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The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating role of emotions in processing scent information in consumer research, using event-related potential (ERP)-based neuroscience methods, while considering individual differences in sense of smell.

Prior research on olfaction and emotions in marketing has revealed mixed findings on the relationship between olfaction and emotion. The authors review earlier studies and present a neuroscience experiment demonstrating the benefits of ERP methods in studying the automatic processing of emotions.

Results demonstrate how emotional processes occurring within 1s of stimulus exposure differ across individuals with varying olfactory abilities. Findings reveal an automatic suppression mechanism for individuals sensitive to smell.

Scent-induced emotions demonstrated through the use of ERP-based methods provide insights for understanding automatic emotional processes and reactions to ambient scents by consumers in the marketplace.

Findings show an automatic suppression of emotions triggered by scent in individuals sensitive to smell. Marketers and retailers should consider such reactions when evaluating the use of olfactory stimuli in promotional and retail strategies.

The authors review past literature and provide an explanation for the disparate findings in the olfaction–emotion linkage, by studying individual differences in response to scent in the marketplace. This is one of the first papers in marketing to introduce the application of ERP in studying consumer-relevant behavior and provide technical and marketing-specific considerations for both academic and market researchers.

This paper aims to review past papers focused on understanding consumer-related topics in marketing and related interdisciplinary fields to demonstrate the applications of electroencephalogram (EEG) in consumer neuroscience.

In addition to the review of papers using EEG to study consumer cognitive processes, the authors also discuss relevant decisions and considerations in conducting event-related potential (ERP) studies. Further, a framework proposed by Plassmann et al. (2015) was used to discuss the applications of EEG in marketing research from papers reviewed.

This paper successfully used Plassmann et al.’s (2015) framework to discuss five applications of neuroscience to marketing research. A review of growing EEG studies in the field of marketing and other interdisciplinary fields reveals the advantages and potential of using EEG in combination with other methods. This calls for more research using such methods.

A technical overview of ERP-related terminology provides researchers with a background for understanding and reviewing ERP studies. A discussion of method-related considerations and decisions provides marketing researchers with an introduction to the method and refers readers to relevant literature.

The marketing industry has been quick to adopt cutting edge technology, including EEG, to understand and predict consumer behavior for the purpose of improving marketing practices. This paper connects the academic and practitioner spheres by presenting past and potential EEG research that can be translatable to the marketing industry.

The authors review past literature on the use of EEG to study consumer-related topics in marketing and interdisciplinary fields, to demonstrate its advantages over-traditional methods in studying consumer-relevant behaviors. To foster increasing use of EEG in consumer neuroscience research, the authors further provide technical and marketing-specific considerations for both academic and market researchers. This paper is one of the first to review past EEG papers and provide methodological background insights for marketing researchers.

The authors broaden the scope of consumer identity by introducing individuals’ olfactory abilities and discussing its impact on perception of the self, consumption behaviors, and consumer well-being.

The authors took a mixed-method approach by embedding smell tests during in-depth interviews. A total of 36 interviews were conducted, involving individuals with varying olfactory sensitivity levels, from decreased sensitivity, normal sensitivity, to heightened sensitivity to smell.

Emergent themes from the interviews include compensation, perception of self and control under three key areas: levels of olfactory sensitivity, the impact of olfactory sensitivity, and the coping strategies used by participants and their families. These findings show that olfactory sensitivity can either enhance or detract from the consumption experience or trigger memories of people, locations or experiences, indirectly affecting consumer well-being and quality of life.

Findings reveal that olfactory abilities not only shape and form an individual’s identity but also have a profound impact on (1) consumption behavior: time spent browsing or lingering, purchase order, product choice, or shopping venue which has immense practical implications for marketers; and (2) consumer well-being: developing coping strategies at both the individual and family level to mitigate the issues faced in consumption.

Unlike the other senses, olfactory abilities are often overseen and neglected. The authors show that olfactory abilities are both relevant and salient. The paper is forefront in demonstrating how sensory abilities shape individuals’ identities and in turn influence consumption practices and experiences.

This research examines the impact of biculturalism on the decision making, identity perceptions, and consumption patterns of children of parents from different countries of origin and different cultural and ethnic backgrounds (i.e., biculturals from birth).

This research uses semi-structured depth interviews with the adult children of binational households. We use our Cross Ball and Jar (CBJ) projective technique, which utilizes a tactile, hands-on sorting and ranking process to facilitate discussion of the multifaceted identities and cultural affiliations of bicultural consumers.

Our findings reveal that these “true” biculturals, growing up within a bicultural and binational home, have a more fluid, less clear-cut perception of their identity. Four emergent themes are examined: “Openness,” “Splitness,” “Outside the Mainstream,” and “Badge of Honor.”

Based on these findings, the complexity of identity perceptions is revealed. Participants’ discussion of their struggles to fit in adds to our efforts to better understand multiculturalism’s impact, an understanding facilitated by the use of our CBJ projective technique.

This study raises awareness about the consumption behavior of multicultural consumers and their ongoing interaction with mainstream society. Second, our research extends the current literature on multiculturalism and biculturalism, by focusing on this particular type of bicultural consumer. Finally, this research tests the innovative CBJ projective technique, as a simple and flexible interactive tool to assist researchers in exploring complex, multifaceted identities.

Purpose: This research explores parental management and use of media, as part of strategies to affirm children’s racial identities, as well as to assist such parenting efforts. It analyzes how parents construct Black children’s engagement with media, as being a counter-cultural coping mechanism, to temper the potential racial and diasporic discordance of their children’s identities.

Methodology/approach: There is analysis of in-depth interviews about the media marketplace experiences of Black women in Britain. The analytic approach is informed by studies of identity and visual consumption, as well as race in the marketplace, which emphasize how identity intersects with consumer culture.

Findings: Findings reveal that intra-racial, inter-racial, and inter-cultural relations influence how and why parents manage media that their Black children engage with, including when trying to reinforce their Black identities. Findings also indicate how online user-generated content enables parents to seek a sense of support as part of their inter-cultural and race-related parenting efforts.

Social implications: Findings at the root of this research point to the need for media producers and marketers to be sensitized to parental concerns about the development of their children’s Black identities.

Originality/value: This work foregrounds under-explored issues concerning parental race-work and processes of consumer biracialization in relation to media representation and spectatorship.

Purpose: This study seeks to determine the marketplace practices in which consumers engage with regard to masculine and feminine codes employed in product design. Since extant consumer research argues that consumers prefer marketing stimuli that match their sex or gender identity, this study also asks how consumers’ practices inform this understanding of the possession-self link.

Design/methodology/approach: This study used semi-structured interviews with an auto-driving component to answer the research questions. Data from 20 interviews were analyzed using feminist critical discourse analysis and a poststructuralist feminist-informed theoretical framework.

Findings: Four consumer practices identified in the data show that interpretations and evaluations of product gender are sometimes, but not always, a reflection of the gendered self.

Research limitations/implications: This research shares a snapshot of a cohort of individuals that interact with the marketplace, but there are some perspectives missing. Future research must engage with individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as non-binary or gender nonconforming individuals, in order to enhance or even challenge these findings.

Practical implications (if applicable): Evidence from the marketplace demonstrates intense criticism of products that have been coded as masculine or feminine based on gender stereotypes or men and women’s perceived aesthetic tastes. Marketers are encouraged to use gender codes to differentiate products catered to men and women based on their ergonomic or biological needs.

Originality/value: This study complicates theory on the possession-self link to show cases in which that link is broken. Engaging critically with the topic of product gender from a poststructuralist feminist perspective also illustrates how marketing practices may help or harm consumers.

Purpose: This paper examines emerging consumption patterns in Vietnam’s transportation market, and considers them within broader practices and histories of mobility. I examine how Vietnamese consumers are apprehending the current transportation shift from motorcycles to automobiles and the corresponding societal transformations it foreshadows and remembers.

Design/methodology: Research was conducted between 2013 and 2016 and involved analyses of transportation industry global and regional documents and reports, observations and interviews with users and sellers of motorcycles and automobiles in Vietnam, participant observation and focus groups with drivers and driving schools in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and discussions with transportation designers, engineers, manufacturers, and marketing professionals.

Findings: Shifts in manufacturing and recent regional and international trade agreements mandating tariff reductions on transportation commodities have been reorienting material and temporal relations to the market. In this transition period when the meaning and valuation of motorcycles are shifting, anticipations of automobiles are paramount.

Originality and value: By analyzing emerging transportation markets in Vietnam, I identify potential collaborative opportunities for stakeholders in academia, industry, and policy to further explore issues of transportation and mobility preferences and developments in Southeast Asia and suggest that this may be a productive arena for lateral learning.

Purpose: This paper uses performance theory to explore how wine-tourism experiences are orchestrated by wine tour guides to encourage engagement of consumers. It describes how such orchestration is built on material elements such as landscapes, architecture, vineyards, production facilities, and wine tastings.

Design/methodology/approach: A multi-layer ethnographic research on wine-tourism was employed. The interviews, observations, and field notes were analyzed through the lens of performance theory. A constant comparative method was used to identify emergent patterns, and a hermeneutic method was used to interpret the data.

Findings: The paper builds on performance theory and delineates the ways in which guides co-create intense experiences with participants. It portrays how tour guides often adjust their theatrical scripts to consumers’ unique needs through creative variations: surprise treats, activities, and personal stories. When guides take pleasure in tours, participants do as well, resulting in memorable co-created experiences. The tours feature processes such as pitching and relation-building techniques that call upon identity, morality, and materiality scripts, which ultimately build a sense of social obligation among participants toward tour guides and winery staff.

Originality/value: From a theoretical perspective, the paper adds value to the discussion of performance in tourism by suggesting that the service blueprint, architecture, and employee training are only part of the story. This paper shows how consumer engagement and interactions between participants, guides, architecture, and landscapes are essential elements of memorable experiences.

Research limitations: Like other studies, there are limitations to our study as well. Our study only included one-day wine tours. A broader investigation of strategic alliances between tour companies and wineries, and how wine tourists experience and sustain a sense of social obligations to the wineries they visit, will provide further insights into how wine-tourism functions as a co-creative emergent form of consumption involving individuals, products, and processes.