Margaret K. Hogg

Negative Symbolic Consumption and Consumers’ Drive For Self Esteem: The Case of the Fashion Industry

Self‐esteem is an important motivational drive for consumption involving both the acceptance and rejection/avoidance of symbolic goods. This paper examines the relationship between self‐esteem and the rejection of goods and brands within the context of fashion consumption by young professionals. A conceptualisation which accounts for consumers’ use of various strategies in their efforts to maintain or enhance their self‐esteem is suggested. A small‐scale exploratory study is used to examine first, how consumers invest products and brands with negative symbolic meanings; and second, how this leads consumers to reject products and brands. The importance of understanding negative symbolic consumption when marketing high involvement products such as fashion goods is identified; and the implications for fashion retailers and marketing management are discussed.

The impact of self‐monitoring on image congruence and product/brand evaluation

The relationship between self‐image and product/brand imagery remains an important area of concern in marketing research and marketing practice because of its impact on product/brand evaluation and choice; however many studies report inconclusive findings about this relationship. A conceptual model is developed which links a function of attitudes – as the pursuit and maintenance of self‐esteem and self‐identity – to the public and private contexts of self‐concepts; and the subsequent intrinsic and extrinsic congruence between brand evaluation and choice. In this exploratory study the Self‐Monitoring Scale is used to explore the link between the social and psychological determinants of self‐presentation in the pursuit of self‐esteem and maintenance of self‐identity, and to inform the examination of the relationship between self‐concept and product symbolism. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative stages of a study of the UK alcoholic soft drinks market are presented. There were distinct differences between the self‐monitoring groups when the interpretation of specific brand images was investigated. The results provided empirical support for viewing the self as a divisible entity. The implications for marketing practice are discussed.

Identity, self and consumption: a conceptual framework

The focus of traditional models of consumer behaviour has been on positive aspects of choice at the micro level (product or brand level) of decision‐making. This paper argues for the development of broader models of consumer behaviour at the macro level of cumulative consumption to contribute to marketers’ understanding of consumer behaviour in the next 25 years. A model is proposed which embraces both positive and negative aspects of consumer decision‐making, linked to the creation, maintenance and enhancement of identity. The findings from a study of UK mail‐order shoppers indicate that patterns can be found in consumers’ stream of consumption choices and anti‐choices. It is argued that broader models would provide an additional framework for understanding and investigating patterns of consumer behaviour.

Imagined multiple worlds: How South Asian women in Britain use family and friends to navigate the “border crossings” between household and societal contexts

Our primary goal is to capture glimpses of “the imagined … multiple worlds” of young adult women in post‐modern ethnic families, households and society. Drawing on a dialogical model of acculturation and diasporic identity, we show how young South Asian women in Britain use multiple identities across a variety of cultural settings to negotiate and navigate cultural and consumer behavioural borders. Using an ethno‐consumerist framework for our research design, we provide a more nuanced understanding of the intersections between ethnicity, identity, self and consumption in families and peer friendship groups. These interactions reflect the individual’s co‐existence and identity maintenance in two cultures.

Relationship marketing and privacy: exploring the thresholds

The advocacy to extend relationship marketing into the management of the exchange processes within retailing and consumer service markets has meant a growing interest in the opportunities which are offered by technology‐based systems of customer management. A prerequisite for the successful translation of the relationship marketing paradigm from organizational to retailing and consumer service markets is customer information. As the technology for collecting customer data has become more sophisticated, so marketing managers have witnessed an increasing concern among consumers about the impact of these new marketing management techniques on their private rights. Discusses different aspects of information privacy and reports an exploratory study of consumers’ different privacy thresholds. The results indicate different levels of involvement towards privacy issues, and different perceptions of the trustworthiness of service sector companies, among consumers. The implications for relationship marketing strategies are discussed.

Articulating a New Framework for Visual Metaphors in Advertising

This study develops and tests a conceptual framework for categorizing visual metaphors in advertising according to whether the pictorial elements in the ad are synthesized or juxtaposed. In this attempt, it subscribes to the view that creative ideas frequently share similar design structures and patterns in devising visual metaphors. This study demonstrates that compared with ad visuals that simply juxtapose metaphorical objects, ad visuals that synthesize conceptually similar metaphorical objects provoke greater elaboration and elicit more favorable consumer attitudes toward both the ad and the brand. These positive effects are not free of comprehension costs, however. Ads that synthesize very dissimilar objects (as compared with ads that juxtapose objects) fail to produce the same benefits and might, in some cases, even risk reducing the persuasiveness of the argument about key product attributes in the advertising message.

Children's influence strategies in practice: Exploring the co-constructed nature of the child influence process in family consumption

Abstract Existing child influence studies have been critiqued for employing an individualistic or dyadic approach to explore the types of influence strategies which children use to sway parental decisions. In this paper, we refocus research attention to explore the intra-familial processes leading to child influence strategies deployed within the family setting. Using a family perspective, we present the stories of 29 family informants, capturing the voices of children and their parents through a series of in-depth interviews. Our findings suggest that the influence strategies which children subsequently utilised were informed by a process of pre-influence strategy interaction. That is, childrens interactions with their parents and siblings work to co-construct the eventual influence strategies utilised, illuminating the emergence of highly co-constructed and networked influence strategies within the family setting.

Gender, identity and the consumption of advertising

This paper seeks to challenge the tendency to represent gender as a unitary theoretical construct; and would argue for a more differentiated view of how the psychological aspects of gender influence the consumption of advertising. We use a small‐scale exploratory study to examine the potential impact of gender identity within consumers’ self‐schemas on their consumption of advertising. Bem’s Sex Role Inventory (SRI) was administered to 25 young adults who then watched video clips of two television advertisements. The focus group discussions about the two advertisements were analysed within the context of the respondents’ gender schemas identified via the Bem SRI scores: masculine, feminine, androgynous or undifferentiated. The centrality of gender identity to self‐schemas affected how consumers processed and interpreted the advertising. This provides support for a more differentiated approach to representing men and women within gender research and advertising because gender groups are neither necessarily...

An empirical investigation of relationship development in professional business services

Purpose – Relationship development is presented as an optimal strategy across all sectors of economic activity, although relationships, and their appropriateness, vary by industry sector. In order to contribute to academic and managerial understanding of relationships in professional business services, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of relationship development in management consultancy.Design/methodology/approach – Data collection involved semi‐structured interviews with both consultants and clients and employed a multilevel perspective for the investigation of relationships.Findings – The findings provide a more nuanced reading of relationships and relationship development. First, a distinction between within‐project and between‐projects relationships and the important strategic implications which flow from these two different types of relationships are identified. Second, a distinction between relationship‐seekers and relationship‐switchers, and the resource allocation decisions asso...

Shared or non‐shared?: Children's different consumer socialisation experiences within the family environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine childrens consumption experiences within families in order to investigate the role that different family environments play in the consumer socialisation of children.Design/methodology/approach – Key consumer socialisation literature is reviewed and family communication patterns and parental socialisation style studies are introduced. Such studies argue for the homogenous and shared nature of the family environment for children. A three‐stage qualitative study of six families is reported, incorporating existential phenomenological interviews. The voices of children and their parents are captured, and the transcribed interview texts are analyzed on two levels (within and across family cases) using a hermeneutical process.Findings – The findings of the study point towards the differential treatment of children within the family environment by both parents and siblings. It is proposed that children inhabit a unique position, or micro‐environment, within their...