Consumer Culture - A New Book

Whether we like it or not, we live in a world that is driven by consumer economics. While people often tend to see economics as something that falls only within the domain of big business and governments, many fail to notice how consumer economics influences every facet of our lives. Our culture, attitudes and behavioural characteristics are, in one way or another, defined by the way we consume.

Consumer culture theory (CCT) is a field of study that has been particularly focused on developing new theoretical knowledge on all issues related to consumption and marketplace behaviours. One of the key figures in this field, Eric Arnould, describes consumer culture as ‘[…] the central construct, conceived as a social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources, between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend, are mediated through markets’. This type of research addresses the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic and ideological aspects of consumption, and is inspired by an emerging theory that addresses the complex dynamics between consumer identity projects, marketplace structures, marketplace ideologies, emergent socio-historic patterning of consumption and popular culture.

CCT research presents a continual reminder that consumption is a historically shaped mode of sociocultural practice that can be found within dynamic marketplaces. This type of research also highlights the notion that the ‘real world’ that we often take for granted is neither unified, monolithic, nor transparently rational. In doing so, CCT research shows that our lives are constructed around multiple ‘realities’ linked to fantasies, invocative desires, aesthetics and identity play, and that we use consumption to experience things that differ dramatically from our everyday lives). What is more, this way of looking at consumption is even changing the way economics is being taught at universities. For example, academics increasingly use various popular culture references in their teaching in an attempt to help students understand a range of business concepts that drive our economy.

 In this book, Consumer Culture: Selected Essays, I introduce you to nine studies that examine various aspects of consumer culture. All of these studies are markedly different to each other in terms of the topics they examine and in the way that the authors have approached the issues that are being examined. Rather than trying to define a set of limitations of how CCT should be studied and presented, I have chosen to celebrate the difference that exists within this field. Anything else would have been a futile task, as this is a rich and diverse field that defies strict methodological conventions.

 None of the chapters try to define what CCT is, as that is not the focus of this book. Rather, Consumer Culture: Selected Essays will contribute to this field by providing a range of studies on how economics and business cultures define the very fabric of our society by influencing the ways we live our lives. By approaching these issues from new and previously unexplored perspectives, the authors in this book have examined a myriad of ways in which business affects society. The book presents the works of seven authors, including myself: Gjoko Muratovski, Kathleen Connellan, Lloyd Carpenter, Anne Peirson-Smith, Carolyn Beasley, Susie Khamis and Robert Crocker.

Summary of Contents

In ‘Icons of Popular Culture: Religious Dimensions of Branding’, I examine branding not as a marketing concept, but as a belief system that is integral to popular culture. In this study, I have explored how five iconic brands – Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Disney, Harley-Davidson and Nike – have assumed religious dimensions. By adopting elements of religious propaganda, these brands have replaced a consumer culture driven by wants and needs with one of desire and worship. In doing so, the brands have created alluring narratives that have transcended the material values of their products. In return, they have managed to surround themselves not with consumers, but with loyal followers. This process of cultural transformation has triggered the emergence of what has now been referred to as ‘consumer religion’.

In ‘Business, National Identities and International Politics: The Role of Built Environments and Architectural Propaganda in Nation Branding’, I have looked at how ‘new’ nations exhibit consumerist ideologies in order to establish themselves and achieve their national and international objectives. Countries (like corporations) have their own images and reputations. This perception has often been used as a foundation of a new form of brand building – nation branding. However, this study holds the position that regardless of some similarities, there is a fundamental difference in the branding of products, corporations and places – in this case, cities and nations. Then again, unlike their commercial counterparts, nation brands are not necessarily driven by economic benefits but also by cultural and sociopolitical reasons. Through a historical overview and selected case studies – United Arab Emirates, Turkmenistan and Macedonia – the study blends issues of corporate branding and national identities, and examines the role of built environments and iconic architecture in developing nation brands.

In ‘Race, Advertisements and YouTube: Identity and Nationality’, Kathleen Connellan looks at racial stereotyping in advertising on YouTube. According to Connellan, while racial and ethnic signifiers operate across several commercial platforms in popular culture, advertising on YouTube offers a media space that is fluid and accessible. The reading of Internet advertising in this study reveals that it is intricately related to the subject and power. Consequently, this study looks at the devices utilised to position the subject in advertisements on YouTube through the Foucauldian lens of power relations. Connellan uses critical race methodology to discover how racial signifiers operate in YouTube advertisements. The approach is therefore a theoretical one that engages with the phenomenon of YouTube and looks at the discursive nature of its messages and narratives, which, in the selected examples, are intrinsically embedded in capitalist aspirations of progress and economic status. Examples are drawn from South Africa and Australia to examine representations of identity in post-apartheid, multicultural and migrant societies.

 In ‘The Use of Gold Rush Nostalgia on Wine Labels: Brief History of New Zealand’s Central Otago Wine Region’, Lloyd Carpenter reflects on the Central Otago gold rush theme on wine labels from the wine-making region of New Zealand. Before it became known for its wines, Central Otago was transformed by gold. While gold miners sought riches, some early pioneers experimented with grape cultivation. When the gold was gone, wine was forgotten and the area developed farming and tourism, but in the early 1980s it transformed again. Vintners realised that classic ‘terroir’ conditions of Burgundy, Champagne and Bavaria were emulated in Central Otago’s dusty countryside. In the mid-2000s, faced with a plethora of high-quality wines, some winemakers looked backwards to differentiate themselves. This chapter examines how and why the Central Otago ‘goldfields’ vineyards exploit nostalgia to market their wine by creating a romantic, mythic past.

In ‘Mad Men and Women: Construction and Management of Advertising Executives in Popular Culture’, Anne Peirson-Smith examines how creative industry executives are constructed in the hugely popular television series Mad Men. Peirson-Smith studies the mediated constructions of fictional executives working in the advertising and creative industries. In doing so, she analyses the various visual and linguistic discourses that frame the fictional world of advertising, the cultural workplaces and spaces and the people who inhabit them and play out imagined realities. Themes such as gender, ethnicity and power relations are also addressed in the process of understanding why these narratives have meaning, and hold the interest of the viewer.

In ‘The Big Earn: A Study of Criminal Business Enterprises in Popular Culture’, Carolyn Beasley examines the fictional criminal as a branded entrepreneur. Inspired by international writers such as Richard Stark and Elmore Leonard, and successful television series such as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, Beasley explores how affable gangsters, professional burglars and menacing Mr Bigs’ modus operandi function as a brand recognisable to other criminals and to the wider public.

In ‘Brand IKEA in a Global Cultural Economy: A Case Study’, Susie Khamis defines the world’s largest furniture and furnishings retailer as an icon of contemporary global capitalism. Known primarily for its price friendly and easy to assemble products, IKEA benefits from the growth of urban, apartment living and a penchant for the minimalist Swedish aesthetic. This study considers how IKEA sustains its brand image across increasingly diverse markets, particularly in regions that are culturally dissimilar to its main sales base – Western Europe. While IKEA’s model of operation has proven to be very successful, Khamis explores how IKEA articulates its brand to specific consumer groups in ways that spotlight the brand’s core values. Since IKEA does not adapt its product range for different markets, local marketing campaigns are telling insights into how IKEA’s consumers differ, even though IKEA’s product range does not. This, in turn, underlines the importance of strategic marketing – in this study, television commercials – as one way that global brands maintain their appeal trans-nationally without product differentiation. Khamis also highlights the cultural logic of branding, whereby narrative and mood are used to distinguish otherwise generic, mass-produced commodities.

In ‘The “Good” Corporation: The Uneasy Relationship Between Reputation and Responsibility’, Robert Crocker provides a critical reflection on the modern-day corporation. Here, he examines how corporations increasingly try to portray themselves as socially responsible organisations, and what happens when they fail to deliver on their promises. Like modern branding, corporate public relations (PR) was first professionalised in 1920s America out of a need for credible positive narratives that could speak to the values, beliefs and expectations of Americans, and turn large and previously rapacious conglomerates into corporate ‘good citizens’ with a positive role to play in building a ‘better future’. Advertising, all forms of design and large staged events, such as Expos and World Fairs, were marshalled to serve the ends of these campaigns. Widely adopted after World War II by leading European corporate giants, this style of image-making has continued to shape the marketing and branding strategies of many large enterprises today. As Crocker argues, the concept and metrics of corporate social and environmental responsibility were originally developed by leading consumer rights groups and environmental NGOs eager to hold this kind of corporate image-making to account. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ‘sustainability reporting’ have in turn become important vehicles for corporate marketing to present ‘evidence’ for a more credible ‘cultural’ narrative of corporate good citizenship. However, this study argues that ‘sustainability reporting’ has become an increasingly challenging field for many companies struggling to control the narrative of their own image, and can expose them to cynicism and anger when they seem to fail the standards set by their published commitments.

In the final chapter, ‘Acceleration in Consumerism, Technology and Sustainability’, Robert Crocker examines where society is going in terms of technology and sustainability. The networked computer has progressively colonised, transformed and accelerated older established technological systems in transportation, communication and manufacture over the last 30 years. As Crocker reflects, in today’s global economy the increasing mobility of people, goods and information enabled by this technology has led to an acceleration and expansion of consumerism, giving rise to what has been termed appropriately, ‘hyper-consumption’. Reflecting upon the concept of ‘social acceleration’ and on recent technologies and scientific advances, Crocker argues that there are not many good news for resource-use reduction and sustainability. Rather than attaining a progressive ‘dematerialisation’ that was once predicted to slow or replace the ‘box economy’, the material economy is being expanded and accelerated by the virtual economy. By referring to the 3D printer in a case study, Crocker points out that it becomes apparent that this supposedly ‘cleaner’ and more democratic technology cannot ‘solve’ our existing ecological problems, and may in fact make these worse – for the 3D printer, despite optimistic talk of this ‘disruptive’ technology, will predictably become one more source of a growing army of cheap ‘stuff’ in the home, in its turn adding to resource depletion, overconsumption and waste. Rejecting the equally optimistic notion that greater sustainability can be achieved through the democratisation and localisation enabled by this innovation, the chapter concludes by arguing that industrial ‘un-sustainability’ is not so easily undone. Rather, it is systemic and grounded in today’s hyper-consumption, whose psychosocial or cultural basis cannot be substantially changed by material innovation alone. This understanding, as Crocker points out, is crucial to solving the global environmental crisis, and should inspire both businesses and designers to move towards a more securely founded sustainability.

Conclusion

Economics and popular culture are intricately linked. They often influence each other – sometimes in obvious ways, and at other times in an inconspicuous and somewhat unlikely manner. This relationship is not necessarily universal. It can vary across time (in historical terms) and place (in geographical terms). In today’s globally connected society, people are increasingly sharing common business cultures. By studying global and local issues, national and international business practices, and by considering historical and contemporary views, the authors in this book have examined the role that economics plays in society. The aim of this book is to inspire other scholars to carry out further studies in this area and we hope that readers will expand on the scholarship herein. This collection of scholarly studies brings together varied yet related perspectives on the relationship between businesses and everyday culture. By considering how commercial narratives are embedded in popular culture, we hope to increase awareness of the role of emotion and persuasion in all aspects of our lives – from consumption and politics to personal wealth and the environment.

Enjoy reading.

The book 'Consumer Culture:  Selected Essays' has recently been published in the US and the UK by Intellect Books and the University of Chicago Press.