This study mainly investigates the roles of product design and advertising in conferring identity related meanings upon products and associating them with certain consumer identities. For this purpose, firstly, the concept of identity and increasing centrality of objects in its construction and expression are explored. Secondly, the nature and dynamics of the relationship between people and objects are discussed with a specific emphasis on the identity related aspects of this relationship. Then, a more detailed discussion is held on the roles played by product design and advertising in the process of identity construction through designed products. Finally, a case study on a selected product group is presented in order to illustrate the theoretical discussions in previous chapters.

Since the fifteenth century the rise of capitalism and the expansion of global trade networks have ensured that a wide range of consumer goods has become available to people from all walks of life. Paralleling these developments, our attitudes and beliefs about consumer goods have also changed: goods that were once considered luxuries have become commonplace in domestic households. This study celebrates the diversity of this material culture and the variety of symbolic meanings people attach to it. The US – China trade, as a facet of the Spice Trade, is inextricably linked to the development of capitalism and long-distance shipping that ensured the movement of consumer goods to markets around the world. Inevitably, many of these ships sank and archaeologically their cargoes and the artifacts associated with their crew provide an opportunity to glimpse the development of our modern world. This thesis uses the shipwreck Frolic (1850) as a case study to discuss how those involved in, and those who were supplied through, this trade used a range of consumer goods to construct distinct identities for themselves and those around them. This study also draws on a wide variety of source material, including material culture (museum collections and archaeological assemblages), images and documentary sources (courtesy literature and newspapers) to paint a broader picture of the US – China trade and consumer society than any one source is capable of doing itself. This study ultimately argues that the range in consumer goods associated with the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century US – China trade is symptomatic of the increasing complexity of consumer markets able to facilitate the establishment and maintenance of a wide array of consumer identities, necessary under the many new social, economic and ideological relationships constructed under capitalism.

The dynamic development of new technologies influences consumers in many different ways reaching far beyond the shift in consumption patterns, challenging the way consumers live their lives. The role of new information technologies is continually growing in our daily lives changing the way we see the self and the world around us. Consequently, the advent of the computer culture incites a radical rethinking of who we are and the nature of being human, which clearly illustrates the postmodern age. As a result, over the past decades consumer research has moved away from simply viewing consumers as information processors to consumers as socially conceptualized beings. This Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) movement views consumers and consumer behaviour as articulations of meanings and materiality within the productive of complex cultural milieu. This ethnographic thesis focuses on the three-dimensional virtual world of Second Life, which is a 'Real Life' simulation and where the residents represent themselves through 'avatars', creating a kind of virtual materiality. This raises interesting questions for consumer researchers, not just about how consumption is enacted, produced and articulated within this environment, but also in relation to theoretical and methodological issues. More specifically, this thesis critically examines the development of interpretive consumer research and the emergence of the Consumer Culture Theory framework in the context of the juxtaposition of reality and hyperreality and takes a position which goes beyond the 'body in the net/physical body' binary. Therefore, this thesis places the 'avatar-as-consumer' at the centre of the research focus. The current thesis develops a theoretical framework which examines the role of consumption in resolving key paradoxes. Moreover, it extends the netnography framework from mainly text based research to the visual characteristics of virtual worlds so that it can be useful for the study of complex online environments and as a result, how the role of the researcher goes beyond netnography to virtualography is discussed.

Au sein de cette thèse, j’examine l’influence de l’identité du consommateur (ex. matérialisme, construction de soi) sur les stratégies marketing ciblant les jeunes consommateurs (millénaire).Dans l’Essai 1, j’explore comment les consommateurs matérialistes peuvent être encouragés à agir de manière pro-sociale en actionnant leur motivation de recherche de prestige pendant la consommation de produits de luxe et comment les marques de luxe peuvent maximiser la participation des consommateurs via des campagnes de cause-related marketing centrées sur le produit.Dans l’Essai 2, je déploie la théorie des coûts d’interaction sociale plus bas pour étudier les effets de l’individualisme (vs. collectivisme) sur le choix de répondre à son besoin d’appartenance via l’interaction sociale digitalement-médiée. / In this dissertation, I examine the influence of consumer identity (e.g., materialism, self-construal) on marketing strategy targeting young consumers (i.e., millennials).In Essay 1, I explore how materialistic consumers can be nudged to act prosocially by leveraging their status-seeking motivations in the context of luxury consumption, and luxury brands will maximize participation of consumers by utilizing product-linked cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns.In Essay 2, I investigate the effects of individualism (vs. collectivism) on preferences for meeting belonging needs through digitally mediated social interaction, through the lens of lower social interaction costs.

The dynamic development of new technologies influences consumers in many different ways reaching far beyond the shift in consumption patterns, challenging the way consumers live their lives. The role of new information technologies is continually growing in our daily lives changing the way we see the self and the world around us. Consequently, the advent of the computer culture incites a radical rethinking of who we are and the nature of being human, which clearly illustrates the postmodern age. As a result, over the past decades consumer research has moved away from simply viewing consumers as information processors to consumers as socially conceptualized beings. This Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) movement views consumers and consumer behaviour as articulations of meanings and materiality within the productive of complex cultural milieu. This ethnographic thesis focuses on the three-dimensional virtual world of Second Life, which is a ¿Real Life¿ simulation and where the residents represent themselves through ¿avatars¿, creating a kind of virtual materiality. This raises interesting questions for consumer researchers, not just about how consumption is enacted, produced and articulated within this environment, but also in relation to theoretical and methodological issues. More specifically, this thesis critically examines the development of interpretive consumer research and the emergence of the Consumer Culture Theory framework in the context of the juxtaposition of reality and hyperreality and takes a position which goes beyond the 'body in the net/physical body' binary. Therefore, this thesis places the ¿avatar-as-consumer¿ at the centre of the research focus. The current thesis develops a theoretical framework which examines the role of consumption in resolving key paradoxes. Moreover, it extends the netnography framework from mainly text based research to the visual characteristics of virtual worlds so that it can be useful for the study of complex online environments and as a result, how the role of the researcher goes beyond netnography to virtualography is discussed.

Submitted by Benjamin Rosenthal (benjamin.rosenthal@fgv.br) on 2014-04-07T12:41:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese para depósito.pdf: 2068891 bytes, checksum: ba0ae7bd915046b5ba93e4f351e94da4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vera Lúcia Mourão (vera.mourao@fgv.br) on 2014-04-07T16:08:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese para depósito.pdf: 2068891 bytes, checksum: ba0ae7bd915046b5ba93e4f351e94da4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-04-07T16:09:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese para depósito.pdf: 2068891 bytes, checksum: ba0ae7bd915046b5ba93e4f351e94da4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-14 / In this thesis I investigate the extent to which companies can build a more communal environment out of their fan pages while also evaluating the corresponding brand value that may come from having such a communal environment. My research is comprised in three articles: in the first article, I describe how the brand image is created or augmented in the fan page environment, therefore providing demonstrable evidence of value creation. In the second article, I describe how individuals use fan page semiotic elements to communicate their identities. Finally, in the third article, I describe the possible communal characteristics of a fan page and the conditions that enable it to evolve to the virtual brand community concept. As a result, I will contribute to the marketing literature on the use of Facebook for communicating brand identity, on the co-creation of the brand image in social media context, and on the conceptual definition of fan pages as a communal environment.

In the past few decades people’s attitude towards music consumption has tremendously changed in China. With the constantly rising market and huge potential space, it is necessary to study the consumer behavior and explore factors that decide people’s willingness to pay in music consumption. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate: 1) What factors may influence the Chinese consumer behavior on music and its merchandise; 2) What factors may influence the “willingness to pay” of Chinese consumer in music consumption; 3) The similarities and differences between the consumption of music product and musical merchandise in China. The authors select the qualitative method and set up two focus groups, music product group and music merchandise group, in this study. Finally, they found five dimensions (musical preference & identity, culture of music, musical loyalty & satisfaction, Chinese music consumption, willingness to pay) will interaction with each other and influence Chinese consumer behavior on music product and its merchandise.

Abstract Problem: Previously, only few wealthy individuals had the opportunity to engage luxury consumption. Today, money and time is a lot more dispersed and thus give the regular citizen a chance to purchase luxury goods. Productivity and quality management has led to a growing production of luxury goods and has been spread to the mass population. Previous studies have proven that there is a relationship between possessions and identities, but lack research on younger consumers and their agendas for luxury consumption. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore how young consumers are using luxury consumption when constructing their identities and if this new group of luxury consumers consume luxury goods in a new way. Method: In order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis, an epistemological relativistic assumption has been made, and includes a qualitative exploratory research design with an inductive approach. The primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews, where participants had an interest in luxury consumption. Conclusion: Our findings suggests that there is a new group of young consumers who construct their identity through luxury consumption, based on the symbolic meanings and the perceived personal reward. This social group uses luxury consumption to conform with their preferred social references, but also to differentiate themselves. Certain possessions, interests and the environment an individual live in were all found to be important tools for young consumer when they construct their identity. “We are what we buy” has been proven to be a central concept in young consumers identity creation of this study.

Brand loyalty is a common theme throughout consumer and market research, yet it has not been a major topic among anthropologists. The research presented here is an anthropological exploration of the social and cultural influences on how a unique demographic - millennial males - view their own loyalty to brands. Through the use of qualitative interviews and online surveys, participants provided insight in to how they viewed their favorite brands and how those brands fit in to their lives. After analysis was done on these interviews a number of themes and degrees of attachment were identified and discussed.

No description available.