Can we live without cats? Interpreting and expanding on Ellson's question from a cat-lover's perspective

AbstractThis commentary responds to Tony Ellson's, “Can we live without a dog? Consumption life cycles in dog–owner relationships” from the point of view of a cat owner and her cats. The author discusses cat-related consumption via a life-cycle framework and notes that consumption extends beyond basic food, veterinarian care, pet supplies, and pet services. Stories or vignettes emanating from subjective personal introspection reveal the complexity and intimacy of the cat–owner relationship and the plethora of needs and wants generated as a result of this relationship

A Statistically Significant Determination from Pretest to Posttest in Knowledge of Electrophoresis Concepts

The statistical significance from pretest to posttest of 109 high students constructing an electrophoresis chamber or not was explored. The students tested were from six intact biology classrooms. Three classes were treatment groups and three were control groups. The three biology teachers each taught a control and treatment group classroom. Except for building the electrophoresis chamber, students in both groups received identical instruction and testing. Pre- and posttest data was examined by means of a content valid test constructed by the researcher and biology teachers. In order to examine the statistical significance from pretest to posttest in knowledge of electrophoresis concepts among students who constructed the electrophoresis chamber or not, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was utilized. The final results showed a statistical significance but only just; therefore, the knowledge increase between students constructing the chamber compared to students who did not was marginal

Advancing Customer Experience Theory: Five-Way Conversations in Two-Person Customer-Marketer Talk

This study advances customer experience theory (CET) by configuring research on talk, storytelling, customer-marketer interactions, and customer assessments of experiences in encounters with sales and hospitality/service representatives. Customers’ introspections and assessments of their meetings with marketers constitutes one genre of storytelling that include not only surface talk between two persons but surface and subsurface (nonconscious) talk between persons and within self. Practical implications include creative storytelling scripts for performing in sales and service training programs in firms and classroom contexts. Given the centrality of face-to-face meetings in many consumer shopping contexts (e.g., cars, houses, medical services; campus visits by high school seniors and parents, insurance selling, clothes shopping; tourism and hospitality), advancing CET and personal selling/buying effectiveness represent worthwhile pursuits. The study is one step forward in reducing the relative scarcity of extant research on customer-marketer talk. Empirically, the study includes customers’ thick descriptions of their self-marketer interactions via subjective personal introspections (SPI) and assessments of these exchanges. Interpersonal verbalization is only one of five levels of processing that take place when a researcher observes a decision-maker in a marketing organization interact with a decision-maker in a customer organization. At level 2, the speaker, listener, and observer are consciously editing thoughts as well as surfacing unconscious thoughts to combine and change conscious editing of what is said, heard, or observed. Level 3 is an automatic process in which unconscious thoughts are brought into working memory to mingle with conscious processing and to send some of the conscious processing into unconscious storage. Level 4 includes unconscious processing between or among individuals that do not become part of conscious processes or verbalization. Level 5 processing spreads activation within the person’s unconscious so that automatic thoughts and behaviors are set into motion without the individual being aware of the process. Customers’ introspections and assessments of their meetings with marketers constitutes one genre of storytelling that include not only surface talk between two persons but surface and subsurface (nonconscious) talk between persons and in within self. The study here includes customers’ thick descriptions of their self-marketer interactions via subjective personal introspections (SPI) and assessments of these exchanges. SPI uses the researcher as the subject of the study and allows for rich, thick, impressionistic narratives of the author’s own experiences in a particular context. Students in various marketing classes in five nations participated in a Trade Tales project. The Appendix provides a common set of instructions used by the Trade Tales Team members. All Trade Tales had a title page, abstract, story (with dialogue), five possible solutions with points awarded for choosing a particular solution and the rationale behind the choice, and surface (explicit) and deep (implicit/personal) assessments of the situation, story, and outcome assessments. Theory and practical implications: the participating student experiences “proper pleasure” in the re-telling of his or her story and also achieves better sense making and problem solving. The finalized versions of the Trade Tales can be used in other classes as case lets for studying customer-marketer interactions. The following case study illustrates one of the stories collected for the Trade Tales Team project. To achieve anonymity, the names of firms and persons are disguised. “AbsolutelyBest Ham to Pocatello, Idaho, USA: Arrival Delay in Customer\u27s Order” is the title of the case study. A customer goes on-line at firm’s (AbsolutelyBest) website and orders 9-lb ham to be delivered to daughter’s home in Pocatello, Idaho, on December 29th. Customer pays extra for two-day delivery service. Ham fails to arrive on December 29 due date. Customer asks for a credit on service not received. Bad weather hit most of the U.S. on December 28. What should the firm do? The full story appears in the paper with possible solutions for students to assess. Practical implications for Trade Tales include creative scripts for performing in sales and service training programs in firms and classroom contexts. Trade Tales are useful as case studies in classroom instruction. Given the centrality of face-to-face meetings in many consumer shopping contexts (e.g., cars, houses, medical services; campus visits by high school seniors, insurance selling; clothes shopping; tourism and hospitality), the relative scarcity of extant research on customer-marketer talk is surprising and represents a vacuum that researchers need to fill

Small Business Identity and Entrepreneurial Identity in a Destination Resort Town: Are Birds of a Feather Flocking to the Beach?

Identities can be considered an intangible resource when they support the competitive advantage of a firm. Some work has shown that the context of an organization matters but will that hold true at a beach location filled with large numbers of micro-businesses and small businesses where entrepreneurs and small business owners engage their world both as individuals and as organizations? We examine the literature on identity and utilize a zoomorphic metaphor to elicit unbiased understandings of the coherence or dissonance of entrepreneurial and organizational identities. We found some intriguing results showing unexpected similarities and an affinity for coherent identities

Unconscious Thinking, Feeling and Behavior Towards Products and Brands: Introduction to a Journal of Brand Management Special Issue

This introduction reviews the motivating forces behind this issue, exploring the role of nonconscious consumer behavior in branding environments. The article establishes a foundation of unconscious research in psychology and consumer behavior, and then provides an introduction to the four articles that follow. The article concludes with a call to adopt an inclusive interpretive-positivistic stance to the study of unconscious consumer-brand behavior, attitudes and beliefs

Exploring How Video Digital Storytelling Builds Relationship Experiences

The purpose of the paper is to explore how digital storytelling enables a consumer relationship experience in online peer-to-peer communities. Within the value cocreation framework, digital storytelling is interpreted as an encounter communication practice where consumers adopt the role of storytellers and story receivers. This study adopts a qualitative multimethod approach to investigate the meanings contained in video stories and the linkage to relationship experience. A case study based on the Airbnb's social platforms was analyzed through the degrees-of-freedom analysis instrument (DFA) and through a systematic dimensional qualitative research called BASIC IDS (an acronym for behavior, affect, sensation, imagery, cognition, interpersonal relations, drugs, and sociocultural factors) to yield psychological valuable insights into the multidimensional construct of consumer relationship experience. The analysis unveils that, within the social media realm, storytelling enables rational, emotional, and relationship experiences. A relationship experience occurs when members of peer-to-peer communities, not only are rationally and emotionally engaged by the story, but are also moved to action going beyond a vicarious role-taking process. Specifically, relatability, a shared sociocultural background, and the drug dimension conceptualize the consumer relationship experience. Implications build on the need for companies to enhance the power of stories through favoring consumers’ video making and integrating consumers’ flow of stories between multiple social media platforms

Travel Storytelling Theory and Practice

Building on semiological research (i.e., the study of signs and symbols of all kinds) investigating the use of symbols in cinematic portrayals of travel behavior, this article describes a phase dynamics theory of epiphany travel behavior. Core propositions of the theory include (1) epiphany travel behavior and storytelling about such travel includes identifiable phases: prequel, awakening, journey, catharsis, and post-journey storytelling and reinterpreting; (2) world and personal blocks occur; (3) during the journey the protagonist recognizes the need for help and experiences help from key facilitators to reach desired physical locations and other goal objects; and (4) experiencing an archetypal force is an outcome of the journey. Such theory building provides a gestalt view and understanding of epiphany travel behavior

Creating Visual Narrative Art for Decoding Stories that Consumers and Brands Tell

Creating visual narrative art (VNA) of stories that consumers and brands tell achieves several objectives. First, creating VNA revises and deepens sense making of the meaning of events in the story and what the complete story implies about oneself and others. Second, creating VNA surfaces unconscious thinking of the protagonist and other actors in the story as well as the storyteller (recognizing that in many presentations of stories an actor in the story is also the story teller); unconscious thinking in stories relating to consumer and brand experiences reflect one or more archetype (Jung, 1916/1968) fulfillments by the protagonist and the storyteller; given that almost all authors agree on a distinction between processes that are unconscious, rapid, automatic, and high capacity (System 1 processing) and those that are conscious, slow, and deliberative (System 2 processing; see Evans, 2008), VNA enables and enriches processing, particularly relating to System 1 processing—enabling more emotional versus rational processing. Third, creating VNA of stories is inherently and uniquely fulfilling/pleasurable/healing for the artist; using visual media allows artists to express emotions of the protagonist and/or audience member, to vent anger, or to report bliss about events and outcomes that words alone cannot communicate; VNA provides a tangible, emotional, and holistic (gestalt) experience that is uniquely satisfying and does so in a form that many audience members enjoy over and over again. This article elaborates on the rationales for its central proposition, briefly reviews relevant literature on VNA, and illustrates one mode of VNA for the complementary stories told by a consumer and brand