ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802
This Brand Saved My Life! a Phenomenological Approach to Brand Fanatics’ Lives
bernard cova, euromed management marseille france
gregorio fuschillo, euromed management marseille france
Fanaticism is a growing consumption phenomenon. It is commonly defined as a detrimental and destructive phenomenon in consumer
research. This paper shows the existence of the constructive side of fanatical consumption. It highlights how consumer lives have been
‘saved’ thanks to the brand itself.
[to cite]:
bernard cova and gregorio fuschillo (2013) ,"This Brand Saved My Life! a Phenomenological Approach to Brand Fanatics’
Lives", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 10, eds. Gert Cornelissen, Elena Reutskaja, and Ana
Valenzuela, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 212-213.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1013948/volumes/v10e/E-10
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/.
This Brand Saved My Life! A Phenomenological Approach to Brand Fanatics’ Lives
Bernard Cova, Euromed Management Marseille France*
Gregorio Fuschillo, Euromed Management Marseille France*
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
In consumer research, studies on fanaticism/fanatics have gone
through three distinct phases of development. A first phase of introduction or exploration in the late 1980’s is characterized by the appearance of the phenomenon. Holbrook (1987) and Lehmann (1987)
were the first to explore the topic through an introspective analysis
– the first one an avid consumer of jazz music, the other devoted to
extended weightlifting. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s a whole
school of study (known as studies on market cultures; Arnould and
Thompson, 2005), grew. This area of study focuses on the analysis
of social formations generally known as subcultures of consumption,
brand communities and consumer tribes and on the practices developed among the members (Cova et al., 2007). During this period, fanaticism remained in the background, silently binding to the various
cultures of consumption, without rising as a central theme. The widespread presence of hard-core fans in these studies is proof that such
a link exists. This is the incubation or latency stage, where fanaticism is enriched with additional elements - the collective dimension
(or fandom), identity and social discrimination. During the 2000’s, a
whole series of studies were undertaken which aimed at putting the
issue of fanaticism as a central theme in the debate on consumption.
In this phase, which we call the statement phase, the attention of researchers is focused on the definition of fanaticism/fanatics and their
characteristics (Chung et al., 2008; Redden and Steiner, 2000; Smith
et al., 2007; Thorne and Bruner, 2006).
However, these contributions fail in providing the uniqueness of
the phenomenon of brand fanaticism. They do not clearly distinguish
fanaticism from other relational concepts which share strong resemblance with it i.e. love, loyalty, and devotion. Consequently, an important void is left in our understanding of the relational characteristics of
fanaticism and it differs from other seemingly related concepts.
Our research is conducted in a naturalistic setting (Lincoln and
Guba, 1985) through participant observation. The collection of life
stories can be considered the most appropriate approach to the indepth understanding of the life experiences of consumers as they
have influenced who consumers are today (Atkinson, 1998). In our
work, life stories are collected in the form of phenomenological interviews (Thompson et al., 1989). Phenomenological interviews lead
informants through their experiences with a specific brand throughout their lifetime since their first contact with the brand. Connecting
those experiences enable the emergence of a set of thematic patterns
providing the overall context of the consumer’s life-world. “The goal
of phenomenological investigation is to describe experience in lived
rather than conceptually abstract terms” (Thompson et al., 1989, p.
140). In addition, we held an outside view interviewing significant
others in order to collect data on the relevant micro-social environment of our main informants. Photo-elicitation (Schroeder, 2006)
has been an additional technique through which we try to enrich our
data collection. It has been conducted with informants, sometimes
together with their significant others, using personal book pictures in
which the object/brand plays an important role. The data collection
has been conducted over the last 9 months and it is still ongoing.
For the data analysis we use the hermeneutic approach (Thompson,
1997). We approach and present our five persons/cases adopting the
case study format (Thompson et al., 1990).
Our field of research is composed of five persons/cases who
have been developing an exclusive relationship with a specific brand
during a large part of their life. The brands concerned are: Apple,
Vespa, Playmobil, Nirvana, and Walt Disney. Because of the social
stigma affecting the word ‘fanatic’, it is difficult to access people.
The five persons/cases mentioned above have been identified and selected thanks to their significant others who have recognized those
people as more than simple fans, even fanatics. Furthermore, all the
persons/cases are ready to define themselves as more than fans but
they are not comfortable at all – except Amy (Walt Disney) – with
the fanatic label.
Previous research agrees with the idea that fanaticism in consumption is a detrimental phenomenon for consumers and that fanatics are dysfunctional consumers. Thorne and Bruner (2006) associate fanatics with obsessive and compulsive behavior, “the literature
in the field has generally focused on behavior as it express itself
through obsessive or compulsive activities, actions that are viewed
here as characteristic of only a subset of fans (latter referred to as
the dysfunctional fan)” (p. 52). Redden and Steiner (2000, p. 330)
define consumer fanatics as “destructive and often deadly instincts
that create a pathological disjunction among fanatics’ state of mind,
their behavior and their goals. Their thinking, behavior and goals
not only not support each other, but also sometimes actively work
against each other illogically and counterproductively (destructively)”. Chung et al. (2009) go further in that direction exploring the
“dark side” of consumer fanaticism.
On the contrary, our first findings show the bright side of consumer fanaticism. One of the most recurrent themes is “to save one’s
life”. Here, fanaticism for a brand is lived by consumers as the way
through which their own life has been “saved” thanks to the brand.
Contrary to the common idea surrounding fanaticism and its detrimental effects, data from the field highlights the constructive power
for the fanatic consumer. For example, Olivier states that “Playmobil
saved my life”: He started his passion when he was a child. He is used
to say ‘Playmobil was born in ’74, me in ’76, we can say we are born
together’. He was a marginalized little boy during his childhood,
Playmobil was his magic, ideal, perfect world ‘where everyone was
happy’. Once he is adult he gets his chance, his passion for Playmobil is expensive and he needs money to buy new toys. Thanks to his
partner he starts a little company – Kiklobil (from “Kliki” the ancient
name of the Playmobil toys) – in which Olivier buys old Playmobil
toys, restoring and selling them. The business is an economic and
media success. That’s Olivier’s revenge. Another example is Robert
who states that “Vespa saved me”: he started his passion when he
was a child thanks to his uncle who died in a young age and left his
Vespa to Robert as a legacy. He is used to say “I was born, I was
baptized in Vespa water”. In the adulthood, after an accident, he had
to entirely reorganize his life and he did it with Vespa. In his opinion
Vespa “is therapeutic for both the body and the mind”.
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