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This article is a theoretical investigation about the babyfied dog and the troubled relationship between dogs and parenting in contemporary consumerist culture.

In the frame of the special theme issue, the focus of the article is on theorising consumption and care in the context of new motherhood. The article analyses why the babyfied and fashionable dog has become so popular and what the human–dog/animal–transgression is about.

The anthropomorphised animal is an integral part of constructing and understanding the romantic ideal of childhood and childhood innocence. Simultaneously with the modern educational attitude towards pets and animals in general, real animals, especially small lapdogs, have started to replace teddy bears and other plush animals as the dressed-up childlike animal. The tamed and designed animal is not completely an animal anymore and occupies the space between the human and the animal, becoming central to the reconfiguration of the family, childhood, leisure and identity. Currently, as the number of children in families decreases, the babyfied dog is taking the place traditionally reserved for the child.

Even though the findings cannot be generalised, they suggest that more research on the relationship between humans and dogs is needed.

The article makes an original contribution to the theme issue by focusing on the still unusual, yet strongly emerging form of parenting and care of dogs. Doing this, the article challenges ideas about “natural parenting” by arguing that dogs are the latest babies and fashionable co-consumers.

This study aims to explore ways to minimize plate waste at university canteens by studying plate waste and consumers at three main canteens of a university, Thailand.

Using university canteens in Thailand as a case, plate waste was characterized and quantified and consumers’ insights concerning food consumption practices were examined through focus group discussion.

The results revealed that each consumer wasted edible food around 19 grams/meal. The generation of plate waste is affected by the food provision system, including canteen setting, food purchasing procedure and food quality. In addition, the presence of stray dogs in the canteens inhibited consumers from finishing up their food. Thus, improving the food provision system is crucial to engage consumers in achieving zero plate waste.

This research sheds some light on ways to engage consumers in sustainable consumption and contributes to the knowledge on plate waste and sustainable consumption in university settings. Improving food quality and canteen settings are of importance to better engage consumers. In addition, this research revealed that concepts of system of provision and citizen-consumers are practical to analyze sustainable transformations for green university initiatives.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

The understanding of the motives for consumers’ support of business underdogs is generally limited. The purpose of this paper is to help address this important research topic by conceptualizing underdog affection as a theoretical construct capturing the emotional attachment held by some consumers toward underdog business entities and advances two perspectives (self- and other-oriented) to unravel its motivational underpinnings.

To test the conceptual model, a survey study was conducted involving 365 respondents drawn from an electronic alumni association list from a medium-sized Midwestern university in the USA. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses were used to validate the scales, and the structural equations modeling method was used to test the hypothesized effects.

The data support most of the hypotheses (eight out of nine). Under the self-oriented perspective, commerce underdog affection is positively influenced by underdog orientation, need for uniqueness, nostalgia proneness, and hope, and is negatively impacted by their materialism level. Only hope did not impact consumer underdog affection. Under the other-oriented perspective, balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, and empathic concern positively influence underdog affection. The other-oriented factors, especially top dog antipathy and balance maintenance, show stronger effects on commerce underdog affection than self-oriented factors.

The sample was geographically restrictive in the sense that it measured only one group of respondents in the USA. The conceptual model is limited in terms of its coverage of the consequences of underdog affection. While discriminant validity is established in the scale development phase of the study, relatively close relationships do exist among some of these theoretical constructs.

Given the significant evidence linking consumers’ underdog affection to underdog support in commerce, small locally owned businesses could use underdog positioning advertising to differentiate themselves against national retailers. Due to their tendency to display higher underdog affection in commerce, people with higher levels of balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, underdog orientation, emphatic concern, and nostalgia proneness, and lower levels of materialism can be segmented for marketing purposes.

This research indicates that there are ways in which small business entities and non-profits alike can operate in a business setting that is increasingly more competitive and challenging for underdog entities.

This study integrates the various underdog studies across contexts to examine motives to underdog affection, a construct not yet operationalized in business studies. In addition, hypotheses linking eight specific antecedents to commerce underdog affection, via two theoretical perspectives, are empirically examined to assess relative as well as absolute effects.

An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

This chapter examines the catalysts that led drones to become a vast consumer market in a very short space of time. It tells the story of the drone’s resurgence as an object of popular desire and how this reflects a certain kind of technotopian allure, which is found more widely in the technological consumer culture. In so doing, it examines the historical origins of the drone across military aviation and musical culture, along with the major achievements in modern civilian drone exploration. The chapter also draws on literature in design theory, historical analyses of drone patents and speculative fictions within product development to articulate the central drivers behind the proliferation of drones in civil society.

Given the division between conservative and liberal ideologies on many issues, brands navigate social media minefields whenever they take a social or political stance. This study aims to explore real-time social media consumer responses to eight US boycott threats, including both conservative-based and liberal-based calls for boycott.

A grounded theory analysis of approximately 800 tweets collected in the 24 h following each brand’s trigger event led to a framework of motivations for using social media to engage in boycott discussions over a brand’s political stance.

Eleven pro-boycott and 11 anti-boycott consumer profiles emerged across cases. Overarching motivations for pro- and anti-boycotters include a desire to cause/prevent change, seeking justice/fairness, self-enhancement and expression of hostility. Findings suggest that political consumerism occurs with differing motivations and varying levels of emotion, that brand defenders may lessen boycott effectiveness and that threats to boycott may not always translate to actual boycotts.

This paper explores actual consumer boycott calls from various industries as they unfolded in real-time, as opposed to other research that explores hypothetical boycotts or a single case study. Additionally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is among the first to explore how consumers enter the boycott conversation in defense of the brand and attempt to diffuse the call for a boycott.

To explore the essential elements of a ‘green art of living’: an enjoyable, elegant, graceful and simultaneously low impact lifestyle.

The theoretical analysis is based on a critical reading and literature study of the texts of various prominent ecological utopian thinkers in the history of political philosophy.

In an ecologically sustainable society first priority must be given to re-examination of the proper ‘ecological limits’ of the current lifestyles and ‘arts of living’ in the Western world. The exact form or shape that people give to their lives is less important than their overall commitment to live within the ecological boundaries set by our earth.

A green, ecologically responsible society cannot do without a certain degree of moderation, self-restraint and simpler and less consumption-oriented lifestyles. However, in this chapter it is shown that such a society will not lead to impoverishment and austerity. An ecological society founded on voluntary simplicity will not be frugal or poor, but creates ample opportunities for its citizens to lead attractive, pleasurable, fulfilling and high-quality lives.

To show how consumer researchers can learn from novels and analogous works of fiction.

Close reading of two recent novels, The Savage Girl by Alex Shakar and Jennifer Government by Max Barry.

The paper shows how works of fiction can be used as a intellectual resource by the consumer research community. It argues that fiction refreshed the parts that other research methods cannot reach.

Much depends on the caliber of the novels. Not every work of art is a work of genius. The article contends that consumer researchers need to move beyond singing the praises of fiction and, in pursuit of new paths to thick description, seek instead to novelise our findings. Or narrate them better at least.

Marketing practitioners might learn more from reading novels than the academic marketing literature.

There is nothing particularly original in the paper. It reiterates what several scholars have said already. The message is sufficiently important to warrant constant repetition, however.