows for and even enhances the consumer’s temporary feeling of complete immersion into the movie’s imaginary world

Getting Lost ‘Into the Wild’: Exploring the Role of Narrative Transportation in the Experiential Consumption of Movies

Although it is obvious that consumers enjoy watching movies for many reasons that range from mere short-term entertainment to the complete personal immersion into the movie narrative, a full understanding of the experiential consumption of movies and its contribution to a consumer’s subjective quality of life is still lacking. Thus, this paper takes an existential-phenomenological perspective to provide some alternative insights into consumers’ holistic movie consumption experiences. By using a form of interactive introspection, the two researchers examine and discuss hereby their own individual private consumption experiences with the recently released movie Into the Wild (US 2007) as a complex tapestry of interrelated factors. The introspective data indicates that a consumer’s personal engagement with the movie narrative, its characters, atmosphere and underlying philosophy is of particular importance for one’s enjoyment of the movie, as this allows for and even enhances the consumer’s temporary feeling of complete immersion into its imaginary world. The intensity and nature of an individual’s experienced transportation into the movie narrative is hereby determined less by socio-demographic variables such as age or gender, but by one’s own very private motives and intimate involvement with the holistic movie consumption experience

Crossed Glances on the Perception of Consumer Competencies within the Energy Sector: The Case of a French Energy Supplier

This paper discusses the concept of “consumption competence” at the heart of Service-Dominant Logic and the co-creation process of value. In order to examine the issues related to this emerging concept, the research methodology was divided in two parts. In the first one, we introduced a longitudinal ethnography research (2005-2007) based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with employees in a French business energy supplier called “Utility X”. This choice was the best means to understand how do managers in the energy sector consider their customers: are clients represented as active actors or as passive actors within their own consumption experiences. The second part of this research based on in-depth interviews conducted in 2009, involved a group of 10 customers of “Utility X”. The objective of these interviews was to emphasize the consumer's activation of his competencies in the energy sector. This methodology was applied in order to get crossed glances on the concept of the “consumption competencies” emerging in the energy sector.Competence, energy sector, company representation, consumer education, operant resources

Les représentations managériales des compétences du consommateur : la co-création de valeur est-elle toujours possible ? Le cas des consommateurs d'énergie

Cet article discute la notion de co-création de valeur portée par le courant de la Logique Dominante de Service (S-DL) et le concept de compétence du consommateur qu'elle suggère. Cette approche critique est illustrée par les résultats d'une étude longitudinale basée sur des entretiens phénoménologiques avec des employés d'EDF (Electricité de France) dont l'objectif principal est de déterminer dans quelle mesure les consommateurs sont perçus par ces derniers en termes de compétences. L'analyse des données révèle quatre figures du client illustrant chacune les dimensions des compétences ou des incompétences des clients perçues par les managers : le client myope, ignorant, non créatif et organisateur des ressources de l'entreprise. Bien que les tenants de la S-DL plaident en faveur d'un consommateur toujours compétent et que les discours sur le " nouveau consommateur " prolifèrent depuis quelques années, l'article suggère que la mise en œuvre d'une orientation co-création suppose la reconnaissance préalable de la compétence du consommateur par l'entreprise. Une reconnaissance qui n'est pas toujours une évidence.co-création de valeur, compétence, consommateur, représentations managériales

Harnessing the power of religion : broadening sustainability research and practice in the advancement of ecology

Sustainability research in the macromarketing literature has been largely limited to exploring sociocultural values and norms, business practices, public policies, and economic conditions. Although the concept of ‘values’ constantly recurs in the literature, religious perspectives have received little attention. By presenting an alternative interpretation of what have traditionally been construed as anthropocentric religions, this study highlights the underutilized potential of religions as effective vehicles for initiating cultural transformation towards sustainability. The article calls for contextualized approaches to ecological sustainability that take into account the values and worldviews of target communities, which are often shaped by religious systems. The article concludes that including religions in the sustainability discourse can benefit macromarketing theory and practice in a variety of ways

Getting Lost ‘Into the Wild: The Role of Narrative Transportation in the Experiential Consumption of Movies

Although it is obvious that consumers enjoy watching movies for many reasons that range from mere short-term entertainment to the complete personal immersion into the movie narrative, a full understanding of the experiential consumption of movies and its contribution to a consumer’s subjective quality of life is still lacking. Thus, this paper takes an existential-phenomenological perspective to provide some alternative insights into consumers’ holistic movie consumption experiences. By using a form of interactive introspection, the two researchers examine and discuss hereby their own individual private consumption experiences with the recently released movie Into the Wild (US 2007) as a complex tapestry of interrelated factors. The introspective data indicates that a consumer’s personal engagement with the movie narrative, its characters, atmosphere and underlying philosophy is of particular importance for one’s enjoyment of the movie, as this allows for and even enhances the consumer’s temporary feeling of complete immersion into its imaginary world. The intensity and nature of an individual’s experienced transportation into the movie narrative is hereby determined less by socio-demographic variables such as age or gender, but by one’s own very private motives and intimate involvement with the holistic movie consumption experience

Consumer ethnicity three decades after: a TCR agenda

Research into consumer ethnicity is a vital discipline that has substantially evolved in the past three decades. This conceptual article critically reviews its immense literature and examines the extent to which it has provided extensive contributions not only for the understanding of ethnicity in the marketplace but also for personal/collective well-being. We identify two gaps accounting for scant transformative contributions. First, today social transformations and conceptual sophistications require a revised vocabulary to provide adequate interpretive lenses. Second, extant work has mostly addressed the subjective level of ethnic identity projects but left untended the meso/macro forces affecting ethnicity (de)construction and personal/collective well-being. Our contribution stems from filling both gaps and providing a theory of ethnicity (de)construction that includes migrants as well as non-migrants

Understanding the Dimensions of Young Consumer Vulnerability in the Web 2.0 Society

International audienceThe young consumers constitute one of the fastest growing Internet populations. This group of consumers spends more time online than adults and surpasses all other age groups in their use of chat, instant messaging and other new forms of electronic communication. Thus, Internet technologies have the potential to promote a power shift from sellers to buyers. Consequently, the global reach of the Internet facilitates young consumer access to more market information that involves larger choice sets, consumer ability to exchange information and opinion with peers. We can argue that teenagers are fully competent consumers because almost adolescents revealed competency in some aspects of consumption such as: using Internet and blogs to improve their consumption skills, comparison shopping, innovation by consumption and usage. However, teenagers could be considered as victimised consumers because of their vulnerability and the lack of their experiences and knowledge in terms of consumption and purchasing. In addition, today's young consumers are facing a new risk related to technologies usages. In order to develop a better understanding of young consumers' vulnerability, it is important to explore the areas and the behaviours associated with the vulnerable young consumers within a marketplace surrounded by technologies

The coming out of the "new consumer": Towards the theorisation of the concept in consumer research

à paraître dans Advances in Consumer Research 2012International audienceThe postmodern paradigm based on a cultural and a symbolic perspective in marketing and consumer behaviour research emerges from the criticism of the utilitarian logic that has prevailed in the research community in marketing and led researchers to view the consumer as an individual essentially rational; an idea that fits with the "homo economicus" philosophy. As shown by Bergadaà (2006), researchers engaged in this path consider that the role of marketing in the contemporary society has an ultimate aim to establish social bonds, which requires the mobilization of a cultural base and a specific set of values. In order to go beyond the dominant utilitarian logic so far utilized in consumer behaviour research, the Consumer Culture Theory CCT established by Arnould and Thompson since 2005 in the leading International Journal JCR (Journal of Consumer Research), is presented as a new revolution in the studies focusing on the consumer behaviour and the consumption field. The CCT states that the individual behaves and consumes in an autotelic and a symbolic way (Csikszentmihalyi, 2005) within a temporal frame, living his action as a personal experience or as a shared game (Holt, 1995). Consequently, the consumer behaviour can't be understood without taking into account all the dimensions of his consumption such as: ideological, social, cultural, symbolic and experiential consumption in its context (Arnould and Thompson, 2005). From a theoretical perspective, new marketing concepts have emerged with the changing of the consumer status in the postmodern context that highlights the shift of power from sellers to buyers and the coming out of the "new consumer". The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the research based on the Consumer Culture Theory that will help us to understand the new forms of the consumption experiences. This will provide us with a conceptual framework to define the new status of the consumer in the marketing literature and therefore understand the paradigm of the "new consumer". Indeed, we can notice in the recent research in the consumption field the evolution of the consumer representations in the consumer behaviour literature since the consolidation of the multidisciplinary approach based on CCT. This article reviews the extensive, multidisciplinary body of literature relating to consumer behaviour studies. It draws upon this diversity of research to show the scope of this fascinating area and to identify areas of commonality within and between different research studies. The key outputs of this paper showed that the main behaviours of the "new consumer" might be defined according to eight categories: (1) experiential and hedonic behaviour (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Hetzel, 2002; Cova and Cova, 2004), (2) digital and competent behaviour (Batat, 2008), (3) paradoxical behaviour (Decrop, 2008), (4) responsible, and ethic behaviour (Özçaglar-Toulouse, 2005; 2009), (5) co-production and participative behaviour (Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Bonnemaizon and Batat, 2010), (6) resistant behaviour (Batat, 2009; Roux, 2004), (7) consumer empowerment (Denegri-Knott et al., 2006), which is a direct consequence of the use of Internet and Web 2.0 to search information, and the last characteristic of the new consumer behaviour is (8) do-it-yourself behaviour (Hetzel, 1996; Marion, 2003). These concepts mainly derived from the CCT philosophy highlight the transformation of the consumer status: from a passive role to an increasingly active role within his consumption experiences. The coming out of the new consumer who is viewed as co-creator of value has opened up discussion and stimulated new ways of thinking around a number of theoretical aspects and related managerial implications. Therefore, the idea of putting the new consumer to work is at the heart of the company's policy and strategy

Les représentations managériales des compétences du consommateur : la co-création de valeur est-elle toujours possible ? Le cas des consommateurs d'énergie

National audienceThis article discuses the notion of value co-creation carried by the current of Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) and the concept of consumer competence it suggests. This critical approach is illustrated by the results of a longitudinal study based on phenomenological interviews with EDF Group (Electricity of France) employees. The main objective is to determine the way EDF Group employees perceive the competencies of their consumers. The data analysis reveals four figures illustrating each customer's dimensions of competency or incompetency as perceived by managers: myopic, ignorant, uncreative and organizer of company resources. Although, the holders of the S-DL argue that the consumer is always competent, the results show that the consumer is not competent, or at least partly only if his competencies are recognized by the company: the implementation of a customer co-orientation policy is thereby affected.Cet article discute la notion de co-création de valeur portée par le courant de la Logique Dominante de Service (S-DL) et le concept de compétence du consommateur qu'elle suggère. Cette approche critique est illustrée par les résultats d'une étude longitudinale basée sur des entretiens phénoménologiques avec des employés d'EDF (Electricité de France) dont l'objectif principal est de déterminer dans quelle mesure les consommateurs sont perçus par ces derniers en termes de compétences. L'analyse des données révèle quatre figures du client illustrant chacune les dimensions des compétences ou des incompétences des clients perçues par les managers : le client myope, ignorant, non créatif et organisateur des ressources de l'entreprise. Bien que les tenants de la S-DL plaident en faveur d'un consommateur toujours compétent et que les discours sur le " nouveau consommateur " prolifèrent depuis quelques années, l'article suggère que la mise en œuvre d'une orientation co-création suppose la reconnaissance préalable de la compétence du consommateur par l'entreprise. Une reconnaissance qui n'est pas toujours une évidence