Shona Bettany

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.

The (post-human) consumer, the (post-avian) chicken and the (post-object) Eglu: Towards a material-semiotics of anti-consumption

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential of material‐semiotic ontology to the field of anti‐consumption research.Design/methodology/approach – The papers approach is multi‐site ethnography, following a consumer object, the Omlet Eglu, to trace a field of study within the practices and processes of urban stock‐keeping.Findings – It was found that the Omlet Eglu was produced as an ambivalent actor within the practices of urban stock‐keeping, allowing an analysis of multiple aspects of consumption/anti‐consumption and consumer resistance/domination that challenges those dualisms as organizing constructs.Practical implications – The paper fdds to knowledge about the complex constructions of the meaning of egg consumption by consumers. This has the potential to inform retailers and farm producers, as well as organizations that provide goods and services to home food producers.Originality/value – The paper provides a novel ontological approach to anti‐consumption that addresses curren...

Moving beyond binary opposition: Exploring the tapestry of gender in consumer research and marketing:

The last two decades have seen an exponential growth in research pertaining to gender issues in marketing and consumer research. This special issue of Marketing Theory, together with the ongoing Association for Consumer Research Gender, Marketing and Consumer Research conference series, now approaching its tenth iteration, demonstrates the continued interest in gender issues in our disciplines. Introducing the special issue, this paper’s remit is threefold: it maps the substantive and theoretical developments of gender research within our discipline; it locates this work on gender within its broader context in humanities and social science; and it introduces the reader to the four papers in this special issue. The paper concludes that gender research has moved from the margins to become a strong body of work within marketing and consumer research. That said, there remains substantive opportunity for further development, where gender and feminist research can offer new insights, critiques, theories and approaches.

Disney discourses of self and Other: animality, primitivity, modernity, and postmodernity

We need Otherness to define self. As our world widens in an age of global commerce, travel, and entertainment, we encounter a sometimes bewildering array of Otherness delivered at an ever‐increasing pace. In light of postmodern diversity and hybridity, we need increasingly fundamental Others against whom to construct ourselves. In the theme parks typified by those of Disney in Orlando, Florida, we find several discourses that offer us a perspective on who we are vis‐à‐vis the Other. The particular Others (and sometimes the particular selves) of these discourses often come from the non‐human animal kingdom as well as from other human animal groups. The animal self/Other is not new and can be traced back to Aesop’s Fables and earlier. But in the controlled and carefully planned world of Orlando theme parks, supplemented by films, cartoons, animatronics, and other “imagineering” techniques, the possibilities of representation are greatly expanded. Nor is offering human Others a new thing and the “human zoos” of some of the early North American World’s Fairs brought pseudo‐villages full of “natives” for spectator amusement and contemplation. In addition, various depictions of human Others in film, print, and art can be seen in earlier eras, ranging from William Rice Burrough’s Tarzan to Pablo Picasso’s Les demoiselles d’Avignon. But in a postmodern, post‐colonial, degendered era of self‐commoditization, global environmentalism, and multiculturalism, sensitivities are quite different from those that prevailed during earlier attempts at stylized presentations of the Other. Chauvinistic doctrines of superiority no longer go unchallenged with the human animal Other, and the non‐human animal Other presents a somewhat less contentious alternative. In this paper the authors seek to understand the Otherness crafted in Orlando theme parks, the messages they convey, and the broader societal discourses invoked and mobilized. The contrasts offered in these theme parks and that facilitate an understanding of our selves and our place in the world include not only us and them, but also a conflated array of here and there, now and then (past or future), human and animal, primitive and civilized, he and she, good and bad, and responsible and irresponsible. The authors do this by presenting auto‐ethnographic accounts of their own engagements with two Orlando theme parks, Disney Animal Kingdom and Anheuser‐Busch SeaWorld.

The Material Semiotics of Consumption or Where (and What) are the Objects in Consumer Culture Theory

This article presents an analysis of a seemingly mundane consumption object, the Mars Coat King, a manual grooming device employed within Afghan hound breeding and exhibition cultures, to develop current conceptualizations of the consumption object in consumer culture theory (CCT). In doing so it extends theory of the ontology of, and relation between, subject and object into the realms of the post-humanist. The chapter illustrates how by employing post-humanist theory, the consumption object can be conceptualized as a mutable, contradictory and active entity within complex consumption cultures and when conceptualized as such, can enrich understanding of consumption objects within consumer research.

Mapping industrial marketing knowledge: A study of an IMP conference

The paper describes exploratory research into the nature of the International/Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) conference papers with particular focus on content. A qualitative analysis of the Proceedings of the 16th Annual IMP Conference is presented. The results provide insights into the diversity of academic thought that fuels the development of the IMP network and allows us to begin charting the development of knowledge structures within past IMP conferences. Of particular interest are, first, the tentative knowledge structure that emerges, second, the depth of analysis that emerges from using multidimensional coding, and third, the utility of the process of successive categorisation.

Revisiting contemporary issues in family consumption

Family consumption remains an important issue for marketing practitioners and academics alike, with familial influence, in turn, having a pervasive influence on how individuals consume throughout the life course. This special issue of Journal of Marketing Management (JMM) builds on the advances made by the 2006 special issue (‘Consuming families: Marketing, consumption and the role of families in the twenty-first century’; Vol. 22, Issue 9–10) which aimed to challenge the ‘idealistic and simplistic’ notions of family by considering ‘diverse “family” constellations’ (O’Malley & Prothero, 2006, p. 899). Given that family is a vast topic of interest and that the issues that shape family consumption and arrangements are dynamic and constantly evolving, we felt that scope existed to return to (and extend) the issues represented in the earlier JMM special issue on family consumption. We were therefore delighted to be inundated with submissions from colleagues from around the world, signalling the interest that is placed on contemporary family life and how this is played out in terms of consumption. The papers received were subject to a rigorous peer-review process, drawing on the expertise of specialists within this field. The papers chosen for inclusion in this special issue considerably advance what we know about contemporary family life and represent issues which modern-day families encounter. Some of these issues are clearly enduring; complementing the papers published in the O’Malley and Prothero (2006) JMM special issue. The special issue begins by exploring themes of transition, represented by papers which detail the early stages of consumer socialisation and how young adults emerge from the family nest. The special issue then moves on to describe the ‘doing’ of family life beyond the family home, with a series of papers presented which depict contemporary issues shaping family consumption and identity. The special issue culminates with explorations of the later journey of family life by considering consumption issues in relation to the aging family unit and associated caring responsibilities. This diverse collection of papers, loosely organised around the family life course, raise important questions in terms of what family is, highlighting that often family spills out beyond the boundary of the household setting; who is considered to be a family member (and in turn, papers included in the special issue highlight that family membership moves beyond mere blood and marital ties) and that family life spans a range of generations and concomitant consumption issues. In the first paper of the special issue, ‘Changing family structures and childhood socialisation: a study of leisure consumption’, Philippa Hunter-Jones examines the role of socialisation agents in processes of early years (5–7 year old) children learning to function as consumers. In doing so, within the context of leisure travel, HunterJones questions whether parents/guardians (who have traditionally been Journal of Marketing Management, 2014 Vol. 30, Nos. 15–16, 1527–1532, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2014.937614

Siblings as socialization agents: : Exploring the role of 'sibship' in the consumer socialization of children

Purpose – This paper explores how siblings act as agents of consumer socialisation within the dynamics of the family network. Design/methodology/approach – Key consumer socialisation literature is reviewed, highlighting the growing role that siblings play in the lives of contemporary children. The authors’ interpretive, exploratory study is introduced which captures the voices of children themselves through a series of in-depth interviews. Findings – A series of socialisation behaviours are documented, with children working in both positive and negative ways to develop the consumer skills of their siblings. A fourfold typology of sibling relationships is described, capturing the dynamic of sibling relationships and parental approaches to parenting vis-a-vis consumption. This typology is then used to present a typology of nascent child consumer identities that begin to emerge as a result of socialisation processes within the family setting. Research limitations/implications – The role siblings play in the ...

The socio-materiality of parental style: negotiating the multiple affordances of parenting and child welfare within the new child surveillance technology market

Purpose This study aims to offer understanding of the parent – child relationship by examining, through a socio-material lens, how one aspect of the new child surveillance technology market, child GPS trackers (CGT), are rejected or adopted by families, highlighting implications for child welfare, privacy and children’s rights policy. Design/methodology/approach The authors gathered netnographic data from a range of online sources (parenting forums, online product reviews, discussion boards) that captured parental views towards the use of CGT and stories of the technology in use and theorize the data through application of a novel combination of neutralisation and affordance theory. Findings The research reveals how critics of CGT highlight the negative affordances of such product use (highlighting the negative agency of the technology). Parental adopters of CGT, in turn, attempt to rationalize their use of the technology as a mediator in the parent – child relation through utilisation of a range of neutralisation mechanisms which re-afford positive product agency. Implications for child welfare and policy are discussed in the light of those findings. Originality/value The paper presents an empirical, qualitative understanding of parents negotiating the emergence of a controversial new child-related technology – CGT – and its impact upon debates in the field of parenting and childhood; develops the theory of parental style towards parental affordances, using a socio-material theoretical lens to augment existing sociological approaches; and contributes to the debates surrounding child welfare, ethics, privacy and human rights in the context of child surveillance GPS technologies.

Reproduction of Gender Ideology Through Russian Consumer Culture: The Case of Iconography of the 'Mother' in Russia, an Extended Abstract

Contemporary studies in consumer research significantly shifted the attention towards gender identities and its importance in consumer culture (Epp and Price 2006; Humphreys and Thompson 2014; Dion et al. 2014; Cova et al. 2013); however, less devotion was given to ideological aspects in gender representations persisting in today’s marketing practice (Thompson and Ustuner 2015; Thompson and Coskuner-Balli 2007). The constant changing patterns of social settings and marketplace ideologies that are socially and culturally produced and reproduced has been one of the most referred themes in consumer research (O’Guinn et al. 2015; Dion et al. 2014; Weinberger and Wallendorf 2012; McQuarrie et al. 2013). Evidently more in-depth consideration was acknowledged by Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) (Arnould and Thompson 2005) scholars who believe in the social reproduction (Bourdieu 1979) and construction of identity as a result of sociohistorical and sociocultural change that are evoked through meanings, symbols and signs (Moisio et al. 2004; Arsel and Zeynep 2013). This paper focuses on the reproduction of gender ideology through exploration of archetypal images of motherhood in contemporary Russian consumer culture.