Shifting personal brandscapes: young sojourners’ consumer acculturation

This thesis explores additional acculturation agents and forces for young sojourners. In particular, this research focuses on how individual sojourners’ consumer-brand relationships and personal brandscapes shift as result of temporary mobility. In addition, the impacts of the individual’s sojourn on home and host others through gifting and the shared production and consumption of foods is investigated. Although consumer researchers have explored consumer socialisation and consumer-brand relationships intensively, the potential of these findings to inform consumer acculturation research has not been fully explored. A review of the literature reveals a gap with regard to how individuals’ brand consumption and personal brandscapes are affected in temporary global mobility. To address this gap, this thesis has adopted a qualitative approach in the form of longitudinal research. In-depth interviews were conducted over a period of twenty months prior to, during and post-return of young consumers’ temporary sojourns. Participant observation in the form of shopping with consumers and a netnography permitted the triangulation of data which was hermeneutically analysed. This analysis revealed that despite globalisation, differences do exist between home and host brandscapes, which can trigger the reliance on familiar home brands for pragmatic as well as emotional reasons. However, varying degrees of temporary relationships with locally available brands or local instantiations of global brands are also evident. The gifting of foods and other mundane products between sojourners and home and host others allows for the representation of different selves and for the creation, establishment, maintenance and modification of social bonds during and post sojourn. The exchange of branded products thereby lets those mundane items act as material acculturation agents. The findings further show that shared production and consumption of foods (mundane and extraordinary, home and host) acts as acculturation force which aids intercultural exchange and multicultural adaptation between sojourner, home and host others and other sojourners. This thesis concludes that brands can act as acculturation agents and the sharing of mundane consumption and production as an acculturation force in temporary sojourns.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Marketing

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Brosius, Nina

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Fernandez, K
• Lang, B

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/28129

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/28129