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Article
Publication date: 22 May 2019

Terrence H. Witkowski

This paper aims to present an autobiographical account on the life of Terrence H. Witkowski and his development as a marketing and consumption historian.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present an autobiographical account on the life of Terrence H. Witkowski and his development as a marketing and consumption historian.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is an autobiography and intellectual history.

Findings

The author traces his interest in history to childhood travel, to growing up in a home furnished with early American décor and to a lifelong passion for antique collecting. Historical research in marketing and consumption fit his independent personality, and has made the best use of his scholarly skill set.

Originality/value

This essay describes one person’s journey to becoming a marketing and consumption historian.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 11 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 November 2017

Georgios Patsiaouras

This study aims to provide a historical understanding of conspicuous consumption phenomena in the context of the UK, between 1945 and 2000. It considers how status-driven…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide a historical understanding of conspicuous consumption phenomena in the context of the UK, between 1945 and 2000. It considers how status-driven consumption has been shaped by economic, technological and cultural factors.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting a periodization scheme, concerning two time structures between 1945 and 2000, this paper is based on research stemming from a wide range of data such as academic studies, research articles, narrative history books, past advertisements, novels and biographies. Rich interdisciplinary data from the realms of political economy, sociology, cultural geography and consumption studies have been synthesized so as to provide a marketing-oriented historical outlook on conspicuous consumption phenomena.

Findings

Status-driven consumption in the UK has been heavily influenced by economic policies, cultural changes and public perceptions towards wealth during the second half of the twentieth century. Post-war rationing, youth-driven fashion, free-market economics and technological advances have played a crucial role in forming consumers’ tastes and engagement with ostentatious economic display.

Originality/value

Although the vast majority of marketing studies have approached luxury consumption through a psychological angle, this examination identifies the capacity of historical research to uncover and highlight the interrelationships between socio-economic factors and status-motivated consumption.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 March 2009

D.G. Brian Jones, Eric H. Shaw and Deborah Goldring

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on the influence of Stanley C. Hollander, who co‐founded the CHARM conference and whose drive and determination fueled its growth for the first 20 years.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses traditional historical narrative based on personal interviews, archival research, and content analysis of CHARM Proceedings.

Findings

The history of CHARM is described and Hollander's role in developing the conference is highlighted.

Originality/value

There is no written history of CHARM. This story is a major part of Hollander's legacy.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 1 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 February 2016

Margaret Peacock

This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s.

Findings

Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits.

Originality/Value

This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 February 2018

Hari Sreekumar

The purpose of this paper is to review the key literature pertaining to consumption during the colonial period in India, broadly covering the time period from the early nineteenth…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the key literature pertaining to consumption during the colonial period in India, broadly covering the time period from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. The review shows the prominent themes and patterns that help us understand colonial Indian consumers’ encounter with Western products and institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a review of historical research papers and papers pertaining to the colonial period in India.

Findings

British colonialism introduced new products, institutions and ways of living into India, which were negotiated with and contested by Indian consumers and intellectuals. These new products and practices were not seamlessly adopted into the Indian context. Rather, they were appropriated into existing social structures determined by caste, gender and religion. The tensions produced by such negotiations and contestations fed Indian resistance to colonialism, culminating in British withdrawal from India.

Originality/value

Historical research pertaining to marketing in the Indian context is scarce. Moreover, there are few reviews which outline the important consumption practices and changes pertaining to the colonial period. The findings of this review will be of use to researchers and students of history, marketing and cultural studies.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 July 2009

Yuko Minowa and Terrence H. Witkowski

This purpose of this paper is to investigate the policies and consequences of state‐directed consumerism in Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) of the Safavid…

Abstract

Purpose

This purpose of this paper is to investigate the policies and consequences of state‐directed consumerism in Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) of the Safavid dynasty.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based upon several secondary literatures, especially Middle Eastern studies and art history, as well as primary source materials in the form of architecture, its decorative elements, and other works. The visual content and consumption themes of a selected tile painting are described and analyzed.

Findings

The Shah strengthened the state by building infrastructure, encouraging international trade, and creating a robust silk industry where he controlled production and marketing. He utilized his city and its architecture as a means of communication to impress his subjects and foreign visitors and to increase domestic demand for silk textiles. These promotional efforts led to a surge in spending, which occurred about the same time as similar booms in England and France. Economic problems and rising Islamism dampened this episode of Persian consumerism in the latter part of the seventeenth century.

Research limitations/implications

The set of visual data sources is small and limited to works from just one city, Isfahan.

Originality/value

The research fills gaps in the marketing and consumption history literatures which have not as yet fully considered the use of state resources to promote domestic consumption, consumer marketing in the Middle East, and the promotional roles played by architecture and its decorative elements.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 September 2020

Leighann Neilson and Erin Barkel

This paper aims to present a history of the marketing of hope chests in the USA, focusing in particular on one very successful sales promotion, the Lane Company’s Girl Graduate…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a history of the marketing of hope chests in the USA, focusing in particular on one very successful sales promotion, the Lane Company’s Girl Graduate Plan. The Girl Graduate Plan is placed within its historical context to better understand the socioeconomic forces that contributed to its success for a considerable period but ultimately led to decreased demand for the product.

Design/methodology/approach

The history of the marketing of hope or marriage chests draws upon primary sources located in the Lane Company Collection at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Secondary sources and images of advertising culled from Google image searches provided additional insight into the operation of the company’s Girl Graduate Plan.

Findings

While the Lane Company benefitted in the form of increased sales, profit and brand awareness and loyalty from prevailing socio-economic trends, which supported the success of its Girl Graduate Plan, including targeting the youth market, this promotion ultimately fell victim to the company’s failure to stay abreast of social changes related to the role of women in society.

Research limitations/implications

Like all historical research, this research is dependent upon the historical sources that are accessible. The authors combined documents available from the Virginia Historical Society archives with online searches, but other data sources may well exist.

Practical implications

This history investigates how one manufacturer, a leader in the North American industry, collaborated with furniture dealers to promote their products to young women who were about to become the primary decision makers for the purchase of home furnishings. As such, it provides an historical example of the power of successful collaboration with channel partners. It also provides an example of innovation within an already crowded market.

Social implications

The hope chest as an object of material culture can be found in many cultures worldwide. It has variously represented a woman’s coming of age, the love relationship between a couple and a family’s social status. It has also served as a woman’s store of wealth. This history details how changing social values influenced the popularity of the hope chest tradition in the USA.

Originality/value

The history of the marketing of hope chests is an area that has not been seriously considered in consumption histories or in histories of marketing practices to date, in spite of the continuing sentimental appeal for many consumers.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 May 2015

Eminegül Karababa

This paper aims to investigate the marketing and consumption of flowers as a commodity from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in the Ottoman context, a non-Western context…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the marketing and consumption of flowers as a commodity from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in the Ottoman context, a non-Western context, and to identify the specificities and similarities to the wider regional context with which it interacts.

Design/methodology/approach

Through utilising secondary historical data a two-level analysis is conducted. The first level provides information on the institutional actors such as flower merchants, the state, the flower research institutes, market channels and popular culture and their practices. The second level of analysis concerns the flower consumer.

Findings

The paper shows that flower consumption and marketing in an early modern non-Western context was not totally divergent from its “Western” counterparts which share the same regional context, i.e. the Mediterranean. As part of the late Renaissance Mediterranean world, the flower cultivator as a leisure-time consumer is reminiscent of the “Renaissance man”, characterised as someone who consumes science, aesthetics and writing in his leisure time. However, Ottoman markets diverge from their counterparts through the formation of an institution, similar to a modern-day accreditation institution, which had an active role in generating standards, brands and norms for the flower market.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is mainly focussed on Istanbul, the capital of the empire and a large city by contemporary standards. Generalisation to the Ottoman context would require further studies.

Originality/value

The paper is original because marketing and consumption in non-Western histories, such as the Ottoman context, have been a neglected area, mainly because of a tendency to locate progress and modernisation in early modern west.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 7 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2000

Sheena Leek, Sarah Maddock and Gordon Foxall

Despite having properties well‐suited to “healthy‐eating”, fish is a declining product. Consumers’ evaluations of fish are known to differ between consumers and non‐consumers, but…

2926

Abstract

Despite having properties well‐suited to “healthy‐eating”, fish is a declining product. Consumers’ evaluations of fish are known to differ between consumers and non‐consumers, but the precise differences, which might be of use in the development of a marketing campaign, are vague. Analyses suggest that the factors that influence consumer choice are predominantly environmental, and a model of situational determinants of consumption (the behavioural perspective model or BPM) is proposed as a theoretical framework. A random sample of UK consumers (n = 311) provided information on their past and intended purchasing of three types of fish product – fresh, frozen and canned – and on their beliefs regarding the consequences of fish consumption. Factor analysis reveals that such beliefs regarding fish fall into one of five components: versatility, situational relevance, negative properties, economy, and convenience. Multiple regression analysis indicates that these are differentially related to fish consumption. In general, fish consumers differed on all five factors from non‐consumers, but important deviations from this generalisation were identified for fresh, frozen and canned fish. Suggestions for marketing action and further research are derived from the practical applicability of the results and the support they provide for components of the BPM.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 102 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 November 2013

Ellen McArthur

– The purpose of this paper is to present historical research on marketing practices in department stores of the 1880-1930 period using primary source records from Australia.

1354

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present historical research on marketing practices in department stores of the 1880-1930 period using primary source records from Australia.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws from primary records including retail trade journals, mass circulation newspapers, and other contemporary sources, but mainly from the archives of The Master Retailers' Association (MRA). The MRA was the dominant industry employers' organisation in Australia, and possibly the first retail association of its kind in the Western world. Secondary sources have also been used to supplement the primary records, and to provide context, and cross-cultural comparisons.

Findings

The findings demonstrate the antecedents of a range of marketing practices that today we presume are modern, including sales promotion, trade promotion, direct mail, destination retailing, advertising, and consumer segmentation. This supports other scholars' research into marketing's long history.

Originality/value

This paper contributes original knowledge to the neglected field of Australian marketing history and connects the pioneering practices of retailers to the broader field of marketing. While some outstanding retail histories exist for the USA, UK, and France, the Australian story has remained largely uncovered.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 5 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

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