New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society

Elaine L Ritch, Julie McColl

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781839095573
• eBook ISBN:
  9781839095566
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

Digital communication has altered the flow of global information, evolved consumer values and changed consumption practices worldwide. These challenges in the marketplace are being driven by international, social and technological advances.

New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society is a groundbreaking textbook allowing readers to understand, critique and engage with this disrupted context. Editors Elaine L. Ritch and Julie McColl bring together a range of specialist contributors to identify and examine widespread social and technological disruptions in the marketplace, covering new topics that illustrate new consumer values, through chapters examining:

• disruptive innovation
• 'woke' branding
• data ethics
• social shopping
• inclusive identities
• retail spaces as examples of disruption innovation.

The work presents an in-depth discussion of the newest social and technological developments around marketing and consumption across core three themes, 'Disruption and the digital landscape', 'Pseudo Modernity and co-creation of experiences', 'Evolutionary societies and woke branding'. Chapters illustrate how current advances in business and marketing are looking at different approaches for a radically new landscape in marketing and consumer behaviour. New Perspectives on Critical Marketing and Consumer Society provides an illuminating, challenging and thought-provoking guide through changing and fast moving business and retail contexts for all upper-level students of marketing, branding and consumer behaviour.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Julie McColl and Elaine L. Ritch

Introduction

Social, technological and digital change over the last decade has accelerated rapidly, bringing about many corresponding changes in marketing strategies and tactics. These developments have instigated changes in consumer behaviour and expectations, and new business models have entered into the marketplace causing disruption to traditional modes of operation. This book seeks to examine and capture this change to offer a better understanding of the role of marketing in current society.

The book is designed for both undergraduate and postgraduate marketing students and will cover three main themes that currently dominate the marketplace: Disruption and the digital landscape; pseudo modernity and the co-creation of society; evolutionary lifestyles and ‘woke branding’. Each theme is represented by relevant chapters which explore related areas using traditional and new theories and concepts applying these to markets and consumer changes and developments.

Theme 1: Disruption and the Digital Landscape

The first theme of the book is that of disruption and the digital landscape. The chapters included within this theme seek to explore disruptive innovation as it pertains to recent developments in the use of technology in consumer markets. Disruptive innovation is thought to be the most influential business idea of the twenty-first century, and although disruption to existing markets is not new, recent developments in technology have allowed companies to innovate using technology, without the need for a product or manufacturing base, providing services that seek to connect customers and companies and offer greater choice and convenience from a single platform. New technology has blurred the boundaries of consumption and production and has allowed communities greater power in the consumer/market relationship. This power evolves from the evolution of two-way communication which facilitates immediate customer feedback, positive and negative, that can influence the direction of sales and quickly improve or damage reputations. It also, however, allows for a more immediate response from companies in the management of customer relationships. Never before has society been so connected and have companies been so answerable for their actions. Digital technology and social media have facilitated developments in the representation of consumers, products and services and have allowed any individual to represent themselves as experts across markets offering advice and solutions for almost any given situation. For companies, digital technology and big data have given them access to minute-by-minute information on purchases, hovers, clicks and searches, allowing them to compare day-on-day and year-on-year data to micro-segment markets and target them with minute precision across platforms. The Internet of Things allows interaction between digital objects, which furthers the sophistication of data and provides further information on how consumers interact between and across technology-enabled products. The development of digital technology, however, has raised fears over data protection and cyber security and the evolution of big data has quickly overtaken the laws and regulations that had been put in place in the protection of personal information. The chapters in this theme seek to highlight the impact of disruption for the global business environment as well as in consumer markets and across communication channels and highlight areas for future research.

Chapter 2: Disruptive Innovation

The chapter on disruptive innovation examines the Dominant Social Paradigm of production and consumption to establish the ways in which digital technology has been disruptive in creating new business models. This includes business models such as Uber and Airbnb that fall under collaborative consumption and the sharing economy. The chapter begins by considering how the Dominant Social Paradigm has compromised sustainability and concludes on the ways in which disruptive business models respond to the New Environmental Paradigm.

Chapter 3: The Changing Landscape of Consumerism – Advancing the SOR Framework of Stimuli that Encourages Impulsive Online Consumption

Digital technology has provided an additional platform for consumption that has been embraced by consumers and has provided a lucrative expansion for retailers. Using the Stimulus, Organism, Response Framework (SOR), this chapter examines the fashion consumer’s online experience and the role that hedonism plays in encouraging consumption, particularly impulse consumption. This chapter examines how manipulated stimuli triggers impulsive fashion consumption, which can be used for fashion retailing and for encouraging alternative consumption that falls under the New Environmental Paradigm.

Chapter 4: Customer–Company Relationships: The Key Dimensions and Leveraging Social Media to Build Relationships

Social media gained prominence in academic literature because of its versatility for business purposes and the advantages it can provide businesses. One such advantage is social media’s ability to develop the customer–company relationship. There are a number of factors that contribute to this development, starting with the accessibility afforded by social media. This chapter examines the various factors and social media characteristics that contribute to the development of customer–company relationships.

Chapter 5: The Evolution of Big Data in Marketing: Trust, Security and Data Ownership

The evolution of data-driven consumer society has brought with it greater fears over not just security of payment, but also security, and use and misuse of data. Algorithmic profiling is a sophisticated means of data collection, data that can be shared and may lead to targeting of vulnerable consumer groups and in some cases, discrimination. Using the Resource-Based View, this chapter explores the possibilities and market advantage offered to companies in the collection and efficient management of big data as well as the uses of profiling information in consumer markets. It also considers, from the consumer perspective, concerns over privacy, ethics and security of big data information.

Chapter 6: Social Media, Social Comment and the Moralising Media-scape

This chapter is a theoretical contribution relating to the representation of society through social media. The premise of the chapter relates to the emergence of social media from the origins of the performance art of the 1970s and relating right back to the Theory of the Leisure Classes and Utilitarianism. The chapter reviews in particular the representation of food through social media and the proliferation of recipe information, celebrity chefs and food pictures as well as the explosion of wellness and related advice from non-experts in this area which is facilitated by social media.

Theme 2: Pseudo Modernity and Co-creation of Experiences

The second theme of the book focusses on pseudo modernity and the co-creation of experiences. In marketing terms, what has been termed modernist society is perceived to have been passive to marketing activity and advertising media which was communicated in a way that allowed little opportunity for interaction and feedback. The evolution of television and other forms of media in the 1950s and 1960s had extended the application of marketing to consumer society. Gradual changes in society influenced by the changing culture, music and art in the 1960s and 1970s led the way in the evolution of a more open and culturally fragmented postmodern society. The evolution of postmodernism acknowledged developments in media, art and architecture and particularly the advent of new technologies that challenged traditional methods of communication and customer experiences, acknowledging new realities that could not have been conceived of by previous generations with the creation of almost dream-like and unreal experiences, enhanced by the use of technology. The phases of modernity, postmodernity and the more recently proposed pseudo modernity, overlap and there is no clear period in time where there was a change from one to another; however, although criticised, such theorising helps to make sense of the progress of society and the technologies that support that progress. Kirby proposes that pseudo modern products are those that cannot and do not exist unless the consumer intervenes and interacts with them through the adoption of new technology. Throughout this period, consumer expectations have changed, consumers increase the spend in the experience economy with raised expectations that experiences will be a part and parcel of consumption and that they will be co-creators of and immersed in the development of experiences. The ongoing discussion in this theme of the book, therefore, is centred around post- and pseudo modern society and the co-creation of experiences through engagement with the media, the online retail environment, retail space, social media as a medium for social shopping and the ever developing experience economy.

Chapter 7: Pseudo Modernity

This chapter explores and unpacks the concepts of modernity, postmodernity and pseudo modernity and further develops Kirby’s assertions that postmodernity is obsolete further developing his framework with examples of how pseudo modernity is experienced in the media and marketplace. The chapter begins by charting the move between modernity and postmodernity offering examples of postmodernity in media channels and advertising and considering the consequences on society, particularly on the environment and market development. The chapter concludes by offering an analysis and conceptualisation of pseudo modernity which can be applied and tested in future research studies.

Chapter 8: The Customer Engagement Journey: Establishing Propositions

The growth of online retailing is highly competitive; engaging customers with transactional retail websites is important to increase traffic, consumption and loyalty. This chapter explores the theoretical foundations and establishes the concept of customer engagement. It explores the concept of the consumer engagement journey, acknowledging technological advancement and considering the multitude of omni-channel brand touchpoints through which consumer engagement can be established, grown and maintained. The chapter proposes a framework that captures the concepts that are relevant to the consumer engagement journey and concludes by offering avenues for future research.

Chapter 9: The Use of Retail Spaces as Examples of Disruption Innovation

The transformation of retailing over the last two decades has been phenomenal. Regardless of channel, critical to successful retailing is to provide the consumer with positive experiences that are memorable and engage the consumer in a personal way, whilst at the same time, provide economic value for the business. Retailers who will perform well in the future will be those who tap into the desires of consumers to be more than shoppers. Utilising Lefebvre’s special triad, this chapter will explore both physical and virtual retail spaces to determine the provision of sensory, emotional and stimulating retail experiences in the fashion and lifestyle retail sector. In doing so, alternative approaches to the use of retail space are exposed.

Chapter 10: Social Shopping: Implications for Store Retailing

Consumption of social media networks has given rise to a participatory culture where consumers work together to produce more content and share information on products and services to make better purchase decisions. Social shopping, a hybrid of social networking and online retailing, has emerged as a new way of shopping. This has given rise to new shopping technologies that maximise the opportunity for sociality with known or new friends. This chapter explores the impact of social media networks and technologies on the development of social shopping within retailing.

Chapter 11: Experiencing the Experience Economy

This chapter examines the growing role of events and experiences as marketing tools. Drawing upon Pine and Gilmore’s theory of the experience economy and drawing on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, this chapter starts by outlining how the economic base of developed societies has evolved to reflect the needs and wants of consumers in a post-industrial world. The chapter then explores the concept of the experience before examining the ways in which marketers are increasingly using events and experiences as a way to engage consumers and build brand loyalty through the creation of symbolic meaning.

Theme 3: Evolutionary Societies and Woke Branding

The past 10 years has seen considerable societal change, particularly in the areas of ethical consumption, concerns over sustainability, worker’s rights and the treatment of workers in the supply chain, gender equality and recognition of LGBTQIA+ identities. These issues are reflected in business and marketing in many positive and negative ways. Younger consumers have grave concerns over the environment and are more likely that any other generation to seek out sustainable and ethically produced products. However, price deflation, particularly in the area of fashion, has seen an increase in demand for inexpensive ‘fast fashion’. The production of fast fashion renders clothing disposable and leads to increased waste and higher levels of land fill in developed countries. In turn, production methods in this low-cost supply chain lead to poor pay and conditions. Companies respond to changing societies and the concerns of the consumer by involving themselves in ‘woke branding’ campaigns that the feel is appropriate to their target market. The chapters in this section explore the changes in society, the mediums through which these changes evolve and are diffused, and the response of businesses to societal discourse.

Chapte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Theme 1. Disruption and the Digital Landscape
• Theme 2. Pseudo Modernity and Co-creation of Experiences
• Theme 3. Evolutionary Societies and ‘Woke’ Branding
• Index