
On the 12th June 2009 The ECCG held a seminar where we discussed the margins of marketing. I’m going to try to capture some of the discussion here, but I’ve included recordings too. The academics in ECCG wanted to hold an event that was not like the usual academic conference. We didn’t want long, finished papers and we didn’t want formal presentation. We wanted participants to share thoughts and ideas and to discuss them at length. We split the day into 4 broad themes (but really this turned out to be a rather arbitrary and messy split): Spaces, Practices, Theories, and Methods. You can listen to Richard’s introduction here :
Introduction (Richard Scullion)
Session 1: Spaces
Becky Jenkins started the day with a review of the consumer imagination as an important but insufficiently explored ’space’. Yet we can see many examples of such spaces becoming manifest in the market (wish lists on Amazon, nostalgic products, and of course ads as scripts for fantasies). Becky observes however that in Consumer Research the explicit references to the imagination tend to focus on positive, future-orientated ‘desire’. However the imagination may have a temporal dimension that goes from future daydreams to past nostalgia. It may also be positive or negative (as is worry, fear or regret) and fleeting, or highly elaborated. This seems worth further consideration as a way of think about consumption that compliments material practices. Becky recorded her talk after the event, because the recording failed on the day.
Janice Denegri-Knott then considered digital virtual spaces. The number and range of these are growing (are there really over 200 now?) and Janice provided a quick tour of some of the most popular sites. These spaces (Second Life, WoW, Habbo, etc) are curious because they seem to sustain consumption practice that are not materially real, but also not only in the imagination. they also seem to serve different purposes for individuals, but what? Why do a growing number of consumers (especially children) satisfy a desire to buy in virtual space rather than through the material marketplace? And what are the implication of such spaces that make the consumer a ‘desiring machine’.
Darren Lilleker also noted that the role of technology is facilitating new cultures. Darren has observed that politicians now engage with citizens through new media. This creates new forms of engagement and possibly new relationships between politicians and voters. For example, we see Twitter feeds that allow voters to engage not only with their local MP, but also with MPs who have similar interests. Is this a new form of political engagement that may even change the structure of politics? If so this must be desirable given the current political crisis such developments seem woth further investigation. But perhaps what we also see here is consumer practices and citizen practices merge in new technology products.
Finally Daragh O’Reilly discussed the nature of groupness and noted problems with the idea that individuals could or even should see groupness in the commodities that they buy and own. Theory here is weak and even misleading. Here perhaps we see the imperialism of marketing as an idea that makes easy claims over parts of human life that it cannot easily (or even possibly) contribute to. This is also a reminder that the focus of our studies is people who sometimes consume rather than ‘consumers’. So are there better models of groupness than the one’s consumer researchers to easily reach for.
[This first session was not recorded]
Session 2: Practices
Antony Beckett started this session with a review of the idea of practices as the focus of consumer research. Consumption occurs as a result of an indiviual’s involvement with certain practices. For example, Antony described how the overlapping practices of parenthood and driving may lead to the purchase of an in-car DVD player. But also Antony notes how we don’t always reflect on consumption because most practices are subconscious – they are performed without reflection. Yet their are moments – key moments – when we do reflect on our practices and that they mean. In consumer research we might consider these moments of reflection in more detail, and we might note the ways in which marketing introduces the (normal) ideas that we use to reflect on the practices that we engage in. Antony’s talk is here: Antony Beckett
Lukman Aroean considered his son’s videogame practices. There is a tension here. On the one hand Lukman expressed concern at cultures that use technologies in preference to face-to-face communication and wondered why this might be so. But on the other hand he noted that his son shared videogames with this friends, not just the games themselves, but also knowledge of the game. This consumer culture brings people together and allows for the experience of expertise. So this is a consumer culture that does not emphasize having, but that encourages sharing. The tension then is ensuring that the complexity of a practice is ‘discovered’ before we move to critique it.
Sue Eccles also noted that consumption may take place within relationship and her interest is that time in a relationship when some form of ‘permanent’ bond seems to form. Sue is interested in the ways in which love leads to consumption practices. Firstly she notes that being in love may lead to significant changes in practices as partners learn to accommodate each others’ tastes and habits. This may be a conscious and reflected upon change. However there is also a dark side to relationships were distain for a partner may be demonstrated through consumption of goods that are known to irritate them. One way to see this is that both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ relationships can be ‘performed through material consumption.
The discussion for this session can be downloaded here: Discussion

Session 3: Theories
Ai-Ling started this session by discussing the role of the body in consumer research – or rather the curious lack of an emphasis on the body. In Ai-ling’s view there is too much emphasis on the mind in research – we see this in particular in the overly rationalised discourses of consumer choice and Ai-Ling links this to the dominance of Cartesian thinking. For Ai-Ling we need to have theories of consumption that re-instate the importance of the body. You can listen to her presentation here: Ai-Ling
Heather Savigny’s concerns were the roles of market ideology and the normalising of marketing in political discourse. So we see policy overly determined by market structures and performance. This may mean that there is a problem with an indiviualised society that seems to have lost a sense of moral behaviour and instead become content with market practices as stand in. Such marketised politics disengage the citizen (and reproduce the consumer everywhere) and Heather asks how, in such circumstance, we may move to (or return to) a collective society.
Kerry Howell considered Phenomenology and post-positivism. Kerry is concerned about the unreflective ways in which marketing theory is reproduced in research and calls for more consideration of underlying philosophical assumptions. Kerry notes that research often makes claims of some philosophical underpinning, but with little evidence that such philosophy has been consulted or fully understood. Here we should also return at times to questions about what we are trying to do in research (other than simply get published) and then consider what we know about the methods that may be used to achieve our aims.
For my presentation I discussed the playfulness of consumer behaviours and of consumer research. I asked about a ‘playful turn’ in research and considered the value of taking consumer play and games more seriously as a way to understand the complexity and apparently agonistic nature of consumer cultures. I noted play as ‘escape’ or ‘otherness’ and the tendency for consumer practices to form that both confirm and reject rules (games and free-play). The result is a perpetual restlessness in consumption that needs to be conceptualised. You can download the presentation here: Mike Molesworth
You can download the discussion for this session here: Discussion
Session 4: Methods
The first presentation in this session was given by Janine Dermody. Janine noted her own (and the group’s) interdisciplinary backgrounds as a context for developing research at the margins of marketing and consumer research. But she asked that we reflect on our ability to create knowledge and that we consider the possibility of some Darwinian ‘natural selection’ in consumer research. Such reflection might open up to issues of research outlets and audiences and of the ways in which we encourage and support new researchers.
Lizzie Nixon then considered resistance to consumerism in everyday practices. Lizzie notes that this is an under-researched area but that it may be significant in light of renewed interest in simple living and also as a result of persistent frustration with the quality of life afforded by consumer cultures. One issue here is that some, or even many people are simply disinterested in consumption (rather than active resistors of it) and there is also therefore a possibility that researchers may benefit from being disinterested in consumption, but more interested in the people they research. Another way of putting this is to ask about the degree to which consumer research is performed through the analysis of data collected on everyday life.
Mark Tadajewski considered marketing history as a way to understand the myths, stories and even lies that stand in for truth about the development of marketing as a practice. In particular Mark notes the possibility of historical documents (in the case of his recent work this includes documents from the FBI) that call into question many of the claims made by the fathers of marketing that it is a legitimate business practice. Could it be that we have even been mislead about the original consumer focus at the heart of successful marketing organisations? This is especially problematic if these myths form the basis of much research practice today.
In the final presentation Richard Scullion reflected on the messiness of research that stands in contrast to its ordered presentation in journals and books. He also questions the simple dualisms that can be created to contrast the consumer with other facets of expereince (such as citizenship). And he considered the ways in which reflection on consumption can come from literature (and in fact from anywhere) rather than through the apparently rigorous process of research (which might not exist outside the methods sections of papers). So Richard asks for a ‘dappled light’ in research where the researcher thinks about and reflects on what is represented, what is highlighted, and especially what is missing.
the discussion for the final session can be found here: Discussion