Giana M. Eckhardt

Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing

Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer relationships. Six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access-based consumptionscapes: temporality, anonymity, market mediation, consumer involvement, the type of accessed object, and political consumerism. Access-based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of Zipcar consumers. Four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified: lack of identification, varying significance of use and sign value, negative reciprocity resulting in a big-brother model of governance, and a deterrence of brand community. The implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange, consumption, and brand community are discussed.

Consumer Ethics Across Cultures

Consumer ethics are an understudied but important counterpart of business ethics. In this study we use qualitative methods and video ethnography to examine consumer beliefs and behaviors in eight countries, including both affluent and poor nations in Europe, North America and Australasia. Using depth interviews and projective methods, informants address three different ethical choices of products involving harm to the environment, poor labor conditions, and counterfeit goods. As the accompanying video reveals, there is a general lack of consumer concern for such issues across cultures. We examine the justifications offered for these views and consider implications for altering consumer behavior.

Asian Brands and the Shaping of a Transnational Imagined Community

We investigate how brand managers create regional Asian brands and show how some of them are attempting to forge new webs of interconnectedness through the construction of a transnational, imagined Asian world. Some branding managers are creating regional brands that emphasize the common experience of globalization, evoke a generic, hyper-urban, and multicultural experience, and are infused with diverse cultural referents. These types of regional Asian brands contribute to the creation of an imagined Asia as urban, modern, and multicultural. Understanding this process helps one to appreciate the role of branding managers in constructing markets and places. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Cultural Paradoxes Reflected in Brand Meaning: McDonald’s in Shanghai, China

Brands are powerful symbols that reflect not only the image with which marketers hope to imbue them but also the cultural milieu in which they are imbedded. If that milieu is in a state of flux, brands can come to represent some surprising ideas and values to which marketing efforts must be sensitive. In this research, the authors relate the nature of societal change, a common occurrence in many developing markets and especially China, to evaluation of a brand by a broad cross-section of urban Chinese consumers. Using the methodology of scenario completion, the authors reveal that the McDonalds brand is evaluated in the context of societal norms and values that are brought up in various usage situations. Brand evaluations can be inconsistent and often paradoxical depending on the context. The results suggest that marketers should be closely involved with the way their brand is interacting with cultural values in transitional markets.

Asian brands without borders: regional opportunities and challenges

Purpose – This study aims to analyze Asian branding strategies at the regional level, and provide a map of opportunities and challenges for Asian regional branding.Design/methodology/approach – The study takes, a multi‐sited interpretive approach and interview 22 brand managers throughout the Asian region. The length of interviews was approximately 1.5 hours/respondent. In‐depth case studies of two prominent pan‐Asian brands, Tiger Beer and Zuji, were also conducted. An interpretive analysis to this data set was applied and five themes were developed.Findings – The two major challenges for regional Asian branding are negative country of origin perceptions and regional positioning being inherently fragile. Despite these key challenges, our respondents saw clear opportunities for regional branding initiatives. Brands can achieve a regional positioning by focusing on Asian modernity rather than on common cultural heritage. They can also capitalize on newfound Asian pride and confidence, and finally they can ...

Local Branding in a Foreign Product Category in an Emerging Market

It is unclear how local brands competing in product categories that consumers perceive as foreign should be managed in emerging markets. An interpretive research approach investigating consumer perceptions and managerial development of a local pizza brand in India reveals that consumers experience these brands as foreign. The author discusses implications for brand management.

The Role of Consumer Agency in the Globalization Process in Emerging Markets

In emerging markets, the main actors in the globalization process are widely considered to be governments and multinational corporations (MNCs). The authors examine the role of a key player that has largely been left out of the globalization debate—the consumer. Viewed through a lens of consumer agency, the authors outline important factors that influence whether new foreign goods that enter the marketplace are accepted, rejected, or transformed by consumers. This is investigated in the context of the Indian marketplace, an emerging market that has only recently had access to foreign goods. The authors’analysis suggests that consumers are not merely pawns of MNCs or governments. The framework developed to understand the complexities of consumer agency in an emerging market provides the first such effort to guide future empirical consumer globalization research.

The rise of inconspicuous consumption

Abstract Ever since Veblen and Simmel, luxury has been synonymous with conspicuous consumption. In this conceptual paper we demonstrate the rise of inconspicuous consumption via a wide-ranging synthesis of the literature. We attribute this rise to the signalling ability of traditional luxury goods being diluted, a preference for not standing out as ostentatious during times of economic hardship, and an increased desire for sophistication and subtlety in design in order to further distinguish oneself for a narrow group of peers. We decouple the constructs of luxury and conspicuousness, which allows us to reconceptualise the signalling quality of brands and the construct of luxury. This also has implications for understanding consumer behaviour practices such as counterfeiting and suggests that consumption trends in emerging markets may take a different path from the past.

A Brief History of Branding in China

In this article, the authors explore whether brands as they currently conceive of them existed in premodernity. They trace branding practices in China from 2700 BC to contemporary times and demonstrate that China has had a sophisticated brand infrastructure with a continuous history that has no known correspondence in any other part of the world. They review previous research on the history of branding and create a systematic overview of what is currently known about branding throughout history. From an historical analysis of branding practices and consumer culture in China, they find that premodern brands were important agents of consumer culture as early as the Song dynasty (960—1127). In China, brands emerged outside of a capitalist context and served primarily social functions. They chronicle the consumer culture of the time in China, and how brands developed out of it, demonstrating that brands can develop in varying ways.

Globalization, Consumer Tensions, and the Shaping of Consumer Culture in India

The authors examine consumer tensions arising in India’s transitional marketplace. These findings uncover cultural characteristics underlying consumption strategies to address these tensions: the danger and immorality of consumption, the distance and inaccessibility of many newly available products, and the desire for sociality and relationships via consumption. Consumer desires sometimes are in opposition to and sometimes in line with local cultural values and norms such as the frugality ideal and Indian rituals and beliefs. The authors present a typology of resistance strategies, discuss how these impact marketplace transitions, and outline implications for macromarketing. This work enhances the conceptualization of how consumers negotiate tensions as marketplaces globalize and demonstrates how consumers can create their own discourses in this process that in turn can shape the marketplace.