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Rather than focusing on issues that pertain to the consumption of cats (as pets), deals with the nature of consumption by cats (as consumers). Explores these facets of consumer behaviour by means of three interrelated methods: ethography, felologies, and unobtrusive participation. This approach addresses the differences between human and feline consumption in general. A more detailed treatment then uses photographs to examine the consumption experiences of one cat in particular by documenting a day in the life of a cat.

This paper describes the personal history and intellectual development of Morris B. Holbrook (MBH), a participant in the field of marketing academics in general and consumer research in particular.

The paper pursues an approach characterized by historical autoethnographic subjective personal introspection or HASPI.

The paper reports the personal history of MBH and – via HASPI – interprets various aspects of key participants and major themes that emerged over the course of his career.

The main implication is that every scholar in the field of marketing pursues a different light, follows a unique path, plays by idiosyncratic rules, and deserves individual attention, consideration, and respect … like a cat that carries its own leash.

In the case of MBH, like (say) a jazz musician, whatever value he might have depends on his originality.

This paper aims to trace the origins, development and future of the consumption experience as a concept in marketing and consumer research.

The author relies on subjective personal introspection to describe his involvement in the introduction and elaboration of the consumption-experience concept.

The author finds that the concept of the consumption experience has extended to many areas of marketing and consumer research, with widespread applicability in the creation of brand-related promotional messages.

The consumption experience is central to our understanding of consumers and deserves full exploration in the work of consumer researchers.

Working with Professor Elizabeth Hirschman, the author played a pioneering role in understanding the consumption experience and is happy to see that their contribution has encouraged others to pursue related themes.

This paper aims to discuss issues concerning the desirability of finding ways to close the gap between academic research and management practice – especially in the case of marketing and consumer research.

The issues are addressed by means of a personal essay.

The discussion adopts the extreme viewpoint that achieving a reconciliation or resolution of the differences between scholarly inquiry and managerial relevance in either research or teaching constitutes an undesirable or even deplorable form of compromise.

The essay concludes that – contrary to the wisdom of Goldilocks – compromise between academic scholarship and practical relevance merits opprobrium rather than approbation.

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.

In marketing and consumer research, the application of subjective personal introspection, or SPI, to the understanding of one’s own consumption experiences benefits from the representation of such self‐reflective insights in the most vivid and compelling manner possible. Toward the latter end, stereographic three‐dimensional images may deepen the marketing or consumer researcher’s ability to communicate with managers and other readers in a suitably forceful, engaging, and transparent way. Thus, three‐dimensional photographs in the form of stereo pairs may provide corroborative evidence for the interpretations suggested by SPI or other research approaches. In this, literally, stereo 3D displays enhance the vividness, clarity, realism, and depth of communication between marketing researchers and their audience. But beyond that, figuratively, three‐dimensional stereography also serves as a metaphor to capture the essence of operating on the edge, of attaining profound insights, or of pursuing creativity in the postmodern world of consumption‐oriented hyperreality.

Recently, organizational theorists and business thinkers have discovered the jazz metaphor and have employed this trope as an analogy to infer and describe best practices in the areas of organizational innovation and business strategy. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The present paper extends and amplifies this insight in the area of marketing practice and compares the marketing manager to the jazz musician with special attention to the problem of introducing new offerings during the mature stage of the product life cycle – namely, the strategic issue that concerns most marketing managers most of the time.

Ultimately, the author is struck by the rather profound ways in which – true to the jazz metaphor – the marketing manager during the mature phase of the product life cycle resembles an improvising musician.

The present paper pursues this theme in connection with one particular aspect of marketing strategy – namely, the design and introduction of new offerings during the mature phase of the product life cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to celebrate the manifold contributions made by Michael Thomas, marketing professor extraordinary.

This paper is an exercise in autobiographical memory, coupled with the subjective personal introspective procedures advocated by many leading marketing scholars, most notably, Steven Gould and Morris Holbrook.

The paper shows that ornithology is an apt metaphor – analogy, rather – for Professor Thomas's many and varied contributions to marketing thought.

The paper comes closer than most to defining the quintessential Michael Thomas.