Franck Cochoy
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199576746
- eISBN:
- 9780191724916
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576746.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Marketing
This chapter wonders about the overemphasis placed on consumers in marketing research. It starts from two questions: Is studying consumption exactly the same as studying consumers? Can consumption be ...
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This chapter wonders about the overemphasis placed on consumers in marketing research. It starts from two questions: Is studying consumption exactly the same as studying consumers? Can consumption be understood through consumer behavior only? The emphasis placed on consumers tends to neglect at least two other factors that yet significantly frame the consumption game. The first factor is the supply side. Consumption is shaped by consumers, but also by marketers. As a consequence, if we want to fully understand consumption, we have to study both types of actor; we must research marketing as well as purchasing and consuming. The second factor is that of market objects, devices, and technologies (Callon & Muniesa, 2007). If we really want to account for consumption, we thus have to study the three vertexes of the triangle: we need to supplement the study of consumers with a study of marketers, and the study of consumers and marketers with a study of “market-things” (Cochoy, 2007). The chapter proposes to follow such a view in starting from the latter vertex: through an analysis of the trade press journal Progressive Grocer over the 1929–59 period, and from the perspective of actor-network theory, it shows how many market-things (cans, shelves, turnstiles, magic doors, …) were put in motion and articulated in order to help grocers and consumers behave differently, thus modifying the very actions and identities of consumers and other marketing actors.Less
This chapter wonders about the overemphasis placed on consumers in marketing research. It starts from two questions: Is studying consumption exactly the same as studying consumers? Can consumption be understood through consumer behavior only? The emphasis placed on consumers tends to neglect at least two other factors that yet significantly frame the consumption game. The first factor is the supply side. Consumption is shaped by consumers, but also by marketers. As a consequence, if we want to fully understand consumption, we have to study both types of actor; we must research marketing as well as purchasing and consuming. The second factor is that of market objects, devices, and technologies (Callon & Muniesa, 2007). If we really want to account for consumption, we thus have to study the three vertexes of the triangle: we need to supplement the study of consumers with a study of marketers, and the study of consumers and marketers with a study of “market-things” (Cochoy, 2007). The chapter proposes to follow such a view in starting from the latter vertex: through an analysis of the trade press journal Progressive Grocer over the 1929–59 period, and from the perspective of actor-network theory, it shows how many market-things (cans, shelves, turnstiles, magic doors, …) were put in motion and articulated in order to help grocers and consumers behave differently, thus modifying the very actions and identities of consumers and other marketing actors.
