Valérie-Inés de La Ville

How can food become fun? Exploring and testing possibilities …

Purpose – This paper aims to understand, from a theoretical standpoint and from an empirical perspective, why food products can be designed and perceived as “playful” and “funny”. Drawing on the experiential framework developed in marketing research and recent advances in theories of play, it seeks to clarify the conceptual articulation of “play” with “fun” and it seeks to highlight the need to reconsider the contribution of the product in framing situations that children experience as “playful” and “fun”.Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on qualitative data gathered through a combination of observations and in‐depth interviews of 14 dyads “child‐mother” confronted by four product innovations at a prototype stage, and a series of eight focus groups involving children from three to eight years old as well as their mothers.Findings – Children were very able to categorize food products by appreciating their different degrees of fun. The study led to the identification and coding of 13 key dimen...

Developing as Consumers

To introduce three perspectives used by marketing researchers and practitioners to explain how children develop as consumers : o a classic developmental-stage based perspective which focuses on the progressive acquisition of economic knowledge by children o a widespread process-centered model which aims at explaining how children interact with socialization agents to acquire economic abilities o a more recent framework drawing on cultural psychological theory that suggests that children are immersed in the realm of mass consumption culture To discuss the cornerstone elements of these three models and the contrasting explanations they propose about the learning processes through which children develop as consumers To delineate new research avenues in order to account for the creative capacities of children when they participate in joint consumption activities

Communication on food, health and nutrition: A cross-cultural analysis of the Danonino brand and nutri-tainment

The aim of this article is to explore how Danone intertwines the health discourse and the entertainment aspects when promoting their products to parents and children across cultures and in communicating to its global markets. In order to examine Danones communication strategy in the various cultural contexts, the following will be analysed: who talks about health; how healthy eating is presented; and finally how playful and entertaining aspects of health are enacted in Danones commercials. In the analysis, focus is on Danones ‘Danonino’ brand, how the global market is approached and how it draws on the concept of ‘nutri-tainment’ (nutrition and entertainment). The sample consists of 175 commercials from six markets (France, Spain, Germany, Russia, Poland, Denmark) aired from 2001 to 2007. The analysis involves a quantitative exploration and clustering analysis of which themes appear in which markets. This differentiates four groups of advertisements: ‘Utility’; ‘Adventure’; ‘Entertainment’; and ‘Activity’. It is complemented by a qualitative analysis of typical traits in commercials drawing on an analysis of the person or character that appears to be empowered to talk about health, how healthy eating is communicated and finally what is emphasised as being ‘healthy’ in the various national contexts.

The experience of risk in families: conceptualisations and implications for transformative consumer research

Abstract Families represent an important context for understanding and addressing the various forms of risk experienced by consumers. This article defines and discusses the concept of risk as it applies to the familial unit, with a particular focus on the liminal transitions that occur within families and the resiliency required for families to identify and adopt effective coping strategies to manage these transitions. A framework is proposed that offers researchers an approach for applying concepts related to family risk to various consumption-related problems and issues. This framework constitutes a starting point that can be developed and expanded to facilitate a deeper understanding of the internal and external forces that influence families and their well-being, and the role consumption plays therein. Potential avenues for future transformative consumer research are proposed in this important but under-developed field.

The consequences and contradictions of child and teen consumption in contemporary practice

This paper seeks to conceptualize the field of child and teen consumption as a system of social practices at the cross roads of six strongly intermingled subsystems covering social, institutional, technological, narrative, economic, and political stakes. Childrens and teens consumption is shaped and transformed by a mix of managerial action, public policy, cycles of technological change, the evolution of related institutions like parenthood and schooling, changing cultural references, values, modes of socialization as well as by the actions of children and teens themselves. Within such a framework, child and teen consumption appears as a complex arena of competing moral and ideological perspectives. In such a volatile context, forms of resistance to ideologies of unending consumption emerge, continuously calling into question the responsibility of business for unwanted long‐term effects.

Young people as company stakeholders? Moving beyond CSR…

Purpose – The case of corporations establishing a relationship with young people – because of the moral responsibility involved – allows us to illustrate the complexities of trying to decide what is morally correct to collectively ensure childrens well-being. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Applying the “stakeholder theory” to child industries – under which term this paper includes all business activities that establish a commercial relationship involving children, either as the recipient or user of the final product or beneficiary of a specific service, or as a co-decision-maker for purchases within his/her family or social circles – reveals a series of conceptual challenges... Findings – The limited understanding of stakeholder theory within the CSR managerial perspective leads companies to overlook some important moral issues about childrens well-being, and exposes them to particularly hard criticisms of their actions and marketing policies. Research limitations...

The child « in absentia » in furniture retail catalogues

From an interpretive semiology perspective this paper examines the meaning suggested by the absence of children in newspaper advertisements, commercial websites and catalogue images of childrens furniture manufacturers. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the multilayered process involved in conveying meaning to the parent-child cluster consumer through press and online advertisements designed by childrens furniture manufacturers. A corpus of 200 press advertisements and catalogues produced by childrens furniture manufacturers (particularly IKEA and Gautier) was analysed using a combination of Barthes (1964) visual analysis and Greimas (1987) narrative approach to visual discourses. The scenes portrayed to shape the message addressed to the parent-child cluster consumer, suggest that, in addition to fostering positive values such as self-fulfilment and stimulating background for an active child, they also promote discourses about contemporary childhood and parenthood. This paper highlights how furniture retailers through the figurative choices they make to portray a child bedroom and to organize a series of child bedroom images within a catalogue, generate a brand discourse aiming to typify representations of childhood imbued with diverse cognitive, social and emotional dimensions within diverse cultural backgrounds.

The ongoing monitoring of societal responsibility in management research activities: A secondary analysis and a heuristic instrumentation

This article aims to highlight the need to explore the concept of social responsibility at the very heart of research activity. Questioning the social responsibility of research activities in management provides the opportunity to take a fresh look at the criteria used to assess its usefulness. Drawing on a secondary analysis of a longitudinal research process, this paper emphasizes the importance of achieving an ongoing co-monitoring of the issues about social responsibility involved in research. This reflection leads to a first characterization of two key dimensions of the societal responsibility of researchers in management: their professional responsibility and their institutional responsibility. It is meant to encourage researchers to design a relevant instrumentation to help them negotiate, make explicit and co-monitor the issues of social responsibility involved in their empirical investigations as well as in their theoretical elaborations. As research projects are socially situated activities, always infused with values and ideologies, it is crucial that researchers reflect upon the axiology guiding their empirical and theoretical work. In order to achieve an ongoing co-monitoring of the issues about social responsibility involved in management research, the article suggests a heuristic deviated use of the balanced scorecard.

À quel jeu joues-tu sur Facebook ?

Cet article interroge l’originalite ludique du dispositif sociotechnique concu par les reseaux socionumeriques autour du profil pour organiser les differentes activites en ligne. Alors que les jeux constituent une des activites les plus prisees par les membres du reseau a laquelle ils consacrent un temps important, peu de recherches se sont focalisees sur l’analyse des activites ludiques sur les reseaux socionumeriques. Par l’application de cadres conceptuels eprouves pour analyser les jeux et activites ludiques, il est possible d’interroger la specificite des modalites de jeux qui sont proposees sur les reseaux socionumeriques. Une analyse centree sur les fonctionnalites offertes par Facebook conduit a interroger de facon critique la nature meme de l’activite ludique menee dans le contexte particulier des reseaux socionumeriques.

The Company. A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea

This course examines ethical and evaluative issues relating to business and professional practices, and is intended for students registered in a science or professional program, but without a background in philosophy. Topics to be explored include the nature of values and ethical systems, duties and rights, private and public goods, the consumer movement, social marketing, corporate social accounting, private right and professional responsibility.