Inner Stimuli, Outer Stimuli and Their Relationship with Consumer Behavior: A Structural Functionistic Study in Popular Music Industry

All researches pertaining to marketing would be worthless, unless they will boil down to the most important ingredient of success in the field of consumer behavior. In this research, consumer behavior is not looked upon as something that a consumer does unknowingly. Consumer behavior is treated as an expression of decision on the part of the consumer. This decision is phenomenological in nature, which is a function of the inner and outer stimuli. These stimuli work together to form consumer behavior by entering into a black box, which the human mind. In this paper, the correlations between the outer stimuli and such behaviors are gauged. There were 284 respondents who answered a questionnaire regarding their consumer behavior in the popular music industry. These behaviors are outlined based on the black box model that was adjusted within the parameters and limitations of this research. The survey was conducted at the SM Baguio City. Respondents bought music products from music stores within that mall. It was shown that in general, self-identity was related or associated with consumer behaviors. Environmental and marketing stimuli were range restricted, so only one variable was found significant and it was promotion effectiveness. This implies that differences in self-identity, which is a result of different upbringing, environment, and inner dynamics, go well with differences in consumer behavior. In contained and similar environment (like in the case of this research), self identity is an important determinant of consumer behavior. Marketing efforts should therefore be focused toward fulfilling the demands associated with the self identity of the consumers.

Beyond ‘puffins and moss’: Iceland Airwaves and post-crash musical tourism

This article explores relationships between the significant growth of foreign tourism to Iceland, following the 2008 economic crash, and the popular music festival Iceland Airwaves. I consider the effects of Iceland Airwaves on popular music in Reykjavík during the festival and outside of the festival season. My focus is primarily on how the local population experiences Iceland Airwaves and musical tourism in general. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Iceland between 2010 and 2018, I examine how musicians, politicians, festival management, tourism sector workers, business people, and other music industry workers approach and negotiate the rising role of popular music in Iceland's new tourism economy. This research contributes to broader understandings of how music festivals and musical tourism shape local musical life year-round, and it also offers insight into Iceland's internationally renowned popular music industry.

The Second Birth of Latin Jazz

This chapter examines “The Peanut Vendor” as a case study and a lens into the New York City of the 1930s. The role of the popular music industry in promoting “exotica” and “otherness” and how these practices established Cuban music and musicians as the domineering influence in mid-century Latin and jazz mixings are documented. The role of interculturality in 1930s New York jazz is explored, challenging the traditional tropes found in historical narratives that posit jazz as a purely African American or North American music. A closer look at the contextual factors that led to these exchanges calls for a rethinking of jazz as a transnational and global music. This chapter exposes the interracial, interethnic, international, and intercultural complexities and processes that undergird jazz performance practice and that serve as the primary driving forces in the evolution of the music. What becomes clear is that Caribbean and Latin American music and musicians have played significant roles in ways yet to be fully documented and understood.

The Polish Tin Pan Alley, a Jewish Street

This chapter highlights the 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan, that became the home of several music publishers. It looks into the various accounts of how 28th Street came to be called “Tin Pan Alley,” pointing out the observation that the pianos played by song “pluggers” produced a cacophony reminiscent of the clatter of tin pans. It also mentions how the name “Tin Pan Alley” was eventually used as a metonym for the American popular-music industry. The chapter explores the pre-eminent role of Jewish composers, poets, songwriters, and performers in the Polish popular music industry of the 1920s and 1930s. It also focuses on Adam Aston, who was credited with popularizing the first Polish rumba, and Mieczysław Fogg, the most popular Polish singer of the twentieth century.

Involvement, Hedonism, and Luxury

The popular music industry finds itself beset by circumstances in which most of its best-selling artists are more than 50 years old and some top sellers have died. This chapter investigates popular-music fandom through the lens of product involvement and looks to the literature on luxury-goods management for potential managerial insights that might help the industry navigate an otherwise uncertain future. Highly committed fans may be marked by enduring involvement and may be more attracted to artists who are able to position themselves successfully as “classic” (expert aesthetic, enduring duration), adapted from the luxury-goods setting. Broad, long-term popular appeal may be achievable with successful positioning of the artist as “modern” (novice/surface aesthetic, enduring duration). Preliminary recommendations are offered, and avenues for further research are discussed.