Consumers tell stories every day: stories about the products they buy, the experiences they consume, even their friends� and families� consumption experiences - in fact, stories about most aspects of their lives. People live �storied� lives. Consumption experiences are understood and related to others through stories (2003). These stories are loaded with personal, social and cultural meaning that varies significantly dependent upon the intended audience and effect (Bruner 1987)
Stories are everywhere and understanding these narratives in relation to consumer experience is a challenge that consumer research must embrace (Stern 1998b). The study of such narratives must address issues such as the content of the story, how it is told, who is actually doing the telling and for what purpose. All these stories exist in context. These contexts are not a means in themselves; rather, they are a means to understand a particular aspect of a consumer phenomenon. In this case, the research presented in this thesis seeks to understand the purpose and function of consumers� narratives about commercial adventure experiences. Hence the context of this research is commercial adventure experiences consumed in Queenstown, New Zealand, billed in promotional tourist literature as �the adventure capital of the world� (Smitz et al. 2004). This specific focus on commercial adventure therefore defines the sample group as consumers of commercial adventure experiences in Queenstown. Hence, the scope of this research is limited to understanding the phenomenon under investigation (consumer narratives) in relation to members of Generation Y, as they are the primary consumers of commercial adventure experiences in New Zealand.
This research adopts an interpretive, inductive approach utilising qualitative tools to frame and develop an evolving research question. The primary data collection has an initial framing of the research question phase and then three main phases utilising a variety of qualitative tools including observation, in-depth interviewing and videography. The research addressed many issues, including the preference of consumers to narrate these adventure consumption experiences to their most valued community, their home community, and how they intended to tell their stories to their home community when removed from that community. Additionally, consumers� perceptions of �cool� were investigated, together with the reactions they anticipated receiving from their audiences. This research investigated �cool� as a more meaningful term than status, used by the members of Generation Y to describe the most desired outcome for the narration of their consumption experiences.
Several key themes emerged from this research. They were the use of these consumer experience narratives in the identity-construction process, both collectively and individually, and how this related to the classic hero myth identity construction (Campbell 1972) and how �cool� was acquired by these consumers through their narrations. Implications of the findings are presented for consumer research with specific reference to a model of community formation based on consumption practices and Generation Y as a community sharing a consciousness of kind.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/266522 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Ferguson, Shelagh Wyn, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Marketing |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Shelagh Wyn Ferguson |
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