We Beat the Cops in GTA: Po(ludic)al Activism in the Age of Video Games

This article explores how individuals reflect on their digital experiences of actualizing fantasies to make sense of their everyday actions, particularly in the context of video gaming. Our study takes a qualitative approach to understanding the context of materializing consumer fantasies, as initially experienced and actualized in video games, and how these fantasies are transformed into material reality, through an investigation of an illustrative case of mass street protests, the 2013 Gezi Protests in Turkey. The findings suggest that digital virtual experiences in video games have obvious manifestations in the material world, as consumers travel on the borders of reality, moving back and forth into the liminoid terrain of the digital virtual, and provide a deeper understanding of how the blurred boundaries between the virtual and material are established in practice

The Influence of Children on Family Purchasing Decisions in Turkey

This research focuses on the influence of children on family purchasing decision-making in Turkey, a country with distinct cultural characteristics. The study provides empirical evidence based on data, collected from 849 families. The general findings of this study suggest that the children`s influence on family decision-making in Turkey is limited to products of direct use to children. Findings also reveal that the children are more influential on need recognition, where to buy, when to buy and which to buy sub-decisions. On the other hand, the parents perceive children to have very little influence on family-decision making, as they state themselves as the most influential units of family decision-making. This study suggests that parents underestimate the role of their children on family buying decisions

Challenges and Opportunities of Developing Wine Tourism in a Small Community in Turkey

This paper offers an analysis of practices in wine tourism and its implementation to Turkey. Wine tourism is a rapidly developing in Turkey parallel to the development of the sector around the world. In this paper, Sirince is selected as a case and an analysis of the situation in the village with regard to wine tourism is presented. The analysis includes a number of aspects along with the implemented marketing strategies, such as design of bottling, packaging and labeling. In addition, the effects of wine tourism on improvement of social and economic situation of Sirince are also examined

I love to hate you: Loyalty for disliked brands and the role of nostalgia

Brand loyalty has been a popular research area for the previous decades, and concepts such as satisfaction, trust, repurchase behavior and positive brand image have been associated with brand loyalty as antecedents of the concept. This study investigates how much satisfaction actively is required for the development of brand loyalty, focusing on the cases in which loyalty is retained in spite of being disliked. This qualitative study employs 14 semi-structured interviews and for the first time in the literature reveals that nostalgia may play an important role in maintaining an otherwise failed brand relationship, among other factors previously noted