Stephen Brown

• University of Ulster

In a pandemic-warped world, consumer culture is characterized by an atmosphere of fear, which is found in all sorts of unsettling spaces. This paper explores the "atmosfearic scaryscape" of a retail brand that bestrides the globe and, with the aid of a classic Gothic trope considers the fear-full, fun-filled feelings it evokes. Situated at the inte...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to stimulate researchers’ understanding of place in general and psychogeography in particular. Design/methodology/approach Melding hauntology, autoethnography, pseudo-psychogeography and object-orientated ontology, the provocation explores aspects of east Belfast’s “C.S. Lewis Trail”. Findings Psychogeography,...

Purpose Many have noted the role of metaphor in branding understanding. More than mere decorative frills, tropes play a fundamental, foundational part in the process. The purpose of this comment is to consider some of the branding's core conceits and classifies them for scholarly convenience. Design/methodology/approach Metaphors, first and foremo...

If ever a literary genre were made for consumer research, that literary genre is allegory. The word comes from the Ancient Greek allegoreo, meaning to speak of the other in the marketplace. Building on the pioneering research of Barbara B. Stern, this article considers the character and characteristics of allegorical storytelling. It does so by mea...

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...

One hundred years ago, Ernest Hemingway set sail for France, determined to make his name as a world-renowned writer. Conscripted by the Lost Generation literary crew, he cruised to everlasting fame and the kind of fortune few authors acquire. Neither of these was an accident, because Hemingway was a swashbuckling businessperson who intuitively knew...

This featured in a little book about place branding. Edited by John Simmons, it was published back in 2006.

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...

The horror, the horror. Be afraid, be very afraid. Don’t look now. I’m warning you. You’ll regret it. In academia, remember, no one can hear you scream. The horror, the horror. Be afraid, be very afraid. Don’t look now. I’m warning you. You’ll regret it. In academia, remember, no one can hear you.

Here's a little HBR case study, which was published back in 2008. Its title changed along the path to publication. Initially called "The Metaphor Wars", it morphed into "Don't Try This Offshore".

Essay collection on brand mascots

Draft of my Brands & Branding textbook.

A list of likely changes.

The end is nigh for Fintan Finnegan

Finto and Pozzo go on a road trip.

Fintan has an illuminating encounter with Dick de Kock, a pro-vice-chancellor.

Finto's the star of the show.

Wee Willie's watching you.

Finto hits the road with his boss

Fintan meets an old friend with a new name.

The warden threw a party at the county jail.

Finto gets a guided tour.

Fintan and Pat Watt chew the fat.

Fintan falls down on the job.

Finto goes to business school.

The tide begins to turn for Finto Finnegan.

The tide begins to turn for Finto Finnegan

Sending out an S.O.S.

Things go from bad to worse.

Finto has a friendly chat with Dr Alexander. As if.

Things start to go wrong for Finto and friends.

Finnegan's progress continues. However, there's a slight continuity error. I've decided to change the end of chapter eleven. Instead of 'In the Snood' our songbirds sing 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' and Dumbledick himself struts on stage wearing the full dress uniform of the Scots Guards (that's the one with the scarlet tunic and a bearskin as big as...

Fintan gets more than he bargained for.

Things can only get better for Fintan Finnegan. Or can they?

Sorry for the delay in posting Finto's latest escapades, but I've been preoccupied with assignments for my creative writing course. Plus, the closing date recently passed for the special issue of Marketing Theory that Finola Kerrigan and I are co-editing. More details on that another day.

This is another little piece I considered submitting for the Life Writing module of my master's course in Creative Writing. It's about a hugely successful, nineteenth-century Irish novelist -- the James Patterson of his day, practically -- who has been completely forgotten about. In the end, I decided to submit the 'Catastrophe Calls' essay. But Ca...

This is my assignment for the Life Writing module of my MA in Creative Writing degree. See what you think.

Fintan finds out where it all went wrong.

Here's the next slice of Finto Finnegan's saga. The lyric in the middle still needs a bit of work. But it'll do for the meantime.

Eternal schoolboy that I am, I've read several how-to-write-a-novel books. They tend to recommend writing 'pen portraits' of the principal characters before getting stuck into the novel itself. Idiot that I am, I haven't done so. And I'm finding that the characters are evolving, developing, taking shape as I write and get to know them better. Hence...

Here's the fifth chapter of my comic campus novel, Finnegan Begins Again. The 'Wee Willie' character is changing/evolving as I write (as I get to 'know' him better). So if there are any discrepancies between this chapter and the earlier ones, please forgive me.

Purpose: At a conference inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, this chapter makes the case for his shadowy American contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe. Methodology: Employing a comparative literary analysis, it contends that consumer culture theory (CCT) can learn more from Poe’s quothful raven than Andersen’s ugly duckling. Findings: Principally that Po...

Purpose This paper aims to use embodied theory to analyze consumer experience in a retail brandscape, Hollister Co. By taking a holistic, embodied approach, this study reveals how individual consumers interact with such retail environments in corporeal, instinctive and sensual ways. Design/methodology/approach The primary source of data was 97 sub...

Here's the next dose of Finto's scholarly saga.

Here's the next chapter from my comic campus novel, Finnegan Begins Again.

Here's the second chapter of my comedic campus novel-in-progress, 'If You Want to Get Ahead'.

I'm writing a comedic campus novel, Finnegan Begins Again, as part of my master's degree in Creative Writing. This short note explains the background to my 'uni-story'.

Here's the first chapter, There Was an Old Man Called.

Hogwarts, We Have a Problem Five… Minutes to go. Before we start, I should explain that Harry Potter is the greatest thing since sliced Scamander. As far as my family's concerned. We bought each book on the day of publication. We caught the movies on the opening weekend. We listened, enchanted, to Stephen Fry's audiobook recordings during intermina...

Hurry Up, Harry Five… Minutes to go. Before we start, I should explain that Harry Potter is the greatest thing since sliced Scamander. As far as my family's concerned. We bought each book on the day of publication. We caught the movies on the opening weekend. We listened, enchanted, to Stephen Fry's audiobook recordings during interminable family j...

This is the first piece I submitted to the creative writing workshop. It's a cut-down version of a chapter in my co-edited book on Brand Mascots (written under the pseudonym Modesty Forbids). The other students, and the instructor, assumed that it was autobiographical. In reality, it's a work of fiction from start to finish. I've never been to Afri...

Have you ever read George Orwell's essay, "Shooting an Elephant"? If not, think twice before you do. It is so brilliantly written it's unreadable. It horrifies and hypnotises simultaneously. Manifestly autobiographical, it recounts an incident from Orwell's time in the Burmese police force. A rogue elephant had run amok in one of the hill villages,...

Short Abstract Planners in the creative industries produce insights in the combined worlds of shared cultural and individual algorithmic consumer connections. The communication concepts that are destined to propagate in this experiential and digital space are meant to change behaviour in brand contexts. The ability to locate affect switches in orde...

In this collection of short, invited essays on the topic of marketing (as) rhetoric we deal with a variety of issues that demonstrate the centrality of rhetoric and rhetorical considerations to the pursuit of marketing scholarship, research and practice. Stephen Brown examines the enduring rhetorical power of the 4Ps; Chris Hackley argues for the c...

An American icon, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) is famed for his fiendish tales of fear and trembling, and premature burial. He is less well known as a businessperson, let alone a marketing thought leader. Poe, though, was not only an entrepreneurially inclined self-promoter of genius, but he practised prescient marketing principles that are pertinen...

I've been ruminating on the role of the 4Ps. Here are my preliminary thoughts. The title will probably change to something less "offensive" (if and when it gets published). See what you think.

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...

At a conference inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, this paper makes the case for his shadowy American contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe. It contends that CCT can learn more from Poe’s quothful raven than Andersen’s ugly duckling.

Reconsumption refers to the act of rereading books, rewatching movies, revisiting places and re-experiencing hedonic experiences more generally. In a retrospective consumer culture, replete with prequels, sequels, reboots and rereleases, there is considerable scope for expansion. This article reconsiders the reconsumption concept. Based on an in-de...

This is the final part of my "management thriller trilogy".

This is the second volume in my "management thriller trilogy".

Purpose Much has been written about metaphor in marketing. Much less has been written about simile and metonymy. It is widely assumed that they are types of metaphor. Some literary theorists see them as significantly different things. If this is the case, then there are implications for marketing theory and thought. Design/methodology/approach In...

Purpose This paper aims to explore brand rhythm in a lyrical analysis. It aims to provide insights into the appropriation of temporal meaning in material, collective and individual contexts. Design/methodology/approach The design offers a structured advance in lyrical qualitative research and the complementary third alternative to story and drama...

High-Rise by J.G. Ballard intriguingly contains a pivotal character named Dr. Robert Laing, surely an allusion to the then influential psychiatric writer, Dr. R.D. Laing. Re-reading Ballard's classic text through the prism of Laing’s theories, with further explication of the role of flat affect via Lauren Berlant, this article presents a new interp...

Much has been written about myth and the marketplace. Consumer research has added immeasurably to academics' appreciation of the myths that inhere in fabulous flagship stores and experiential retailing more generally. Studies of consumer mythopoeia, however, have tended to muffle the martial side of retailing, the heroic struggles that some custome...

Stories, some say, are the coin of the marketing realm. Telling stories sells stuff, or so the story goes. The inexorable rise of narrative, however, raises questions about the veracity of the yarns marketers weave so artfully. In an academic discipline committed to integrity, probity and truth with a capital T, what are we to do with storytellers...

Chapter in Sherry and Fischer book Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory

Purpose The aim of this overview is to reflect on the family resemblances between psychogeography and marketing history. Design/methodology/approach The paper is informally predicated on the perspectives and philosophies of literary theory in general and New Historicism in particular. Findings Using exemplar excerpts from salient published works,...

This article introduces style as the behavioural determinant to represent order, clarity and the enchainement of ideas as it inscribes itself into a brand. It proposes to conceptualise the relationship between consumer behaviour and idea behaviour, and advances style differentiation as the fundamental poetic function of the brand, in an increasingl...

The theme park, some say, is the quintessence of consumer society and roller-coasters, others maintain, are its foremost symbol and signifier. True or not, exaggerated or otherwise, there is no doubting theme parks’ iconicity – Disneyland above all – nor their continuing ability to “amuse the million”, academicians among them. Although the scholarl...