The Strange Life and Presumed Death of Homo Economicus

This essay traces the history of economic anthropology as a critique of classical economics, focusing primarily on two issues: reciprocity and the cultural valuation of goods. Both areas provide strong counter-evidence to the model of Homo economicus. Additionally, an analysis of consumer-based subcultures, focusing primarily on craft beer, is carried out. Finally, links between consumer choice, personal identity and group membership, social class, and electoral politics in the Age of Trump, are suggested.

Privacy Concerns and Customers' Information-Sharing Intentions

Today companies are more and more interested in collecting personal information from customers in order to deliver goods and services effectively and to improve their Marketing database and CRM efficacy. However, the ease with which data can be acquired and disseminated, also thanks to the digital technologies, has led to many potential customers demonstrating growing concerns and ethical issues about disclosing personal information. On this topic it is difficult to make too many generalizations, since the cultural differences and the different country regulations seem to weigh significantly.

Developing Marketing Strategy on Social Networks

Social networks have proven to be very convenient and effective medium for the spreading of marketing messages, advertising, branding and promotion of products and services. Social networks offer companies, nonprofit organizations, political parties etc. sending certain messages for free. In addition, they allow companies access to a wide range of characteristics of their users. Developing appropriate, the winning strategy for marketing in social media is a comprehensive, time-intensive process therefore it is important to know to manage their content. Social networks transform certain classical approaches to marketing. They provide creative and relatively easy way to increase public awareness of the company and its products, and facilitate obtaining feedback and decision making. These are sources of different information about users and groups that they've joined. The success itself of marketing performance on a social network depends on the readiness and training of organizations to perform on them.

Digging Anthropology Mine for Marketing Gold

Marketing, born out of industrial organization economics, has borrowed myriad concepts and frameworks from neoclassical economics since its inception, as much as it has acquired theories and methods from psychology and sociology. The theories in marketing depend heavily on these disciplines and their relevance in decoding the “consumer” who occupies the center point of all marketing thoughts has only increased over the years. This paper contends that cultural anthropological theories and practices have more sincere and serious implications in the pursuit of unmasking consumer's desires, wants, and needs that marketers ought to pay more attention. Distilling various motifs of twentieth-century anthropological thought, the author argues how culture is paramount in reflecting the realities of consumption.

How Consumers Become “Cool”

In this research, the author attempts to understand the vernacular meaning of cool. The author explores whether individuals depict “coolness” by going their own way or following the trend, and whether their depiction is communicated through the inner or outer qualities of coolness. The research design involves a qualitative projective technique using collages generated by 38 individuals in a global consumer culture - Dubai. Collages were analysed and themes were identified in relation to the research question. Although prior research showed that cool is more a matter of going one's own way rather than following the trend (Warren & Campbell, 2011), this research shows that it involves both. Cool is a constant negotiation between fitting in and following the trend versus going one's own way. Despite widespread use, academic understanding of coolness is its infancy. This research contributes the body of knowledge in understanding the meaning of cool.

The Paradox of Authenticity and Its Implications for Contemporary and “Bizarre” Tourism Campaigns

In this chapter, the paradox of authenticity in the content of the contemporary and “bizarre” tourism campaigns is explored. It is a reflective study that relies on a structure review approach, which aims to give a flavour on how the arguments are presented. The studies examine the structure of the intertwined variables and its implications for tourists' ‘lifeworld'. This study suggests that the tourists' lived experience is constructed from their point of view as consumers. In particular, it indicates that (1) pretentious language remains the ultimate power as commodification: and (2) although, tourism campaigns may influence visitors' intentions they may have only a minor effect on the formation of a favourable brand image of the destination. This study extends the discourse on authenticity as the essence of brand differentiation in the destination branding domain and raises issues for further research.

The Influence of Socio-Economic Factors on State and Dynamics of Consumer Behaviour

Changes in dynamics of economic development of Latvia and its regions are characterised by changes of consumer behaviour and socio-economic factors. The purpose of the chapter is to study and analyse the peculiarities of socio-economic factors and consumer behaviour based on methods of economic and mathematical analysis and evaluation. It is important to analyse the influence of socio-economic factors, which determine consumer behaviour in the regional economics. Unemployment, prices, average wage, and industry output volume influences Latvia's consumer behaviour features. As a rule, in the region with the highest average wage there are higher expenditures and vice versa. Latvia's consumers' consumption is characterised by significant consumer division into two dominating groups: the rich and the poor. Each of these two social groups has its own consumption peculiarities.

Cultural Nuances in Changing Consumer Behavior

Culture is significant to developing consumer behavior. Companies that have succeeded in understanding the dynamics of culture have been able to withstand the test of time in developing as successful companies. The constantly evolving marketing discipline has come to rest heavily on understanding the cultural nuances of the target market in an effort to decode the buying behavior. Culture shapes the way we lead our lives, therefore culture determines the consumption pattern of the consumers. Marketers have been closely monitoring the cultural clues in order to make their marketing strategies directed towards the target consumers. Here it is important to understand the extent to which culture governs consumer behavior and shapes the cultural positioning processes. This chapter discusses the concept of culture and its impact on consumer behavior and finally discusses upon the concept of cultural positioning citing various marketing examples.

A Semiotic Approach Through Print Advertisements

The advent of globalization has brought about innumerable changes in the Indian society. Advertisements reflect the changing society. In the said context, the authors have studied the print advertisements related to male grooming products in India over a twenty-five-year period by using the Multimodal Discourse Analysis and the framework of Roland Barthes semiotics study. The current study encompassed two prime purposes – the first being that of identifying and understanding the important codes of visual image in the male grooming sector; and the second being to discern the changes (if any) hitherto in the Indian culture. The findings from the present study reinforced the view that advertisements do mirror the changes in the society and hence the emergence of the Indian metrosexual men.

Diffusion of Innovation and Role of Opinion Leaders

The purposes of this study were: (1) examine the literature about innovation diffusion; (2) conduct a literature review on the innovation-decision process; (3) identify factors affecting the success of an innovation; (4) to determine a new strategy for diffusion of innovation. A structured search of the internet was undertaken to identify and appraise direct relationship between opinion leaders and diffusion of innovation. Models for describing the pattern of the diffusion processes for innovations are used by researchers. The present study went beyond the global structure of network to understand the actual position of the actors within the innovation networks. To do this, a strategy was needed that went to understand from the macro to the micro level, and then returned to the macro level to explain the structure of the authorship in innovation networks.