Consumer Culture Theory

Samantha N. N. Cross, Cecilia Ruvalcaba, Alladi Venkatesh, Russell W. Belk, Samantha N. N. Cross, Cecilia Ruvalcaba, Alladi Venkatesh, Russell W. Belk

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781787439078
• eBook ISBN: 9781787545045
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consumer Behaviour
• Index: Business

This series epitomizes the 2017 Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) conference themes of hyper-reality and cultural hybridization. The partnership of the co-editors, with diverse backgrounds including Caribbean, Mexican and Indian roots, itself depicts cultural hybridity, culminating in a series of fascinating articles written by authors from around the globe. The eleven research papers provide a global perspective on a range of consumer discourses both in the physical marketplace (research on mobility practices within the transportation market in Vietnam; or an examination of stigma in beef consumption practices in India), or in the virtual marketplace (a study of the discourses surrounding the mythic nature of Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto; or parental management understood through the media marketplace experiences of black women in Britain). The conference's Best Competitive Award paper is featured; a compelling look at hyper-reality within the world of the Broadway musical, Wicked, examining how new media platforms are used to appeal to new and existing consumers. This series also includes two insightful papers on wine producers and their cultural intermediaries, and on wine tourism, where the authors traverse the globe to better understand market development and consumer engagement respectively. Whether it be an examination of consumer tribes, breast cancer and gender identity, or product gender and design, these authors collectively provide us with unique and riveting perspectives on consumer and marketplace experiences. The series fittingly culminates with a critical look at the emergence of the CCT tradition; an emergence that is both timely and important as this series demonstrates.

PART I

(HYPER) REALITY AND CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION

AMAZING INFORMATION: HYPERREALITY AND “THE WORLD OF WICKED”

Kent Drummond, Susan Aronstein and Terri Rittenburg

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This paper examines a promotional exhibit for the Broadway musical Wicked, entitled “The World of Wicked,” to better understand the ways in which art marketers continue to hail new and existing consumers. Eco’s concept of hyperreality and its relationship to remediation and cultural sustainability are brought to bear upon this phenomenon. As producers utilize new media platforms to reach the consumer, they make the experience of their shows more immediate. Set in the context of a shopping mall, the hyperreality of the exhibit is unpacked and analyzed.

Design: This is an interpretive study using direct observation, participant observation, depth interviews, narrative analysis, and artifact analysis.

Findings: By facilitating embodiment, encouraging intense emotional arousal, and providing a sense of community, “The World of Wicked” is a metonym for Wicked itself. The hyperreal context of the shopping mall facilitates the consumption of fantasy as well as material goods.

Originality and value: The findings of this paper extend theories of hyperreality, adaptation, and remediation into the context of arts. This contribution is foundational to building a larger theory of cultural sustainability.

Keywords: Hyperreality; arts marketing; embodiment; adaptation; remediation; metonym

“What counts, however, is not the authenticity of a piece, but the amazing information it contains.”

—Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, 1986

OVERVIEW

Fourteen years after its premier, the Broadway musical Wicked remains a cultural phenomenon. According to Variety (Cox, 2016), by May 2016, Wicked had grossed $1 billion on Broadway alone, reaching that milestone faster than any other show in history. Yet that figure represented only one-quarter of its gross worldwide. Wicked has played to 50 million people in 14 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and Japan. It has been translated into six languages. The Wicked soundtrack has been certified double-platinum. Wicked merchandise, ranging from golf balls to t-shirts, tote bags, key chains, and coffee mugs, generates at least $300,000 per week – more than most Broadway plays (Barnes, 2005). A movie version of the show will be released in December 2019 (Khatchatourian, 2016). Only The Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King, both much older musicals, exceeded these performance figures.

Wicked’s astounding success suggests a series of research questions for those who work at the intersection of consumer research and the arts. First, how does Wicked continue to draw consumers to its doors, not only in the major cities of New York and London but also in more far-flung American cities such as Schenectady, East Lansing, Providence, and Appleton? And, given Wicked’s history (it is based on Maguire’s (1995) novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which is itself based on a combination of MGM’s 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, and L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), we also need to address a larger question: How has Oz remained culturally sustainable for well over a century? In other words, how does this narrative keep reinventing itself, such that it becomes newly relevant to new groups of consumers, without losing its established consumer base?

To address these questions about Wicked in particular and Oz in general, we have developed a multi-theory, interdisciplinary approach to cultural sustainability. Drawing on literary theory, media studies, and interpretive consumer research, we ground our work in theories ranging from cultural studies, adaptation theory, remediation theory, and experiential marketing. Our book-length study of Oz, of which this essay is a part, examines the ways in which a narrative moves across different performances and media forms, extending and adapting itself over time to remain artistically and commercially viable. In order to construct this approach, we conducted archival research into the processes and reactions of historical producers, reviewers, and (through handwritten letters) consumers written over 100 years ago. We then conducted extensive narrative and cultural analyses, buttressed by depth interviews with present-day producers and consumers. The result is a theoretical framework of cultural sustainability, which can be used for analyzing a broad array of artistic, literary, and performative artifacts.

In this particular paper, we begin with an introduction to our theoretical framework, which includes a discussion of Eco’s (1986) notion of hyperreality. We then describe the exhibit “The World of Wicked” (hereafter, WoW) in detail, and recount a special live performance of two songs from Wicked that helped bring this exhibit to life. We also offer impressionistic findings of these events, focusing on the critical roles hyperreality, remediation, and adaptation play in making the experience of the exhibit more immediate. We conclude by discussing the benefits that accrue to both producers and consumers because of that experience.

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD: TOWARD A THEORY OF CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY

At the heart of Oz lies a story: a magical land, compelling characters, and significant themes. However, today’s Oz, at times adult and darkly political (e.g., NBC’s Emerald City), and, at others, bright and nostalgic (e.g., Amazon’s Lost in Oz), is very different from the Oz first penned in 1900 by L. Frank Baum. Over the decades, Oz has been adapted, or, in the words of Linda Hutcheon (2006), “made suitable for new audiences.” It has evolved to fit new times and different places. This ability to adapt to the needs and desires of consumers across time and space is the first step to long-term cultural sustainability.

However, adaptation alone is not enough. In order to reach new consumers, a narrative must seek them out in new places. Here, the work of marketing theorists such as Pine and Gilmore (2011) on experiential marketing, combined with discussions on hyperreality from Eco (1986) and Baudrillard (2015), as well as Bolter and Grusin’s (1999) Theory of Remediation, apply as we seek to understand all of the factors that have contributed to Oz’s longevity.

While Pine and Gilmore (1999) focused on businesses, not creative artifacts, to exemplify the ways in which consumption experiences can ensure a loyal clientele for years to come, they used an extended theatrical metaphor to illustrate their theory. Thus, their framework applies easily to the arts, and the fact that the producers of Oz, from original author Baum to Universal producer Marc Platt, have employed the techniques of experiential marketing, helps explain Oz’s cultural sustainability to a considerable extent. In our discussion on Oz, we draw from a number of sources to identify the following six characteristics of experiential marketing that contribute to creating, sustaining, and extending a consumer base for creative products:

• First, generate “buzz.” Creating excitement, prompting consumers to feel a sense of immediacy — as well as exclusivity. “Right here, right now … this is the place to be!” is the hoped-for impression.
• Second, immerse the consumer in a cocoon of physical sensation — sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell — that shuts out the distractions of external world and creates a safe space in which to arouse emotions. At Disneyland, the light and water show, World of Color, which plays at night, is an excellent example.
• Third, educate the consumer, interacting with her to teach her how to appreciate and consume the product, bringing the consumer on the “inside” as an expert or connoisseur.
• Fourth, foster a longer-term, imprinted emotional connection, inspiring a deep and memorable relationship with the experience.
• Fifth, encourage sharing, urging consumers to share their experiences with as many “friends” as possible, creating both a “ripple effect” and a community of consumers.
• Finally, facilitate a synergy of experiences such that consumers can encounter the experience in different ways and at different times.

In all of these aspects, experiential marketing seeks to provide consumers with what Eco described in his 1986 essay, “Travels in Hyperreality,” as a particularly American desire for “more of the real thing.” Eco’s take on hyperreality is different from the theory that Baudrillard (2015) and others would fully develop in the 1980s. For Eco (1986), the hyperreal is different from Baudrillard’s (2015) simulacrum, a world “without origin or reality.” Rather, Eco’s (1986) hyperreality is the Absolute Fake, a “full-scale authentic copy … more polished, shinier,” set in a context — such as the Johnson Presidential Museum, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, or Disneyland itself. The Absolute Fake undermines “the logical distinctions between real world and possible worlds,” placing heroines such as Jasmine from Aladdin, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and Elsa from Frozen side by side in a theme park. The creation of the Absolute Fake, Eco asserts (1986), satisfies consumers’ desire for a world in which, if “good, art, fairy tale, and history are unable to become flesh, they can at least become plastic.”

However, it takes technology to make plastic. And here, we come to a critical aspect of cultural sustainability – and a point of articulation between Eco’s view of hyperreality (1986) and Bolter and Grusin’s Theory of Remediation (1999). To deliver the hyperreal thing to consumers, eager for more of a product, requires that producers create new media platforms that will enable them to reach both old and new consumers in new ways (e.g., television, films, video games, virtual reality, etc.); and as they move content from one media form to another (i.e., remediation), they must provide what Bolter and Grusin (1999) term a heightened sense of immediacy. If Eco’s (1986) hyperreality fabricates the absolute fake to satisfy the consumer’s demand for the real thing, then each new remediation promises to make consumers feel as if they were really there, providing an experience in which the medium itself disappears and consumers are left in the presence of the thing represented.

All of these factors play into cultural sustainability: adaptation to time and place; offering multiple experiences to attract, sustain, and extend a consumer base; and taking advantage of new technologies and media platforms to offer consumers an ever-more immediate and hyperreal experience. In order to achieve cultural sustainability, producers not only need to adapt their product to the needs and concerns of new audiences but also to use new, multiple media outlets to provide a heightened, immersive reality, beckoning consumers into an alternative world of sensation, and ultimately, persuasion. As we shall see, WoW employs all these techniques to market the musical (and, through it, Oz) to both new and repeat consumers.

COMING SOON TO A MALL NEAR YOU: “THE WORLD OF WICKED”

One particular type of remediation saturated with hyperreality is a promotional exhibit entitled, “The World of Wicked.” This temporary exhibit routinely tours around the country in advance of the touring version of Wicked itself. Like John the Baptist, it heralds the arrival of something much greater, and it departs shortly after “the real thing” arrives. During our repeated encounter with “WoW”, the exhibit was set in the middle of a large atrium of the Cherry Creek Shopping Mall (Cherry Creek is an upscale suburb of Denver, Colorado). During the summer of 2015, WoW appeared in the mall for several weeks leading up to the opening night of Wicked, then closed several days after the show opened. We visited WoW three times between May and June 2015, taking extensive field notes, conducting interviews, and attending a special live performance of Wicked songs, delivered on a makeshift stage in front of the exhibit. We also took photographs of the exhibit from a distance that precluded identifyin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Part I: (Hyper) Reality and Cultural Hybridization
• Part II: Navigating the Marketplace
• Part III: The Consumer Culture Theory Paradigm
• Index