Pirjo Laaksonen

Diffusing the boundaries between luxury and counterfeits

Purpose – The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of luxury consumption by comparing the meanings and the attributes of counterfeit branded products and luxury goods.Design/methodology/approach – This study is an interpretative qualitative research in which the meanings and essence of luxury and counterfeit goods are uncovered by written stories. The photo‐ethnographical method was used to generate the stories.Findings – Consumers regard both luxury goods and counterfeits as being at different levels and of different quality ranging from poor to excellent. Counterfeits possess mainly social meanings, whereas authentic luxury goods may also operate on a personal level. However, consumers do not perceive luxury and counterfeit branded products as counterparts; counterfeits can be regarded as the embodiment of luxury, whereas non‐brand products are rather the opposite. Moreover, the existence of authenticity is perceived to be a vital connective and distinctive factor among luxury and counterfei...

Conceptualizing non-voluntary anti-consumption: A practice-based study on market resistance in poor circumstances

This study presents a novel conceptual illustration of the non-voluntary anti-consumption practices that evolve in poor circumstances. The study brings a complementary and contrasting perspective to current discussions on anti-consumption by clarifying the understanding of non-voluntary anti-consumption practices and market resistance. Three conceptual elements—hidden, repressed and innovative—are identified to characterize non-voluntary anti-consumption practices; these elements are different from those of voluntary anti-consumption, which are collective, active and/or self-expressive. Applying the social constructivist practice-based approach, the analysis shows how the three types of non-voluntary anti-consumption practices—engaging in simple life, mastering consumerism and exploiting systems—are intertwined with other social practices and how they enable the poor to hold agency.

Understanding what Christmas gifts mean to children

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand what Christmas gifts mean to children by examining the features and styles of the letters that children write to Santa Claus.Design/methodology/approach – Contents and style of 314 authentic letters sent by UK children to Santa Claus were analyzed using an underlying interpretive consumer research approach.Findings – Letters to Santa contain expressions of needs, wants, desires, hopes and dreams related to Christmas. The majority of letters were identified as expressions of wants and desires, while only a few letters contained features of needs or dreaming. This implies that for children Christmas seems to be a rather unspiritual festival concerning having things rather than dreams coming true.Research limitations/implications – The generalization of findings is limited to Western welfare societies. Letters are not originally written for research purposes, and therefore lack background information about the writers and their writing situations.Practical...

Consumption Culture in Europe: insight into the beverage industry

This book offers the most relevant theories about culture and European market segmentation as well as providing updated data for the evaluation and analyses of the European consumption patterns in the beverage market.

The necessity consumption practices by young adults in Finland

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify which consumption practices young adults regard as necessary. Recently, necessity consumption has not attracted the interest of consumer researchers, even though it serves as an important concept for studying the fundamentals of consumption.Design/methodology/approach – The data are based on consumption diaries in which young adults reported their consumption practices during one week and then rated the degree to which they experienced each of these practices as a necessity or luxury on a seven‐point scale. The data collection was conducted in January 2011. The sample consisted of 55 Finnish university students and the total number of practices they reported in the diaries was 3,847. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.Findings – The results show that young adults experienced almost 60 per cent of their consumption practices as necessary. However, the boundaries between necessary consumption and luxury consumption appeared to be fluid. Acc...

PRIDE Silenced pride in scarce consumption

In the sixth century ad, Gregory the Great described pride as the root of all seven deadly sins (Timpe and Boyd 2014). Since that time multiple definitions of pride have been offered by the ancient classical and religious philosophers, and more recently by psychological scholars (Belk 1983). To synthesize prior elaborations, Caywood and Langrehr (1990, p.56) define pride as a sin, as “a high opinion of one’s own qualities, achievement or possessions” and connect it with arrogance, self-importance, and egoism. Contrary to the “sinful” viewpoint, psychologist scholars also attach positive facets to pride (Tracy and Robins 2007). Within this tradition, pride is seen as a self-caused emotion that is experienced when favorable results are achieved due to an individual’s own actions (Soscia 2007). The individual may then be justly proud of herself, her achievements, or her possessions (Zammuner 1996). Most of the marketing and consumption scholars have focused on the positive facets of pride (Decrop and Derbaix 2010; Verbeke et al. 2004). In fact, Belk’s (1983) conceptual paper is the only exception, addressing the sinful perspective of pride (and other deadly sins) in consumption and connecting it with materialism and conspicuous consumption. In this chapter we revisit pride in consumer research, elaborating it in a context in which pride seems at first glance to be missing: namely, in conditions of scarce consumption. In particular, we analyze manifestations of pride in two divergently scarce conditions by taking the perspectives of nonvoluntary and

Social needs in Finnish young adults’ mundane consumption

Purpose – This paper aims to show how social needs – the need for integration and need for distinctiveness – guide Finnish young adults’ mundane consumption behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on literature on the fundamental importance of social needs for people’s social well-being and the healthy development of the young. The research uses qualitative methods, leaning on an interpretive approach that regards social needs as subjectively experienced and socially constructed phenomena. The empirical data were sourced from 56 Finnish university students’ narratives on their daily consumption behaviors. Findings – The findings present five categories: “Socializing through consumption”, “Consuming to affiliate”, “Uniqueness through consumption”, “Consuming to show off” and “Obedient consumption”, which are further linked to social needs. Social implications – The study opens up the ways social needs are connected to consumption behaviors, for example showing how quotidian consumption obj...

Money Talks: Reproducing Deprivation and Empowerment in Poverty through Discursive Practices

Abstract Purpose This paper examines in what ways cultural representations of money reveal deprivation and empowerment in poverty. Methodology/approach The study draws on Finnish poor consumers’ narratives of their daily lives to identify the discursive practices involved in money talk. Poverty is seen as a frame in which the tacit cultural knowledge of money and the ways of enacting discursive practices are sustained and produced. Findings The research constructs a theoretical illustration of consumer empowerment and deprivation in poverty, which is based on four discursive practices: Moneyless is powerless, Capricious money, Wrestling with money, and Happiness cannot be bought with money. The illustration shows the dynamic evolution of empowerment and deprivation as they grow from and vary within the discursive practices. Social implications and value The study highlights the practical carrying out of life in poverty, which does not emerge only as deprived or as empowered, but instead involves a tension between them.