Gary Warnaby

• The University of Manchester

This interpretive, qualitative study explores ontological (in)security within the servicescape of Manchester’s Christmas Market. We scrutinise this temporary setting, revealing evidence of paradoxes which create uncertainty and ontological (in)security for consumers. Specifically, we identify a social paradox, encompassing crowds and the conduct of...

High street vitality and viability has been a long-standing topic in UK research and policy debates. While the presence and role of the independent retailer is discussed in the associated academic literature, specific consideration of independent bookstores has been lacking, given their perceived position as a special type of retailer within the hi...

In the context of debates about organizational space, this paper undertakes a multidimensional spatial analysis of everyday organizing. Drawing on an extensive ethnographic study of a housing estate, we use Jessop, Brenner, and Jones’ (2008) territory, place, scale, network framework to reveal processes of everyday spatial production that occur thr...

Purpose The purpose of this introductory paper is to outline the theme of – and introduces the papers comprising – this special issue on post-Covid place marketing. Design/methodology/approach A brief literature review outlines some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on places and also for place-bound and spatially oriented industry sectors (...

Purpose Fashion retailers have increasingly adopted consumer-facing in-store technology (CFIT) to enhance the customer experience/service provision. This paper aims to explore managerial experiences and sociotechnical implications of introducing these technologies into organizational working processes. Design/methodology/approach This study draws...

Changing consumer trends, waves of retail decentralisation, and various socio-economic and environmental shocks have exacerbated the well-recognised challenges of retail-dominant English high streets in recent years. The decline and ‘death’ of the high street has been the subject of many policy responses aiming at transforming high streets as viabl...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise how place management practices in UK housing associations (HAs) involve processes of ecological place management. Design/methodology/approach Ethnographic fieldwork focusing on how communal spaces are organised on a housing estate in a UK city revealed the importance of negotiation with other a...

The radical changes to the UK town centre retail landscape over the past 60 years are well documented. What are less well documented are accounts of how the internal processes of town centre governance impact on the retail landscape. From the 1990s UK government dictums, aimed at arresting decline, have advised local authorities to engage with loca...

Purpose The “pop-up” epithet has become a synonym for virtually any temporary event in a range of commercial, non-commercial and cultural contexts within the urban spatial arena. This paper aims to discuss the role of the pop-up concept within urban space, to address the question articulated in the Call for Papers for this special issue, of whether...

This paper focuses on contemporary retail history, analysing trends in ground floor retail occupancy within King Street, Manchester, UK, from 1967 onwards, through an analysis of Goad shopping centre plan data over this period. The paper also considers the development of recent narratives relating to occupancy and vacancy within this street via doc...

‘Biosphere reserve’ is a United Nations (UN) designation stipulating that a region should attempt to follow the principles of sustainable development (SD). This paper adopts a stakeholder analysis framework to analyse the discourses of those tourism stakeholders who can actively affect SD in the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve (WBR), South Africa. Adop...

Our research examines the extent to which community-led food retailers (CLFRs) contribute to the resilience and sustainability of urban retail systems and communities in the UK, contributing to existing debates on the sustainability and resilience of the UK’s urban retail sector. While existing literature has predominantly focused on larger retail...

This paper explores how the corporate (re)naming of football stadia and their urban environs is negotiated through fans’ toponymic discourses and associated commemoration. Critical toponymy research emphasises oppositional toponymic tensions between sovereign authorities and citizens, which can result in competing inscriptions of space. Adopting a...

The tourism and hospitality industries have been particularly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with widespread closures and later re-opening times than other areas of economic activity. However, little is known about the resilience of these industries in light of the current pandemic, within the context of English towns. This paper surveys busine...

This article foregrounds sense of place as a key concept to further advance spatial theorisations within both ecological economics and degrowth. We delineate the scope of the concept and apply it to the fracking controversy in Lancashire, UK. Specifically, we elucidate how sense of place notions were mobilised by both pro-and anti-fracking actors t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experience of visitors to UK markets by analysing their Tripadvisor reviews to identify perceived experiential dimensions with a view to informing actions by those responsible for market management to provide a better consumer experience. Design/methodology/approach This research analysed 41,...

This article interrogates the performative effects of mutualist ideas in the context of market-making. Mutualism is a variety of anarchism associated with the work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who argued for the centrality of market exchanges and mutual credit as a means for emancipating workers from capitalist exploitation. The discussion is informe...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore fans’ reactions to corporate naming rights sponsorship of football club stadia and identify a range of contextual factors impacting these reactions. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, quasi-ethnographic research design is adopted, focusing on three football clubs in North West England. Data a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the development and current position of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the UK, drawing on the content within a State-of-the-Art Review of Business Improvement Districts in the UK: setting the agenda for policy, practice and research , commissioned by The BID Foundation and produced by members...

The evolving consumption landscape creates challenges for retailers in accommodating their modus operandi to negotiate changing consumer needs, arguably requiring a ‘new’ type of retailing to hopefully facilitate future success. We suggest that an important aspect of such negotiation will be the use of ‘pop-up’ activity, and we critically evaluate...

This article interrogates the performative effects of mutualist ideas in the context of market-making. Mutualism is a variety of anarchism associated with the work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who argued for the centrality of market exchanges and mutual credit as a means for emancipating workers from capitalist exploitation. The discussion is informe...

This paper provides a retrospective commentary on a paper, “Pop-up retailing: integrating objectives and activity stereotypes”. Drawing on both published work and our empirical research carried out subsequently, the paper considers developments relating to pop-up retailing in both industry practice and perceptions and the academic literature, to as...

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the place marketing potential of historic urban “fragments”, with particular reference to old corporate identity symbols still extant in urban space. Design/methodology/approach Following a discussion of theoretical context, specifically incorporating spatial semiotics and psychogeography, the paper constitutes...

This exploratory empirical study elucidates the concept of the ‘augmented store’, namely a physical retail store modified to accommodate AR technology. It extends previous research into immersive environments and technology-enhanced stores from experimental laboratory settings to a real-life scenario with participating consumers. Qualitative data f...

The on-going digital revolution spurs retailers to adopt digitalized enhancements in-store (Helbing 2015; Catlin et al. 2015), which contribute to an improved customer experience and the integration of shopping channels (Rigby 2011; Davis 2014), continually shaping retail business models, as well as consumer behaviors (Verhoef et al. 2015). Fashion...

This paper proposes that flags are an important but under‐theorised aspect of geographical inquiry and seeks to outline a new field of “vexillgeography,” which critically embraces the spatiality and performativity of flags. We start by outlining the potential of semiotics (and geosemiotics) to further our understanding of flags, focusing on iconic,...

Drawing on Brighenti’s (2010, 2014) theoretical exposition of territorology, we extend current conceptualizations of place within the marketing literature by demonstrating that place is relationally constructed through territorializing consumption practices which continuously produce and sustain multifarious versions of place. In our fieldwork, we...

This article examines issues of scale in urban toponymic inscription. The specific focus of inquiry is toponymic commodification, whereby corporate brand names of international scope are imposed on English football stadia and their locally embedded fan communities. We employ primary data relating to three football clubs in the Greater Manchester co...

The inherent flexibility of the concept means that pop-up retailing can take a variety of forms. This chapter reviews existing classificatory schemas from the academic literature, outlining the different forms that pop-up activities can take. These schemas are discussed by focusing on two key dimensions: location and function. The chapter concludes...

The inherent flexibility of pop-up means that it can potentially contribute to a variety of objectives, termed by Warnaby et al. (2015) as Communicational, Experiential, Transactional and Testing objectives. This research identifies a range of different objectives that the pop-up activities studied sought to achieve. These are classified into seven...

Pop-ups, by their very nature, are ephemeral. However, while the lifespan of the physical manifestation of the pop-up activity may be brief, with good management, longer-term consumer relationships with the brand might be facilitated (Pomodoro 2013). This is consistent with the notion of the ‘post-experience’ stage, as articulated in the experienti...

Existing definitions of pop-up given in Chap. 1 highlight its multi-faceted nature. In this chapter, some of these different facets are explored in more detail as a means of further explicating the pop-up concept, focusing on three key characteristics; namely the fact that pop-up activities are ephemeral, experiential and flexible. Each of these ch...

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework for the planning and implementation of pop-up activities. Drawing on existing literature on experience, the conceptual framework is structured in processual terms, comprising four stages—Strategic Objectives, Pre-Pop-up, Pop-up Expereince and Post Pop-up. The framework considers these stages from two p...

This chapter defines the concept of pop-up, in terms of an ephemeral retail-oriented setting which can facilitate direct, experientially oriented customer-brand interaction, albeit for a limited period. It goes on to discuss the origins of the concept, which in specific retail terms, arguably date back to the periodic markets of the middle ages, bu...

The existing academic literature on pop-up retailing is limited, especially in relation to managerial issues concerning its planning and implementation. Whilst there is a practitioner-oriented literature, manifested in what might be termed ‘How to…’ manuals (see Norsig 2011; Thompson 2012), this work is not strongly underpinned by academic theory....

In recent years, the ‘pop-up’ epithet has become synonymous with temporary events in a wide range of contexts, not least in relation to retailing where the growth rate of pop-up retailing is greater than that of the industry more generally. This chapter takes a more critical perspective on the pop-up concept, arguing that it seems to be becoming ub...

This chapter outlines the decision areas in the pre pop-up stage, which comprise a range of interconnected broad decision areas involved in developing the retail strategy mix of the specific pop-up activity, including Timing, Location, Store Atmospherics, Operating Practicalities and Marketing Communications.

Chapters 6–9 introduced the various stages of the process of planning and implementing pop-up activities—Strategic Objectives, Pre Pop-up, the Pop-up Experience, and Post Pop-up—highlighting the decision areas and actions relevant to each particular stage. This chapter revisits the outline framework presented in Fig. 5.1 and incorporates more detai...

The Pop-up Experience is when and where the major physical interactions and engagement between brands and consumers happen. The existing academic literature discusses various factors involved in the creation of customer experience. For example, Verhoef et al. (2009) posit a conceptual model of consumer experience creation in a retail context, which...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the background to the development of the World Towns’ Framework, developed in June 2016 at the inaugural World Towns Leadership Summit in Scotland. The paper also provides an academic underpinning to the four pillars of the agreement; a unique sense of identity and place, economy, leadership and citi...

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...

This special issue, themed ‘Consumption in and of Space and Place’, seeks to contribute to the development of a more nuanced understanding of these two concepts in the context of marketing research. As all consumption is in space and place, we hope that the papers featured in this special issue will contribute to the development of a multifaceted a...

‘Biosphere reserve’ is a United Nations (UN) designation stipulating that a region should attempt to follow the principles of sustainable development (SD). This paper adopts a stakeholder analysis framework to analyse the discourses of those tourism stakeholders who can actively affect SD in the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve (WBR), South Africa. Adop...

This paper investigates locational change in one street – King Street in Manchester, England – in an attempt to analyse broader retail trends and evaluate their implications. Analysis of Goad plans dating from the mid-1960s reveal King Street to be a microcosm of locational trends in retailing, such as the increasing prevalence of the multiple reta...

This article considers shopping malls as marketplace icons. We suggest that shopping malls can be regarded as a significant symbol of consumption in an age of late modernity, and highlight key aspects of their development. The role of the shopping mall as an agent of creative destruction, influencing the nature of the retail landscape (especially w...

To better understand the nature of temporary spatial clusters (TSC's) in industrial marketing settings, this conceptual paper first provides a theoretical synthesis of spatial understanding from the industrial marketing (IM) and economic geography (EG) fields, focusing particularly on Doreen Massey's work on relational space. This leads to a concep...

This paper aims to better understand urban partnerships through the nature of the interactions between their stakeholders. Following a review of approaches to stakeholder arrangements in urban partnerships, which draws on a variety of literatures, including strategic management, public administration, urban studies and geography, the paper presents...

Since its promulgation in 2004, the service-dominant (S-D) logic of marketing has become an influential perspective on the study of marketing. This chapter considers the nature of the place ‘product’ from the perspective of the S-D logic, where intangibility, exchange processes and relationships are central constructs. The chapter begins by outlini...

This paper considers the standardization-localization debate within the context of foreign luxury fashion retailers' internationalization into the emerging Chinese marketplace. Luxury retailers must balance a global-local dilemma, given the challenging trading conditions of a complex marketplace with low brand awareness and loyalty, alongside the n...

An important theme in place marketing, branding, and architectural literature – and practice – is the development of a strong, attractive image, through (primarily) visual representation of a location. But considering that today we live in cities that are digital hybrids, in which we are connected to a wider system of information, how is an ‘image...

This paper extends Mehrabian and Russell's Stimulus-Organism-Response framework to investigate the influence of two selected environmental variables – esthetic design and tenant variety – relating to an urban shopping area on consumers' emotional states and actual shopping responses. Results of a survey conducted in an Italian town center show that...

If places are increasingly regarded as brands in both the practice of place marketing and its associated theory, then the study of place names ( toponymy) arguably overlaps with theories and concepts involving brand naming within the marketing literature. This paper synthesises the diverse literature streams surrounding critical toponymy and brand...

This article considers the concept of place' in the context of place marketing. Following a discussion of the disciplinary antecedents of place marketing/branding, the article evaluates the concept of the place product', with specific reference to the construction of place narratives. In particular, contrasts are drawn between notions of materialit...

Purpose The purpose of t his study is to analyse the influence of three selected physical components of the urban environment – physical design, space layout and functionality, and store external appearance – on consumers' perceptions of service quality and behavioural intentions (desire to stay and repatronage intentions). Design/methodology/appr...

This paper outlines the development of research in the domain of service(s) marketing from its birth as an area of academic study in the 1960s/1970s to the current time. It identifies four phases of development. Phases 1–3 relate to the period before 2004, which focuses on the development of service(s) marketing. In Phase 4, a greater focus on the...

This paper argues that the town/city square, through its role as an urban node, has an important potential role in the creation of competitive place differentiation, especially in terms of the activities occurring therein (with particular reference to retail activities, such as periodic markets), which can, in turn, be considered as contributory el...

Communicating the positive experiential aspects of living and/or working in a particular locale is a critical element of place marketing activity. This has become an increasingly important element of place management, as organizations and groups (such as Town Centre Management schemes, Business Improvement Districts, local authorities, economic dev...

This paper examines how live music performed outdoors contributes to an overall urban servicescape capable of transforming perceptions of urban environments. A broad spectrum of outdoor musical performance is discussed ranging from major festivals to busking. The benefits of live music in urban space are highlighted in terms of benefits to the loca...

The paper provides the basis for a classification of organizational operant resources as seen from a customer perspective. It facilitates, particularly, research and further understanding of Foundational Premise 9 (FP9) of the service-dominant logic of marketing (i.e. all social and economic actors are resource integrators), and suggests areas for...

This article addresses the call for empirical work to contribute to the ongoing critique of service-dominant (S-D) logic, and for an assessment of its potential reach to practitioners. It examines the appropriateness of a model of the resource-based view of consumers in an organizational context — the British Library (BL) — and concludes that the m...

The concept of demarketing, originally introduced by Kotler and Levy (197150. Kotler , P. and Levy , S.J. 1971. Demarketing, yes, demarketing. Harvard Business Review, 49: 74–80. [Web of Science ®]View all references), can be used in the context of places to describe specific activities aimed at deflecting interest, visitors, and/or investment to...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of the current state of local shopping provision (LSP) in the UK, identifying and evaluating approaches to maintaining its vitality and viability. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review and synthesis of secondary data and published work. Findings In recent years, L...

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...

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This paper provides a detailed examination of the marketing of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. The focus of this case is built around two themes which encapsulate the complexities and challenges of marketing such a place entity: (1) the Wall’s existence as an historical monument of diminished materiality, and (2) its linearity and spatial diffu...

The emergence of a more reflexive and discerning customer has created inter alia a demand for ‘better’ food (i.e. quality and ‘authenticity’) in terms of sourcing, processing, and specialist distribution/retailing. As a consequence, the food production/distribution industry is under pressure to change many of its practices. One manifestation is the...

A recurring theme in the place marketing literature relates to the inadequacies of traditional theory in accommodating the context specificity of places. Such special characteristics of place marketing relate to the complexity of place 'products', the complexity of the organizational mechanisms for their marketing, and the ways in which branding th...

Purpose The purpose of this paper it to investigate possible uses of what Augé terms “non‐places”, with particular reference to transport infrastructure, in place marketing messages and activities. Design/methodology/approach Following a review of the relevant academic literature in the areas of place marketing and transport architecture, the pape...

This paper considers the role of historic architecture in the creation of distinctiveness in urban shopping destinations as part of a move towards a more experiential focus by urban management initiatives. Utilising the concept of the servicescape, the paper suggests that distinctiveness may not be apparent at ground floor level, given the consiste...

This paper is an exploration of bridges and their role in the representation of places and the development of place identity and image (in the sense that these latter two terms are understood in the corporate communications literature). The paper argues that bridges – and specifically those that have iconic status – can have a significant role to p...

Despite an increasing market presence, little research has been conducted regarding consumer-purchase behaviour of food products bearing ‘value-based’ labels. Moreover, as the effectiveness of these labelling formats is dependent upon consumer's knowledge of their existence, this paper aims to explore the relationship between knowledge, openness to...

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the use of cartography in the representation of places and recognise its potential importance in place marketing. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the relevant academic literature in the areas of cartography and place marketing, the paper considers the application of cartographic principl...

Purpose – This paper aims to consider the role of demarketing in the specific context of the marketing of places, and to introduce a typology of place demarketing and related place marketing activity. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the extant literature on place marketing and branding, place image and demarketing, the paper ou...

Purpose This paper seeks to investigate the use of town centre guides as a device for the representation of urban shopping destinations. Design/methodology/approach Following a review of the relevant academic literature in the areas of cartography and place marketing, the paper considers the use of graphic interface elements of scale, projection a...

Many commentators suggest that market and competitive dynamics threaten the very survival of small shops in the UK. In light of this, the research presented here reports the findings of a major study that investigates the relationship between market orientation and performance in small UK retailers through an empirical analysis of survey data. Find...

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the development, role and management of quarters in UK cities. Design/methodology/approach A case study based on Manchester's Northern Quarter, using secondary documentary materials and semi‐structured interviews with urban managers and residents of the Quarter. Findings The emergence of the Norther...

Performance measurement was introduced in the public sector to evaluate the impact of policy intervention. It has been heavily promoted to UK town centre managers in recent years by the government, retailers, and the Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM). Using data from interviews undertaken with UK town centre managers and business improve...

This paper is an expanded version of an earlier draft presented at the Spaces and Places: Exploring the "Flagship" Concept symposium at the London College of Communication, The University of the Arts, London. Full-text is available at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/journal/v2/n4/pdf/6000037a.pdf This paper investigates the role of planned shop...

Retailing is increasingly perceived as a means of (and indeed, a catalyst for), wider urban regeneration and its associated marketing activities. This paper considers the role of retailing in the marketing and branding of towns and cities. It argues that given the importance of retailing to urban economies, its role in urban marketing is a crucial...