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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

Humankind is a storytelling animal. Everyone loves good stories, well told. Telling tales is central to communicating successfully with customers, yet marketing academics seem to have forgotten this fact. The stories we tell, in our papers, books and learned journals, are often less than...

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...

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...

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...

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...