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As shoppers, what factors influence our decision to purchase an object or service? Why do we chose one product over another? How do we attribute value as part of the shopping experience?
The theme of 'serving' the customer and customer satisfaction is central to every formulation of the marketing concept, yet few books attenpt to define and analyse exactly what it is that consumers want. In this provocative collection of essays, Morris Holbrook brings together a team of the top US and European scholars to discuss an issue of great importance to the study of marketing and consumer behaviour.
This ground-breaking, interdisciplinary book provides an innovative framework for the study of consumer value which is used to critically examine the nature and type of value that consumers derive from the consumption experience - effiency, excellence, status, esteem, play, aesthetics, ethics, spirituality.
Guaranteed to provoke debate and controversy, this is a courageous, individualistic and idiosyncratic book which should appeal to students of marketing, consumer behaviour, cultural studies and consumption studies.
List of contents
Introduction to consumer value, 1 The value of time in the context of waiting and delays, 2 Value as excellence in the consumption experience, 3 The value of status and the status of value, 4 Possessions, materialism, and other-directedness in the expression of self, 5 The dangers and opportunities of playful consumption, 6 Aesthetic value: beauty in art and fashion, 7 Ethics and the Typology of Consumer Value, 8 Devaluing value: the apophatic ethic and the spirit of postmodern consumption, Conclusions
About the author
Morris Holbrook
Summary
Consumer Value is one of the few books that attempts to define and analyse exactly what consumers want. By setting down a new and innovative framework for the concept of 'value' it is as provocative as it is rigorous.
