Search results

Capital increasingly takes the form of intangible assets, especially trademarked corporate brands. Further, contemporary capitalism increasingly accumulates through commodification of iconic cultural images and legendary narratives constituting a “second enclosure movement” (Boyle, 2008). This paper develops a critical theory of brands, branding, and brand management within economies of spectacle.

A case study of the consumer culture surrounding large displacement motorcycling is used to critique the central premise of consumer culture theory (marketing professionals create brands that become valuable icons) and develop an alternative view using concepts from critical theory, especially spectacle (Debord, 1967) and culture industry (Adorno, 1991).

After initial enclosure, legends were managed by Crossmarketing Licensing Networks (CMLN), coalitions of corporate and state actors, each possessing a piece of the legendary pie. The Sturgis CMLN was organized into two political divisions, rally profiteers and civic leaders, with overlapping but differentiated interests and approaches to the management of the Sturgis legend. The CMLN intervened in the cultural commons to overcome legendary degradations (banality, incoherence, undesirability) surrounding the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Brands are capitalized culture created by enclosures, a form of primitive accumulation. Under current conditions of immaterial production, CMLN’s engage in ongoing cultural production to maintain the capitalized value of their brands. Brands are not only hunted in the wilds of culture, but also increasingly domesticated and fattened when herded through legendary commons.

Tribalism is at the forefront of public discussion across the political spectrum in America today. Zombie stories have also risen to unprecedented popularity. Amid present-day racial, political, and otherwise tribal tensions, the story I Am Legend has particular resonance. As the original inspiration behind the modern zombie trope, it was published as a novella in 1954 and has been remade as a film multiple times, in 1964, 1971, and 2007. Using grounded theory, I explore each film regarding what moral attitudes are portrayed concerning confrontation between rival milieus. My findings center on four themes: identification, compassion, ambivalence, and condemnation. Overall, in chronological order, the different renditions of the story exhibit decreasing compassion for the other and decreasing ambivalence about relations with the other. The most dramatic change is between the 1971 and 2007 remakes. Implications for what the changes in the morals presented in the story might reflect in terms of social changes in America are discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to present a subset of seven statistical and methodological myths and urban legends (SMMULs). When present, SMMULs degrade the overall research process and make manuscript evaluation problematic during the review process. SMMULs covered here included those pertaining to accepting the theoretical model, conventional cutoff values, exploratory factor analysis, common method bias, moderation analysis, Baron and Kenny's four-step mediation test, and permitting correlated item residuals.

Design/Methodology – Given that the details underlying the SMMULs have already been published, the present chapter was a summary of each. The summaries presented the urban legend and sources for it. Subsequently, the kernel of truth underlying the SMMUL was presented, and how this truth may have been lost and distorted. Each summary ends with the recommended “good” practices as presented by the original authors.

Findings/Implications – The implication for researchers is to modify their current practices to strengthen their research and to make better inferences. And for editors and reviewers, the implication is to develop accurate decision rules to strengthen the review process.

Originality/Value – The overall value of the chapter is to improve the research process in general.

It is a great honor to be selected as a marketing legend, and 117 of my refereed journal articles are published in nine volumes by Sage India as part of the Legend series. In this chapter, I discuss my preparation for an academic career and the trajectory my research has followed. I reflect on my research contributions to marketing by selectively summarizing the key contributions in each of the nine volumes and draw out some lessons and principles I have learned in the process.

The Legends in Marketing series presents compilations of the seminal works of marketing scholars who have made significant contributions to the discipline of marketing. This review discusses the structure and contents of the volumes that comprise Legends in Marketing: Shelby D. Hunt (Sage, forthcoming).

Review of Marketing Research, now in its eighth volume, is a fairly recent publication covering the important areas of marketing research with a more comprehensive state-of-the-art orientation. The chapters in this publication review the literature in a particular area, offer a critical commentary, develop an innovative framework, and discuss future developments, as well as present specific empirical studies. All the eight volumes have featured some of the top researchers and scholars in our discipline who have reviewed an array of important topics. The response to the first seven volumes has been truly gratifying, and we look forward to the impact of the eighth volume with great anticipation. This eighth volume is unique in that it is exclusively devoted to marketing legends and features the work of all the legends named to date.

The purpose of this chapter is to try to describe how the digital goods or services in the Gaming Industry, which creates digital games as the core product, make omnichannel marketing applications different from other industries with case studies by considering physical products and other consumer touchpoints. Findings in the chapter were obtained as a result of case analysis of various companies that achieved certain successes in Gaming Industry and implemented Omnichannel Marketing techniques. To mention the findings of the chapter, it can be understood that the ways in which Omnichannel Marketing philosophy is implemented in the game industry are strategically highly variable and creative. Digital products, which are introduced as core products, can be seen in a very different physical environment in order to establish a 360-degree connection with the consumer. This study attempts to contribute to the omnichannel marketing literature specifically in Gaming Industry. It depicts different strategic approaches by trying to reveal Omnichannel touchpoints to the industry-specific consumer. The rarity of the analysis of Omnichannel Marketing practices in the Gaming Industry adds originality.

The main aim of the chapter is to examine the prevalence of Slavic and, more specifically, Slovenian mythological elements in Slovenian heavy metal music. No such analysis had previously been attempted, so a database had to be established anew. Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (MA) was chosen as the most comprehensive available source on metal music, supplemented by information gleaned from other sources. All 290 bands listed as Slovenian on MA were inspected for evidence of Slavic and Slovenian mythological content. Each band's name, genre, lyrical themes as listed in their profile, song titles, and lyrics were taken into account. The compiled corpus was then analysed in terms of information availability, prevailing languages used by the bands, and, subsequently, their relation to Slovenian mythological heritage. The search for Slavic and Slovenian mythological content began with keyword-based computer-assisted analysis followed by manual annotation. Elements directly concerning the Slavic mythos, Slovenian legends, and folk tales, were featured in a ‘Slavic content database’, their suitability ascertained through inclusion in prominent publications on the topic, e.g. Mikhailov (2002), Ovsec (1991), and Šmitek (2004, 2006). The acquired results were then divided into seven categories in order of prevalence, namely, deities, mythical creatures, history, nature, literary references, mythical places and phenomena, and idiosyncratic folklore. Our intention was to also present the contents of each category in a short overview aimed at acquainting the reader with individual phenomena, yet only the most prominent two categories could be presented here due to spatial constraints. The remaining categories will be dealt with in more detail in a follow-up paper. The findings featured will also enable the commencement of the second part of the research, a qualitative analysis of the afore-mentioned ‘Slavic content database’.