Consumer Behavior(SOSK-508)

Let’s make strange the everyday!

Joel HietanenCentre for Consumer Society Research

University of Helsinki

Hietanen, J., & Rokka, J. (2015). Market practices in countercultural market emergence.European Journal of Marketing, 49(9/10), 1563-1588.

Some of the little stuff I’ve been up to lately

Hietanen, J., & Rokka, J. (2018). Companion for the videography ‘MonstrousOrganizing—The Dubstep Electronic Music Scene’. Organization, 25(3), 320-334.

Hietanen, J., & Andéhn, M. (2018). More than meets the eye: Videography and production ofdesire in semiocapitalism. Journal of Marketing Management, 34(5-6), 539-556.

Hietanen, J., Andéhn, M., & Bradshaw, A. (2018). Against the implicit politics ofservice-dominant logic. Marketing Theory, 18(1), 101-119.

Hietanen, J., Andéhn, M., & Wickström, A. (2019). The inhuman challenge:Writing with dark desire. Organization, (forthcoming).

Andéhn, M., Hietanen, J., & Lucarelli, A. (2019). Performing place promotion—On implacedidentity in marketized geographies. Marketing Theory, (forthcoming).

Hietanen, J., & Sihvonen, A. (2020). Catering to otherness: Levinasian consumer ethics atRestaurant Day. Journal of Business Ethics, (forthcoming).

This will be a ‘critical’ course

What is it to think critically?

Who is the consumer?

What is consumer behavior?

Why do we study it?

Just a few days ago in Helsingin Sanomat:

‘We have been infected with chronic feelings of inadequacy’

‘Right here, in the billions of Triplas, Redis and Mujis, is where oil is splashed to the flames of self-loathing.’

‘Consumer culture pretends to be the cure, but it is a poison. Consumer cultureinscribes people as ugly and pitiful. Its standards for normalcy are astounding.’

‘All this flows from commercial interests, and the pleasures and freedoms theymarket are commercial as well. They are then performed no matter what.’

(Asta Leppä, 9.1.2020)

Consumer Psychology Consumer Culture Theory

POSITIVIST

Objective, tangible, single Prediction Time-free, context-independent Real causes exist S-O separation, reductionist

INTERPRETIVIST

Socially constructed, multipleUnderstandingTime-bound, context-dependentEvents shaped in a fluxResearcher subjectivity, immersion

Consumption: from the outside or inside?

This is a course on ‘late capitalism’and your role in it

Global consumption diversifies ‘choice’and homogenizes culture

What kinds of subjectivities doescontemporary consumer culture produce?

That is, you and me

Syllabus 115.1. Introduction: Consumer behavior and consumer culture (Fabianinkatu 24, room 532; 10:15-11:45)

16.1. Trip through conventional CB: Needs, wants and value (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)Cova, B. (1997). Community and consumption: Towards a definition of the “linking value” of product or services. European Journal of Marketing, 31(3/4), 297-316.

23.1. Postmodern consumer culture (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)Holt, D. B. (2002). Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), 70-90.Cherrier, H., & Murray, J. B. (2004). The sociology of consumption: the hidden facet of marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 20(5-6), 509-525.

30.1. Identities in consumption (with guest lecturer Artti Kellokumpu, UH) (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)Shankar, A., Elliott, R., & Fitchett, J. A. (2009). Identity, consumption and narratives of socialization. Marketing Theory, 9(1), 75-94.Gabriel, Y. (2015). Identity, choice and consumer freedom–the new opiates? A psychoanalytic interrogation. Marketing Theory, 15(1), 25-30.

Syllabus 26.2. Consumption, money and debt (with Tuomas Soila, University of Helsinki) (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)

Graeber, D. (2011). The myth of barter. In: Graeber, D (ed) Debt: The First 5000 Years. New York, NY: Melville House, pp. 21-41.

Peñaloza, L., & Barnhart, M. (2011). Living US capitalism: The normalization of credit/debt. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(4), 743-762.

13.2. Craving authenticity (with guest lecturer Oscar Ahlberg, Aalto BIZ) (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)

Hartmann, B. J., & Ostberg, J. (2013). Authenticating by re-enchantment: The discursive making of craft production. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(7-8), 882-911.Hietanen, J., Tikkanen, H., & Sihvonen A. (2019). Seduced by ‘fakes’: Producing the excessive interplay of authentic/counterfeit from a Baudrillardian perspective. Marketing Theory. (in press).

20.2. Iconic branding (with Hunter Jones, Aalto BIZ) (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)Holt, D. B. (2006). Jack Daniel’s America: Iconic brands as ideological parasites and proselytizers. Journal of Consumer Culture, 6(3), 355-377.

Brown, S. (2013). Retro from the get-go: Reactionary reflections on marketing’s yestermania. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 5(4), 521-536.

27.2. Guest lecture by Eric J. Arnould (Aalto BIZ), the founder of CCT (Unioninkatu 37; 14:15-15:45)TBA

Deliverables

70% Personal ‘learning diary’ (max 30 pages) (DL 20.3.)• Including a collection of ‘reaction notes’ (1 page) from each article assigned for class• Reaction notes are to be handed in before each lecture and then added to the learning diary at

the end of the course

30% Group project (max 5 pages) (DL 10.3.)• Find a small group for yourself, identify any interesting consumption phenomena and analyze

it based on your choice of course readings

+ Be prepared to discuss the literature in class – let’s make the most of the time we have together!

Warning – so to speak

This course will be demanding both theoretically and in terms of study practice!

BUTAfter the course you will have learned a great deal about how to approach and draw from academic literature, and also how to write academically informed text

Setting the stage – some ideas to start off with

How much is your identity shaped by your consumption?How much are you what you have?

How much do YOU ‘choose’?Who influences your choices?

What is it that is desirable to consume?What symbols are ‘valuable’?

How rationalis the consumer?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Edward Bernays (1891-1995)