Susan Fournier

TL;DR: The authors argue for the validity of the relationship proposition in the consumer-brand context, including a debate as to the legitimacy of the brand as an active relationship partner and empirical support for the phenomenological significance of consumer-Brand bonds.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for the validity of the relationship proposition in the consumer-brand context, including a debate as to the legitimacy of the brand as an active relationship partner and empirical support for the phenomenological significance of consumerbrand bonds.

TL;DR: In this paper, a longitudinal field experiment examined the evolution of consumer-brand relationships and found that relationships with sincere brands deepened over time in line with friendship templates, and relationships with exciting brands evinced a trajectory characteristic of short-lived flings.

Abstract: Although technological products are unavoidable in contemporary life, studies focusing on them in the consumer behavior field have been few and narrow. In this article, we investigate consumers' perspectives, meanings, and experiences in relation to a range of technological products, emphasizing lengthy and repeated interviews with 29 households, including a set of first-time owners. We draw on literatures spanning from technology, paradox, and postmodernism to clinical and social psychology, and combine them with data collection and analysis in the spirit of grounded theory. The outcome is a new conceptual framework on the paradoxes of technological products and their influences on emotional reactions and behavioral coping strategies. We discuss the findings in terms of implications for theories of technology, innovation diffusion, and human coping, and an expanded role for the paradox construct in consumer research.

TL;DR: To prevent its premature death, marketers need to take the time to figure out how and why they are undermining their own best efforts, as well as how they can get things back on track.