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Through sensual ethnography and poetic representation, we learned that individuals “self-authenticate” through embodied performance experiences of their own identities. Participating in the extraordinary experience of rock concerts revitalises existential authenticity, which enhances a person's feeling of wholeness and well-being. This extends our understanding of value derived from extraordinary experiences and adds “existential authenticity” to consumption motivations and consequences.

This paper describes the characteristics and benefits of a visual ethnography method called “video diary.” The authors illustrate the special features of the method based on their experiences in using it to understand consumer acculturation of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand. In brief, research participants benefit from the control and voice that video diaries give them. Researchers benefit from “saturated description” and collaborative analysis. The benefits of video diaries are particularly suited to ethnographic research with people from collectivist or vulnerable groups. Video diaries can be used alone or along with other ethnographic methods and the authors recommend them to consumer researchers, who want to understand routine and private aspects of consumers’ lives or any aspect of culture. Their range of use is limited only by one’s imagination.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine “nasty” retail shopping experiences. The paper aims to consider implications of distrust related to theft control measures in retail customer service.Design/methodology/approachStorytelling as a “memory‐work” method draws on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the narrative. Researchers and participants worked together as co‐researchers to analyze and interpret “lived” experiences contained in their written personal stories. The authors extend this understanding in the context of existing literature.FindingsDistrust pervaded the stories, which focused on shoplifting accusations (real and imagined). As a violation of implicit trust, distrust provoked intense moral emotions, damaged identities, and fuelled retaliation. Findings illustrate a pervasive downward “spiral of distrust” in the retail context.Practical implicationsResults suggest that retailers use store personnel rather than technological surveillance to control theft. Interacting with customers and displaying cooperation builds respect, trust, and relationships and may deter theft. Retailers should add signs of trust and remove signs of distrust from retail environments. They cannot rely on service recovery to appease customers disgruntled by distrust.Social implicationsWhen retailers act as if they care, customers reciprocate, creating upward trust spirals and stronger communities.Originality/valueA dark side to retail loss‐prevention tactics is demonstrated in the paper. Surveillance signals distrust, which repels customers and resists service recovery. Concepts of spirals of distrust and trust to the services marketing literature are introduced. The spirals illustrate how distrust destroys and trust builds relationships and communities. Furthermore, ideas are offered about ways to start upward trust spirals.

Standardisation versus localisation is an enduring topic in international advertising. The generalisability of research on the topic is another issue. We address the second issue and in the process shed light on the first. Multifacet analysis on an international advertising data set indicated that individuals within countries accounted for much more variance than countries could account for. This portends that researchers should generalise with caution. It further suggests that some form of standardisation may be appropriate more often than is currently considered. Both between and within-country heterogeneity should influence international advertising strategies.

Shoplifting is an issue for retailers. / Extensive research on retail crime and its costs highlights the need for retailers to counter shrinkage costs. This paper, however, highlights a tension between preventing losses and building relationships. Viewing loss prevention as a technical problem disregards the negative relational consequences for consumers, employees, retailers, and society.

An experiment explored how timing of product failure in relation to warranty coverage influences consumers’ affective reactions to product breakdowns. A total of 131 subjects read scenarios describing a recently purchased product needing repairs and the warranty coverage on the product. Consumers’ reactions to product breakdown were examined by collecting and analyzing the affects expressed in subjects’ thought listings (e.g., anger, happiness, defiance, regret). When the breakdown just missed being covered by the warranty subjects reported more anger compared to when the problem occurred within the warranty coverage period or long after warranty expiration. Conversely, when the breakdown occurred just prior to warranty expiration, subjects reported more happiness compared to when the breakdown occurred earlier.

After reviewing evidence for separate sensory processing systems for seeing and hearing, we propose that presentation medium influences retrieval cue effectiveness. Specifically, we posit that retrieval cues enhance recall better within medium than across medium, a “modality match hypothesis.” An initial experiment indicated enhanced recall for visual stimuli through both encoding and retrieval processes, supporting the hypothesis. The modality match effect was, however, weaker in the audio medium. An analysis of the data supported the view that some people might be engaging in spontaneous visual imaging of the audio stimuli, thereby suppressing the audio modality match effect. A second experiment was designed to study audio modality match with high-and low-imaging advertising slogans encoded in audio and visual mediums. The advertising slogans were either spoken out in audio or presented visually as printed words. We found a significant modality match effect in the low spontaneous imaging condition for messages encoded and retrieved in the audio medium. We discuss implications of these results for testing advertising effectiveness and choosing communication media.

Does having things make people happy; does buying, consuming, or giving bring happiness? In an increasingly materialistic era, it seems that people might believe so. Despite our consumption culture, research tells us that the desire for material possessions relates more to unhappiness than to happiness (Belk, 1985; Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2002; Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; La Barbera & Gurhan, 1997; Mick, 1996; Richins, 1987; Sirgy et al., 1998). Economists find that subjective well-being increases, then levels off as national levels of discretionary income increase (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999; Diener, 2000; Meyers, 2000). Furthermore, many economists cite correspondence between happiness and relative income (Blanchflower & Oswald, 2004; Solnick & Hemenway, 1998; Stutzer, 2003) to explain the stagnation of average happiness despite rises in national incomes. Increasing one person's income relative to others decreases the others’ happiness so that pursuing money to achieve happiness becomes a zero-sum affair; average national happiness does not change (Lee, 2006).

International audience; Les différentes recherches et synthèses existant sur la publicité comparative font état de résultats variés. Les auteurs présentent ici les résultats d'une méta-analyse de l'efficacité de la publicité comparative. Ils montrent que les publicités comparatives sont plus efficaces que les publicités non comparatives lorsqu'il s'agit de susciter l'attention, de faire mémoriser le message et la marque, d'augmenter le traitement du message, d'améliorer l'attitude envers la marque de l'annonceur, et enfin d'augmenter les intentions et les comportements d'achat. Cependant la publicité comparative affaiblit la crédibilité de la source et l'attitude envers la publicité. L'analyse d'un certain nombre de variables modératrices montre que la position sur le marché (de l'annonceur, de la marque de comparaison, et relative), les divers éléments améliorant la crédibilité de la source, le contenu du message et le type de mesure de la variable dépendante (relative ou non) ont un effet sur certaines des relations entre la publicité, l'attitude envers la marque et les intentions d'achat. Les nouvelles marques se comparant à des marques établies semblent être celles qui bénéficient le plus du recours à la publicité comparative.

Previous research and reviews on comparative advertising report mixed results. The authors report the results from a meta-analysis that examines the efficacy of comparative advertising. The analysis shows that comparative ads are more effective than noncomparative ads in generating attention, message and brand awareness, levels of message processing, favorable sponsored brand attitudes, and increased purchase intentions and purchase behaviors. However, comparative ads evoke lower source believability and a less favorable attitude toward the ad. Additional analyses of moderator variables find that market position (sponsor, comparison, and relative), enhanced credibility, message content, and type of dependent measure (relative versus nonrelative) affect some of the relationships between advertising format and cognition, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. New brands comparing themselves to established brands appear to benefit most from comparative advertising.

This study investigated the relation between consumers' memory and use of information in judging brand preferences. The authors used ads to test hypotheses about how pictorial and verbal presentations of previously encountered information and the content of subsequently encountered information affect recall and information use in shaping brand preferences. Even when subjects more easily recalled.pictured attributes than verbally described attributes, this picture superiority effect did not influence memory-based preferences. In contrast, externally available information for an alternative brand influenced both recall and preferences. The overall pattern of results suggests that enhancing recallability improves the likelihood that consumers will use a piece of information to compare brands only if other information is unavailable or inadequate. Copyright 1992 by the University of Chicago.