June Cotte

Families and Innovative Consumer Behavior: A Triadic Analysis of Sibling and Parental Influence

Although family socialization is a rich field in consumer behavior, to date no research has been done to disaggregate family influences on behavior into separate parent and sibling components. Here we use triadic analysis (parent and two siblings) to explore the influence of family on consumer innovativeness. We develop hypotheses that postulate parental influence, and, based on conflicting views of sibling similarity in the recent behavioral genetics and developmental psychology literature, set competing hypotheses about sibling influence on innovativeness and innovative behavior. Using a model tested with triads from 137 families, we find that both parents and siblings influence innovativeness, but that parental influence is stronger than sibling influence. We discuss the implications of our work for the study of family influence in consumer behavior.

Chances, trances, and lots of slots: Gambling motives and consumption experiences.

Why do gamblers spend their leisure time and money on gambling? The motives of gamblers are explored using data collected in a casino via ethnographic participant observation. The interpretation pr...

Blackjack in the Kitchen: Understanding Online versus Casino Gambling

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The Effects of Ad Context and Gender on the Identification of Visually Incongruent Products

10 billion a year is spent by consumers worldwide on online gambling, and that number continues to grow. We present a qualitative, image-based study of 30 Las Vegas online and casino gamblers. By examining online gambling as a consumption experience, we examine what happens to consumption meaning as gambling moves away from a regulated physical space to an unregulated online space, one accessed from home. We explore the meaning of online gambling consumption to consumers and flesh out the social welfare implications of our findings. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Choosing Leisure Services: The Effects of Consumer Timestyle

Evidence from three experiments shows that due to superior visuo-spatial elaboration, females (relative to males) have a heightened ability to identify visually incongruent products that are promoted among competing products. Females discriminate relational information among competing advertisements and use this information to identify incongruent products that would otherwise go unidentified. Consequently, they evaluate the products more favorably. Consistent with predictions of a limited capacity in working memory, we find this performance for females coincides with a reduction in ad claim recognition. Close inspection reveals the trade-off between product identification and ad recognition is the result of involuntary resource allocation from verbal processing to visuo-spatial processing. Hence, females may be able to use the advertising context to identify an extremely incongruent product, but this performance is not without a cost. Our results have important implications for research on product incongruity, gender, and advertising context.

Timestyle and Leisure Decisions

As the leisure industry matures, it is important for marketers to have a clear understanding of why people choose to consume specific leisure services. The paper proposes that “timestyle”, or how a person customarily perceives and uses time, influences the choice of leisure goals and resultant leisure services. Individuals’ timestyles can be characterized in terms of social, temporal, planning, and polychronic orientations. Data from qualitative research suggest that all four dimensions of timestyle can have systematic effects on leisure choices. Knowledge of the timestyle concept and its antecedent influences should allow leisure marketers to better understand and target the motivations that underlie consumer decisions on leisure services.

The evolving family assemblage: how senior families “do” family

This article examines conceptually the relationship between timestyle—the customary manner in which one perceives and thinks about time—and leisure decisions. The authors suggest that individuals’ timestyles can be described via four key dimensions, namely, social, temporal, planning, and polychronic orientations. Further, it is posited that these four dimensions of timestyle influence leisure activity decisions through their impact on categorization processes implicated in time perception. Propositions are offered for the linkages between timestyle and temporal category structures, the various factors that likely affect the categorization of any particular unit of leisure time, and how categorization of a leisure time unit in turn leads to the formation of a small-sized consideration set of leisure activity choices.

Assumptions of Rationality in Political Marketing: The Case of the Republican Autopsy

Purpose A growing stream of consumer research has examined the intersection of family dynamics, consumption practices and the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the complex nature of family for senior families (adult children and their elderly parents) who employ the use of elder care services and facilities. Design/methodology/approach This research analyses data gathered from in-depth interviews with adult siblings and their elderly parents through the lens of assemblage theory. Findings This paper advances a conceptulisation of the family as an evolving assemblage of components, including individual members; material possessions and home(s); shared values, goals, memories and practices; prominent familial attributes of love and care; and marketplace resources. Three features of the assemblage come to the fore in senior families: the fluid meaning of independence for the elderly parent, the evolution of shared family practices and the trajectory of the assemblage that is a function of its history and future. Originality/value This research focuses on a stage of family life that has been under-theorised; applies assemblage theory to the family collective, demonstrating that a family can be conceptualised as an ever-evolving assemblage of human and non-human components, and this is a useful lens for understanding how senior families “do” family; and argues for a broader notion of family – one that is not household-centric or focused on families with young children, that encompasses members and materiality and that foregrounds the dynamic, evolving nature of family life.

Like a member of the family: including and excluding paid caregivers in performances of family

Abstract There exists considerable controversy over what voter rationality assumptions underlie political marketing. Some of this controversy derives from the lack of clear definitions of rationality. An examination of seven common assumptions that underlie the concept of rationality shows that only a modest level of information, freedom from errors, and consistency are necessary for the marketing concept to have value in politics. The authors examine the implicit assumptions regarding voter rationality of the experienced Republican political campaign managers who wrote the Growth and Opportunity Project (“The Republican Autopsy”); their assumptions of voter rationality are consistent with those in the theoretical review. We find they appreciate the value of correctly tailoring messages and do not subscribe to a belief that political markets are efficient. We suggest that greater clarity about the various meanings of rationality should better allow marketing theorists to embrace ideas from disparate disciplines.

Does it pay to be good

Abstract We explore the construction of family in contemporary families that employ professional providers of childcare and elder care. We find that families and caregivers at times construct family together, including the caregiver as a family member, while at other times, consumers construct family in ways that exclude the caregiver. Through our exploration of these various ways of constructing family, we offer three theoretical contributions. First, we challenge traditional distinctions between consumers and producers and highlight the fluid, contextualised nature of family by demonstrating that some contemporary constructions of family include paid service providers. Second, we elucidate the ways in which the provision and consumption of a service, everyday care, produces a liminal position for some service providers. Finally, we develop a broader understanding of the ways in which performances of family protect cultural values.