The Practice of Transformative Consumer Research - Some Issues and Suggestions

Transformative consumer research (TCR) is a new academic initiative among researchers committed to studying the role consumption plays in the major social problems of our day. These problems may involve the over consumption of products among the obese, the addicted, and the materialistic, or the under consumption of products among the hungry, the homeless, and the poor. The goal of transformative research is to do practical research that can be used by consumers, activists, policy makers, and businesses to improve consumer well-being. In this article, we propose rethinking the way that research is traditionally conducted in consumer research to make it more conducive to achieving TCR objectives. We start with the conventional approaches to consumer research and then offer alternative approaches to increase the likelihood that research will deliver useful and useable results

Marketing and market

In this paper, a contradiction that has developed between the key economic institution of modernity, the market, and its institutionalized practices, marketing, is explored. This paper makes observations beyond earlier discussions of this contradiction based on the history of perspectival developments in the orientations of the discipline and in marketing practices. Specifically, separation of marketing practice from consumers resulting in its conceptualization as a provisional set of activities, and the turn from a focus on needs to a focus on exchange resulting in an emphasis on the health of the market rather than on the health of the people are articulated. It is observed that these developments in marketing orientations signal a reversal of ends and means. It is argued that the modern market, its growth and prosperity,which was originally conceptualized as a means, as one institution to serve humanity\u27s needs, is now an end, and that human beings are now in the service of the economic goals of the market. Based on these observations, the paper proposes that to develop solutions for the problems arising from the historical growth of the marketing discipline and practices in modernity, a new perspective needs to be adopted, one that conceptualizes marketing as cultural practices embedded in communities and involving consumers and organizations as partners in being mutually involved in the construction and fulfillment of human desires.the paper proposes that to develop solutions for the problems arising from the historical growth of the marketing discipline and practices in modernity, a new perspective needs to be adopted, one that conceptualizes marketing as cultural practices embedded in communities and involving consumers and organizations as partners in being mutually involved in the construction and fulfillment of human desires.the paper proposes that to develop solutions for the problems arising from the historical growth of the marketing discipline and practices in modernity, a new perspective needs to be adopted, one that conceptualizes marketing as cultural practices embedded in communities and involving consumers and organizations as partners in being mutually involved in the construction and fulfillment of human desires

Fashion creation and diffusion: The institution of marketing

In scholarly discussions, marketing tends to be imagined and (re)presented as a practice of organisations, involving a set of activities, whereby consumer desires are discovered and provided for through two-way communication. By studying the creation and diffusion of fashion, we observe that marketing is not simply a mechanism or set of activities but an institution of modern society that involves all social elements together with consumers and marketing organisations. Through a qualitative inquiry with both consumers and producers, we illustrate how these different elements exercise their roles and responsibilities for marketing to work as an institution. By this illustration, we also provide a perspective on how trickle-up, trickle-across, and trickle-down diffusions are simultaneously operative in fashion. Finally, we articulate the implications of recognising marketing as an institution that will help marketing scholars and practitioners in reorganising and re-strategising their purpose and role in society as modernity evolves

Innovation from virtual brand community members may only be virtually effective

This study measures how effective crowdsourcing innovation from a virtual brand community (VBC) is for promoting brand attachment of members and non-members of that VBC. Experimental design is used to survey members and non-members of the website Marvel.com to measure brand attachment and affect toward an innovation of the company in the form of a comic book universe reset, a form of product innovation for this market. Mean difference testing and structural equations indicate that brand attachment is higher at a statistically significant level when measuring the interaction effect of innovation source x community membership; the less consumers know about the source of the innovation the better; knowledge that innovation is sourced from the VBC may be effective for increasing brand attachment of members of the VBC, but not for non-members, indicating that applying characteristics of traditional brand communities to VBCs may not be effective