Anthony Patterson

• Professor
• Professor at Lancaster University

This paper explores the impact of the ‘mobilization’ of employed mothers by the UK government to home‐school and care for children while performing paid work at home, in order to limit Covid‐19 transmission. Drawing upon actor network theory (ANT), we extend John Law's (1994) concept ‘modes of ordering’ (or strategic shifts in response to change wh...

This paper investigates the dynamics of long-term gift exchange between British mothers and their adult daughters, delving into the processes behind dyadic gift-giving. Through 54 comprehensive interviews, we elaborate the micropolitics that characterize these dynamics. Micropolitics refers to the subtle, everyday interactions, including gift excha...

Sociological studies of sustainable transformation have highlighted the relevance of ‘unequal’ and ‘uneven’ transformation dynamics. We argue that a practice-based approach provides far more insight into such unequal dynamics than currently recognized. We re-interpret the political concepts of agonism, antagonism and historic bloc that Gramsci used...

How is consumer desire transformed by contemporary technology? Most extant theory holds that technology rationalizes and reduces passion. In our investigation of networks of desire— complex open systems of machines, consumers, energy and objects—we find technology increasing the passion to consume. Effects depend upon participation in the network,...

Previous studies of self-tracking often focus on themes such as control, surveillance and the production of self-optimising neoliberal subjects. This article extends understanding by exploring the affective capacities of self-tracking in fostering wellbeing and forging meaningful relationships. Drawing upon a Deleuzian conceptual framework and the...

Drawing upon a cultural-historical reading of the witch, we discuss how modern capitalism is chronically haunted by obstreperous vestiges of what preceded it yet remains proficient in assimilating all that returns to challenge it. By adapting and extending a theoretical toolkit informed by Jacques Derrida and Mark Fisher, we trace market and state...

Thompson and Patterson (Chapter 20) dissect what the growing artificial intelligence in our smartphones, their software, and the AI of additional apps means for our daily lives and our well-being. They make an interesting comparison to the consumer relationships with technology studied by Mick and Fournier in the late 1990s when today’s smartphone...

The digital manifestation of viral propagation—the repeated peer-to-peer communication of a message and its attendant idea—represents a fundamental shift in the way ideas, meanings, and information flow. While digital channels help to multiply the impact of viral propagation, they also accentuate the fallout from poorly executed viral campaigns or...

According to James Lovelock of Gaia hypothesis fame, it takes thirty years for innovative ideas to gain acceptance and forty before the heterodox becomes orthodox, all proper and correct and enshrined in textbooks. Thirty years after Stephen Gould’s heretical article on Introspection and the best part of forty years since Morris Holbrook took up hi...

Service organizations, emboldened by the imperative to innovate, are increasingly introducing robots to frontline service encounters. However, as they augment or substitute human employees with robots, they may struggle to convince a distrusting public of their brand’s ethical credentials. Consequently, this paper develops and tests a holistic fram...

Purpose This paper aims to strengthen the process of design thinking by aligning it with netnography, specifically auto-netnography, which this paper asserts is particularly suited to the task of studying and enriching the actions of “designerly types” who seek to fashion monetisable businesses. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducts an a...

Many brands have been obliterated by the ‘death of the high street’ and many more have had near-death experiences. This paper applies Derrida’s ‘hauntology’ to Hollister, a high-flying fashion brand that fell from grace. Although it remains in the land of the living, selling impossible dreams of So-Cal’s beachside lifestyle, Hollister is a ghost of...

Purpose This paper aims to explain a celebrity’s deep resonance with consumers by unpacking the individual constituents of a celebrity’s polysemic appeal. While celebrities are traditionally theorised as unidimensional semiotic receptacles of cultural meaning, the authors conceptualise them here instead as human beings/performers with a multi-const...

The rise of natural burials has not been without controversy. Traditionalist funeralists and a number of mourners struggle to reconcile new immaterial, anti-symbolic practices with those of old. Drawing from an extensive ethnographic study of German cemeteries of both traditional and natural denomination, and by employing a spatial theory approach,...

Using the example of cycling, the authors contribute to public policy debates surrounding sustainability. They employ practice theory to shift the debate away from consumer choice and agency to examine instead why sustainable practices are not always available to consumers. Therefore, rather than asking, “Why don’t people cycle?” the authors ask, “...

We seek to move beyond the exalted figure of the heroic entrepreneur that predominates the study of entrepreneurship; to take a less agentic view of entrepreneurship; to tell stories rarely told, and to demonstrate how historical and technocultural forces are as instrumental in directing entrepreneurial activity as individual motivations. We enlist...

Service research highlights the utility of adopting a service ecosystem approach to studying service innovation. It suggests that service innovations can arise from challenging and developing the institutions (i.e. norms, rules, practices, meanings and symbols) which underpin an ecosystem. Also, recent emphasis on consumer wellbeing posits that stu...

Purpose – This paper aims to present a way to make structural equation modelling (SEM) studies more accessible and impactful. This paper suggests that authors service readers by translating their work into an infographic that clearly and artfully illustrates the essence of a paper’s contribution. Design/methodology/approach – Through the presentat...

Most marketing researchers with an interest in the mythic machinations of celebrity culture assume that being implicated in a scandal is detrimental to long-term brand-building efforts. However, our premise is that this assumption is often misguided. We argue that celebrities who court scandal sometimes find that the media coverage it precipitates...

Purpose Despite the relatively low cultural status of department store music, it is proposed that music – the shopping soundtrack – is capable of transforming perceptions of the environment in which it is heard, and eliciting immediate emotional and behavioural responses, thus underlining the influence of music, regardless of whether it is passivel...

By opening with a story, this article mildly subverts the typical conventions adopted by journal article writers. It is a direct response to calls from within management and marketing studies to embrace alternative modes of expression. Blurring fact (distilled from the findings of in-depth qualitative research) and fiction (distilled from our fever...

Not long ago, Compare the Market, a UK-based online aggregator of car insurance quotes, had little distinctive presence in the marketplace. Yet the company’s fortunes have been radically transformed since the launch in early 2009 of its award-winning marketing campaign, ‘Compare the Meerkat’, fronted by the much-loved anthropomorphic mascot, Aleksa...

Since real time conversational interaction with anyone, at any time, from anywhere, until recently, was realisable only in a fictional Star Trek universe, it is hardly surprising that a faintly utopian discourse surrounds the use of mobile devices (van den Boomen et al. 2009). Understandably, commentators were initially bowled over by the wondrousn...

Have “ewe” heard that over a hundred Superlambananas recently roamed through the city of Liverpool? More of a playful and colourful way to brighten up the city than a commentary on genetic cloning, the public art event called “Wild in Art” was a huge success, and has been one of many novel ideas the Liverpool Culture Company have called upon to re-...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore poor service encounters from the customer's perspective. Design/methodology/approach Multiple autoethnographic accounts of overwhelmingly dreadful customer experiences at a department store were gathered and analyzed. The writers of the accounts were asked only to chronicle their experiences, and not...

Historically, the value of intuition in strategic marketing has been devalued. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to investigate empirically and articulate the ways in which the heuristic of intuition can prove, and is proving, helpful to marketing managers involved in making strategic-level decisions. Drawing upon extensive interviews conducte...

Welcome to the Academy of Marketing (AM) conference special issue. This year’s edition is brought to you by the marketing academics of the University of Liverpool Management School. The three-day conference took place at the world famous Aintree racecourse in the summer of 2011. For those who could not attend, we are happy to report that, as an ann...

According to the foundational premises of the service-dominant logic of marketing, in determining their experiences, customers use and integrate their (operant) resources to co-create value. This paper considers the potential, for marketing and consumer research, of recognising customer resources and integrating them into the research process. Thre...

Most families in the Western world are aware of Harry Potter, the stupendously successful stories about a boy wizard " who lived. " Most families are familiar with the shadow tales attached to Harry Potter—the tales of the rags to riches author, the mega-blockbuster movies, the forthcoming theme park in Florida, the long lines of enthusiastic consu...

The heartrending, tear inducing stories told by incredibly worthy individuals at the beginning of every episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition certainly provides interesting TV fodder, not to mention an honourable imperative for spending heaps of money building spanking new homes equipped with expensive furniture and cool gadgetry, but they pale...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore introspection in marketing research, its controversial origins, its positioning as an art form, the possibilities and the pitfalls of research based on this method, and how to successfully enter into its creative spirit. Design/methodology/approach Although its overall approach is broadly conceptual,...

For some companies, learning to live in 'the experience economy' has been difficult. While the usual suspects of marketing excellence are held aloft as exemplars for them to emulate, many remain intimidated, alienated and disengaged by the machinations of such mega-marketers. In response to a recent call to capture the harsh reality of subjective a...

Purpose Harry Potter is one of the world's most remarkable marketing phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to reveal that consumers interact with the Potter brand in a variety of ways, ways that parallel the four archetypal houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Design/methodology/approach The paper interrogates Pottermania by mea...

Much has been written about Service-Dominant Logic, Vargo and Lusch’s vaunted contention that service isn’t an add-on to goods but goods are tangible reminders of service. Most of these writings are conceptual rather than empirical, however. This paper adds an empirical dimension to SDL by means of a qualitative study of the Harry Potter phenomenon...

In the cultural supermarket, Brand Ireland offers a lifestyle choice that appeals to many shoppers. Scores of companies that associate themselves with its symbolic constructions have profited from its country of origin cachet. This paper will illustrate how Brand Ireland gained its iconic status and provide a brief biography of its commercial life....

The world’s best marketers are blessed with a peculiar inventiveness that stems from experiencing the world as a novelty, which is why the marketing discipline in general has a good memory for forgetting. In this paper then, we contend that amnesia in marketing academia is perfectly healthy, and indeed functions as a key component of our creative,...

Three minutes is all it takes to meet the man or woman of your dreams. That’s the claim that’s lured millions to try speed dating. Can the same be true in business, asks Anthony Patterson?

At the beginning of the 21st century there is a growing interest in the renewal of current thinking about managing and organizing. This study joins that search for novelty with an exploration of what can be learned from the theatrical rehearsal for the development of new possibilities for organizational performance and design. What insights for org...

Just as we hate it when our friends become successful, nations hate it when other nations become successful. Take the American nation with its perennial list of world-leading brands, its domination of the world’s markets and its monopoly of the world’s leading marketing journals. America is marketing in excelsis. It is nothing less than a well-oile...

Without love - or, at least, its persistence as an idea - our cultural economy would collapse. Who else but the haves, the hopefuls and the have-nots of romantic liaison would sustain the business of restaurants, nightclubs and bars, not to mention the sale of films, books, music, magazines, of everything really? An Italian poet once wrote 'any tim...

Harry Potter is one of the most amazing consumer crazes of recent years (Blake 2002). So much so, that there can't be a single person anywhere who hasn't heard of 'the boy who lived' and the best-selling books that bear his name (Rowling 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003). To date, five books in the seven-book series have been published and approximatel...

Attributed to Pocahontas, the Native American princess who helped establish peace between the colonists and the Indians, the phrase that is the provocative title of the collection is immediately telling, since it is allied to a common thread in Paula Gunn Allen’s work of reconciling and mediating between diverse American subcultures.

Purpose – To critically examine the current definitions of key constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a consumer technology-based service.Design/methodology/approach – Two qualitative research studies were undertaken that encouraged consumers to reflect upon their text message (short message service – SMS) behaviour.Findings – The r...

Harry Potter is one of the most overwhelming consumer tsunami of recent years. Less than a decade ago, the boy wizard’s creator was an anonymous single mom on welfare. Today, J.K. Rowling presides over a $4 billion marketing empire and is one of the most famous faces on the planet. This paper examines consumer responses to the fashion for all thing...

Purpose – This paper makes the case for the use of real diaries as an alternative methodology in marketing research. It is argued that Qualitative Diary Research (QDR) in marketing and consumer research is an innovative way to capture rich insights into processes, relationships, settings, products and consumers. Design/methodology/approach – To il...

These few words attempt to understand why young people send each other text messages. The paper presents a textual analysis of the function, form and flow of text traffic produced and consumed by 105 young people. Over a weeklong period they kept qualitative diaries, dubbed 'text-books', detailing their incoming and outgoing tally of texts. It is p...

These days, every self-respecting travel writer feels obligated to serve a tour of duty in Ireland (Belfrage 1988; McCrum 1999; O ’R ourke 1989; Theroux 1985). This Irish literary pilgrimage has become so jaded that recently one inspired scribbler sought to rejuvenate the genre by hitchhiking Around Ireland with a Fridge (Hawks 1999). Typically, th...

About the Guest Editors. Stephen Brown has written or co‐edited ten books, including Postmodern Marketing (1995), Postmodern Marketing Two (1998) and Imagining Marketing: Art, Aesthetics and the Avant‐Garde (forthcoming from Routledge). His papers have been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Retailing, Journal...

Few cities in the UK lack an 'authentic' Irish bar, be it O'Neill's, Scruffy Murphy's or Shifty O'Shea's. Theme pubs, like theme parks, theme hotels and theme restaurants, are very big business. Yet the marketing academy seems somewhat reluctant to investigate such establishments, professionally at least. This essay examines the theme pub phenomeno...

"Art is adventurous, marketing safe; art seeks the unexpected, marketing yearns for the predictable; art wants the amazing, marketing the comfortable; art is orgasmic, marketing anal. Yet we need both, and we both want to make money; we both want the biggest audiences. We have no alternative but to live together in a constructive way, learning from...

Once upon a time there was a storyteller par excellence. His name was James Joyce and he wrote compelling stories about Ireland that displayed great virtuosity and imagination. Yet in his own words, he was a 'cut and paste man,' who gathered raw material from life, myth, legend and ancient tale. In his day, the popular press condemned Joyce under t...

By employing a research approach, known as subjective personal introspection - the critical "I" four co-researchers wrote extensive autobiographical essays on their responses to an advertisement for Caffrey's Irish Ale. By delving in the shamelessly subjective this paper draws out the main themes by comparing, contrasting and critiquing the introsp...

There is a growing emphasis, in management research, on the understanding of practice in organisations. In particular, there is a recognition of the need for new insights into the social issues that are embedded in the way individual actors go about performing their roles. In response to these calls this paper presents empirical findings from a stu...

Without love - or, at least, its persistence as an idea - our cultural economy would collapse. Who else but the haves, the hopefuls and the have-nots of romantic liaison would sustain the business of restaurants, nightclubs and bars, not to mention the sale of films, books, music, magazines, of everything really? An Italian poet once wrote 'any tim...

Making real the dream to become a best-selling author is difficult. Many obstacles bar entry into this elite community of populists - how to concoct a story worth telling; how to cope with the dead ends and blind alleys of plot and characterisation; how to survive months of toil, isolation, self-doubt and financial hardship; how to secure a publish...

Despite Ireland's heavy reliance on tourism to bolster its general economic health, tourism in the country remains understudied (Deegan and Dineen 2003). With this in mind, the purpose of this chapter is to explore tourism in Ireland, focusing specifically on what tourists find so appealing about its unique brand of national identity. The chapter i...

Recent years have witnessed the rise of the so-called ‘confessional novel’, semi-autobiographical fricassees of fact, fiction and familiar brand names. Although such works are replete with representations of consumer behaviour, marketing academics remain somewhat chary of literary portrayals of marketplace phenomena. In an attempt to demonstrate th...