Mystify me: Coke, terror and the symbolic immortality boost

A panel on “Marketing as Mystification” convened at the 2011 Academy of Marketing conference in Liverpool. Ideas from the Liverpool event were supplemented by commentaries from selected other authors. Each commentary explores the aspects of “mystification” observable in marketing discourses and practices. In what follows, Laufer interprets marketing mystification as modern form of sophism, Dholakia and Firat discuss mystifying ways that inequality is marketed, Varman analyzes the perversion and mystification of “development” via neoliberal marketing of “social entrepreneurship,” Mikkonen explores mystifying marketing representations of gays and lesbians, and Freund and Jacobi present a fascinating interpretation of how Coca-Cola advertising mystically reassures us that our difficult, dangerous lifeworld is actually quite hunky-dory. </jats:p

Consumer Ethnocentrism, Country Image and Local Brand Preference: The Case of the Colombian Textile, Apparel and Leather Industry

The present article shows the relation that Colombian consumer ethnocentrism has with country image and local brand preference in the textile, apparel and leather industry and it infers the possible implications this relation has when planning marketing strategies for the Colombian market in such industry. This study follows an interpretative approach which included a survey of Colombian consumers in Antioquia. Results show that (i) gender and age are not determinants of ethnocentric consumer tendencies, (ii) the less income a Colombian person has, the more ethnocentric he/she is, (iii) consumer ethnocentrism does not have a universal pattern but varies from country to country, (iv) the more educated a Colombian person is, the less ethnocentric he/she is, (v) the developed or developing condition of the countries where the consumer is from, is not a determining factor to conclude whether or not a consumer has a tendency towards ethnocentric behaviour patterns and (vi) if a person has a positive image of his/her own country, he/she is likely to develop ethnocentric behaviour patterns. This article contributes to filling the gap in the literature since it shows that ethnocentrism is positively related to preferences for local brands in Colombia. © 2017, © 2017 International Management Institute, New Delhi