Cultural branding in India: the case of Godrej “Storwel” cupboards (1944-1991)

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 224-241
Author(s):  
Harini Alladi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Marketing History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Resonance ◽  
Iconic Status ◽  
Industry Culture ◽  
Cultural Branding

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline the marketing history of the Godrej Storwel steel cupboard before India’s economic liberalisation in 1991 to find possible reasons for the brand’s iconic status and strong presence in the Indian public memory. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses archival material, secondary sources and the idea of cultural branding to analyse the marketing strategies used at various points in the history of Godrej Storwel. Findings Godrej Storwel found cultural context in the two decades following India’s independence (1947) as a product that addressed the social and economic anxieties of the country, as well as embodied its aspirations at the time. In the following decades up to 1991, the product did not find similar cultural resonance with its consumers. Research limitations/implications The unavailability of sales records of the Godrej steel cupboards meant that certain conclusions could not be made concrete. Social implications Because Godrej Storwel has had such a long lifespan, it serves as a useful medium through which changing trends in marketing in India can be viewed. The paper is a good point of reference for those researching the steel industry, storage product histories and marketing in India and could encourage corporates to archive their histories. Originality/value While a lot of nostalgia surrounds the Godrej Storwel in India, this is the first work that attempts to place the product and its marketing strategies in the context of Indian industry, culture and consumption.

Marketing history from below: towards a paradigm shift in marketing historical research

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Corporate Managers ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Marketing History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to introduce the theme of this special issue. In doing so, the paper argues that marketing historical research is in need of a paradigmatic shift. Rather than privilege primary and secondary sources that preserve the perspectives and actions of corporate managers and of marketing academics, marketing historians need to open the historical narratives they construct much more than before to the experiences and voices of ordinary consumers, i.e. of those who actually shop and buy and choose. They also need to do more to incorporate into their narratives examples of the value-creation that consumers themselves enact, both inside and outside the sphere of the market. Design/methodology/approach – By reviewing the state of the marketing historical literature, this paper introduces the “History from Below” school of historical thought into marketing historical research. It also tests to what extent a stronger consumer focus might be able to enrich historical research in marketing. Findings – Although contemporary marketing historiography is characterized by a richness of themes and methodological approaches, there is still a marked difference between the way marketing academics and historians write the history of marketing and consumption. While, surprisingly, the former often tend to ignore the voices of ordinary consumers, the latter often lack the marketing-related “technical” knowledge to fully understand the significance of specific archival sources they discuss. This means that a genuine “People’s History of Marketing” has yet to be written. Research limitations/implications – Findings from the paper will be of value to marketing historians who wish to expand the scope and agenda of their research and help historical research move away from narrow managerial perspectives and other “privileged” accounts of marketing. Originality/value – This paper makes two original contributions. First, it introduces historiographical innovations associated with “History from Below” (social history) into marketing historical scholarship. Second, it attempts to help marketing historians identify alternative sets of primary and secondary sources, e.g. oral history archives, which would allow them to be much more optimistic about their own ability to reconstruct the perspectives of those whose voices are all too often ignored.

Being moral and doing good to others

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Septianto ◽  
Bambang Soegianto
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Moral Identity ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Moral Emotion ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Judgment Process ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

Purpose Although previous research has established that moral emotion, moral judgment, and moral identity influence consumer intention to engage in prosocial behavior (e.g. donating, volunteering) under some circumstances, these factors, in reality, can concurrently influence judgment process. Therefore, it is important to get a more nuanced understanding of how the combinations of each factor can lead to a high intention to engage in prosocial behavior. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This research employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore different configurations of moral emotion, judgment, and identity that lead to a high consumer intention to engage in prosocial behavior. Findings Findings indicate four configurations of moral emotion, moral judgment, and moral identity that lead to a high intention to engage in prosocial behavior. Research limitations/implications This research focuses on the case of a hospital in Indonesia; thus, it is important not to overgeneralize the findings. Nonetheless, from a methodological standpoint, opportunity emerges to broaden the examinations in other service and cultural contexts. Practical implications The findings of this research can help the hospital to develop effective combinations of advertising and marketing strategies to promote prosocial behavior among its customers. Originality/value This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the existence of multiple pathways of moral emotion, judgment, and identity that lead to a high consumer intention to engage in prosocial behavior. The implications of this research also highlight the importance of cultural context in understanding consumer behavior.

Do Twitter phenomena check-in popular venues on Foursquare too?

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Aysun Bozanta ◽  
Birgul Kutlu
Keyword(s):  
Clustering Analysis ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Shopping Mall ◽  
Content Type ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Different Characteristics

Purpose The purpose of this study is to figure out the visiting behaviors of the users who have different characteristics on Twitter. Design/methodology/approach The visit history of users who share their Foursquare check-ins on Twitter and the characteristics of visited venues (category, check-in count, tip count, like count, rating, and price tier) was collected with Foursquare API. In addition, the number of followers, friends, tweets and favorite-count were collected via Twitter API. First, users were clustered according to their Twitter related attributes. After that, profiling was applied on clusters according to the characteristics of the venues that were visited by the users. Findings Clustering analysis generated three clusters, namely, ordinary, talkative and popular. For each cluster, the visited venues were investigated according to the price classification, check-in, like, tip counts and the categories. The users in ordinary class prefer cheaper venues rather than talkative and popular users. On the other hand, popular users prefer the venues with the highest average number of check-ins, likes and tip counts. The top two categories for all clusters are cafe and shopping mall. Originality/value This study differentiates from the other studies in the literature by examining the data from Twitter with clustering and profiling these clusters with Foursquare data to understand venue preferences of Twitter users having various characteristics. The findings of this study will provide new insights for business owners to understand the customers more comprehensively and design better marketing strategies.

scholarly journals Paprika Schlesinger

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
National Library ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Marketing History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complete Set ◽  
State Library ◽  
The City ◽  
Project Partner

Purpose This paper explores the development of a luxury retail shoe brand in Belle Époque Vienna. Design/methodology/approach Footwear retailing and marketing history is a neglected area. Unfortunately, no business records have survived from Robert Schlesinger’s shoe stores. However, it has been possible to reconstruct the history of the development of the Paprika Schlesinger brand from its extensive advertising in the Viennese newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, with the guidance of the founder’s grandson, Prof Robert A. Shaw, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Birkbeck, University of London, England. This case study would not have been possible without the digitization of some major collections of primary sources. In 2014, the European Union’s Europeana digitization initiative launched a new portal via the Library of Europe website which provides access to selected digitized historic newspaper collections in libraries across Europe. The project partners include the Austrian National Library which has digitized full runs of several major historic Austrian newspapers, including the Neue Freie Presse. Other project partners which have digitized historic newspapers which are relevant to this paper are the Landesbibliothek Dr Friedrich Teßmann of Italy’s Südtirol region, the National Library of France and the Berlin State Library. An associate project partner library, the Slovenian National and University Library’s Digital Library of Slovenia, has also digitized relevant historic newspapers. Furthermore, the City of Vienna has digitized a complete set of Vienna city directories as part of its Wienbibliothek Digital project. Findings This paper suggests that Robert Schlesinger created one of the first European luxury retail shoe brands. Originality/value This is the first academic study of the historical development of the advertising and marketing of a European luxury retail shoe brand.

“For a colleen's complexion”: soap and the politicization of a brand personality, 1888-1916

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Philip O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Brand Personality ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine how the “colleen” archetype was used in the creation of a successful brand personality for a range of soap manufactured in Ireland during the early twentieth century. It reveals the commercial and political agendas behind this move and the colleen's later application to Ulster unionist graphic propaganda against Home Rule between 1914 and 1916. Design/methodology/approach – This case study is based on an analysis of primary and secondary sources; the former encompassing both graphic advertising material and ephemera. Findings – This paper demonstrates how contemporary pictorial advertising for colleen soap was suffused with text and imagery propounding Ulster's preservation within the UK. It also suggests that the popularity of this brand personality may have been a factor in the colleen's appropriation for propaganda purposes by certain strands within Ulster unionism. Originality/value – This paper is based on original research that expands the historical corpus of Irish visual representation, while also adding notably to discourses within the History of Marketing and Women's History.

The symbol of Saint Gióng and the Gióng festival in the historical context of Vietnam

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Hai Hong Dinh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Content Type ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gradual Transformation ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to trace the way in which a popular ritual became one of Vietnam’s most important festivals, elevated as a celebration of national heroism and charts its gradual transformation in modern society. Design/methodology/approach This research focuses on the combination of a fertility rite and narratives of St Gióng based on nationalism or heroism created a special festival reflecting many traditional cultural characteristics of Vietnam and the Việt people and the transformation of St Gióng from a mythological to a national symbol of heroism in anti-invader history was recorded in texts. Findings The paper casts light on the mythologization and historicization of St Gióng in Vietnam’s particular historical context by decoding the Gióng symbol as a core element of the folktales and myths about St Gióng to understand the formation and development of St Gióng in the cultural history of Vietnam. Research limitations/implications The paper is not exploring the Gióng symbol within a larger cultural context of nationalism and ethnosymbolic approach in a comparison of national symbolism and heroism. Practical implications The paper includes implications for advised scholars to conduct further exploration of the symbol and myth of not only St Gióng in Vietnam but also Kubera in India and Vaisravana in China to connect Kubera, Vaisravana and St Gióng under the connection of literal myth and heroic symbol. Social implications The paper shows how processes of historicizing myth and mythologizing history are important features of Vietnamese socio-historical research. Originality/value The paper shows how a fertility rite became a historical festival and the figure of St Gióng became a symbol of patriotic heroism.

Chain store retailing in Ireland: a case study of F.W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd, 1914-2008

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Chain Store ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Retail Chain ◽  
Marketing Systems ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
History Of ◽  
Customer Profiles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a view of how a retail chain store and its marketing strategies impacted on shopping habits in twentieth century Ireland. Design/methodology/approach – Primary and secondary sources include company documents, oral history and press reports. Background social, political and economic factors are considered in conjunction with the methods this firm used to build customer-driven managed marketing systems and teams of good staff relationships. Findings – Woolworth's Irish stores responded to changing tastes and needs of consumers throughout Ireland. The Irish market required skilful techniques to overcome widening divisions within customer profiles to accommodate increasing north-south and urban-rural patterns. Welcomed by shoppers of all ages and genders, this firm's contribution to Ireland's retailing and wider commercial scene was innovative, popular, flexible and influential. Originality/value – The overview of this well-known retail chain store's experience in twentieth century Ireland can provide scholars with building blocks on which to expand knowledge and develop further understanding of a largely un-tapped field of research within the history of marketing in Ireland.

American influences on Irish advertising and consumerism 1900-1960: fashioning Irishwomen

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Whelan
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Advertising Industry ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
External Influences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Closed Society

Purpose – The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, American advertising and its consumerist messages infiltrated Irish society in the period 1922-1960. Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on an analysis of primary and secondary sources. Findings – The article argues that American advertising practices and messages influenced the advertising industry in Ireland. It also contributed to the technical, style and content of Irish advertising and informed the Irish woman's view of American consumerism. Finally, it suggests that Irish society was more open to external influences, which challenges the narrative of Ireland as a closed society before 1960. Originality/value – The article is based on extensive original research and opens up a number of new areas of research relating to the history of consumerism and advertising in Ireland.

A history of SEA in France: government, engineers and mathematics

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Antheaume
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Environmental Accounting ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Organizational Field ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
National Environment ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Mathematics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a history of social and environmental accounting (SEA) in France. Design/methodology/approach The choice is made to select and analyze three important breakthroughs in the development of SEA in France, at different periods. Three case studies are presented, based on secondary sources for two of them and on the author’s own research for the third one. The author choses the concept of organizational field, defined through its actors, how they interact, what they do, what tools and practices are being developed and what regulations are being enacted. Findings If each case is different in terms of context and outcome, all three present common characteristics which characterize the underlying forces which shaped SEA in France: mainly the role played by elites both in government and industry, an ability for industry to present its interests as the interests of France with an impact on the international standardization of some tools and regulatory issues such as product labeling. The French scene is dominated by engineers, characterized by quantitative tools which “measure” environmental performance, in line with the culture of the French elite for which mathematics are a tool for action and problem-solving. In a certain way this “depoliticized” environmental questions and made them a question of optimization more than a question of politics. Practical implications Because of the specific context in which some tools emerge, they may not be transferable to other countries without important changes. Social implications The focus on problem solving through quantitative tools to make the most rational decision, and the claim by the engineering profession to be in the best position to do so, is not a focus on accountability. This may be part of the reason why the accounting profession is not as involved as in other countries. Originality/value This paper also shows how France has been both a local field of SEA production, when it comes to developing quantitative tools, with occasional global reach, and an importer of global standards and SEA concepts which originated from the Anglo-Saxon word, when it comes to reporting. More generally, it is also a good illustration of how the development of a “local” organizational field is congruent with the characteristic of its national environment.

The Pirate Archives, William Ready Division of Archives and research collections, McMaster University

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Long ◽  
Bridget Whittle
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Sound Recordings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Marketing History ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
History Of ◽  
Canadian Nationalism ◽  
Advertising Company ◽  
Creative Forces ◽  
Mcmaster University

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the history and contents of an archival resource that is of interest to scholars of historical marketing. The Pirate Group Inc. archive, held by McMaster University Library’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections consists of over 27,000 sound recordings and 84 metres of textual records, documenting the work of Pirate, an award-winning Toronto-based advertising company founded in 1990. The comprehensiveness of the archives, which includes tens of thousands of advertising “spots”, gives researchers unprecedented access to the creative forces behind some of the most memorable advertisements produced in Canada. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to answer the following questions: what is the Pirate Group Inc. and what is their documentary legacy? How can scholars of marketing history benefit from the records contained within the Pirate Group Inc. archive? How can researchers access the material at McMaster University Library’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections? Findings The authors assert that the Pirate Group Inc. archive may be of particular interest to scholars engaged in research on the following topics: Canadian nationalism in marketing campaigns, the advertising history of companies whose histories are under-studied due to a lack of archival resources and the recent history of radio and television political ad campaigns. Originality/value The paper contributes to historical research in marketing by asserting that the Pirate Group Inc. archive has continuing value for further research. The Pirate archive, which allows for unprecedented access into the study of Canadian advertising due to its comprehensiveness and its uniqueness among archival collections from the contemporary era, makes it a strong primary source for marketing historians.

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