Self-esteem is an important motivational drive for consumption involving both the acceptance and rejection/avoidance of symbolic goods. This paper examines the relationship between self-esteem and the rejection of goods and brands within the context of fashion consumption by young professionals. A conceptualisation which accounts for consumers' use of various strategies in their efforts to maintain or enhance their self-esteem is suggested. A small-scale exploratory study is used to examine first, how consumers invest products and brands with negative symbolic meanings; and second, how this leads consumers to reject products and brands. The importance of understanding negative symbolic consumption when marketing high involvement products such as fashion goods is identified; and the implications for fashion retailers and marketing management are discussed.

Rejection is at the heart of anti-consumption and is therefore key to some of the central relationships in symbolic consumption. However, researchers find rejection difficult to study because of the lack of material traces. This article draws on earlier frameworks to develop a new integrated and expanded conceptualization in order to achieve a more nuanced view of how rejection operates within symbolic consumption; and also to initiate research directions for investigating and theorizing rejection in anti-consumption. The focus on anti-consumption incorporates the interaction between avoidance, aversion and abandonment, and the relationship between distastes and the undesired self (mediated by the marketing, social and individual environments). A series of interrelationships and illustrations suggest how the expanded conceptualization is useful for theorizing and investigating anti-consumption. Crown

A major contemporary challenge facing governments and health professionals is that of promoting sustainable and healthy approaches to alcohol consumption in a context where excessive alcohol consumption is the dominant trend [Plant M., Plant M., Binge Britain: the need for courage. Alcoholis 2006; 25, 3: 1.]. This article reports the results of a qualitative study examining the experiences of Higher Education students in the United Kingdom who are identifiable as anti-consumers because of their opposition to the alcohol norms that predominate. The article focuses on how these students deal with the challenges and consequences that can arise from resisting the prevailing norms and practices. This article demonstrates that existing frameworks and categorizations in the contexts of anti-consumption, product and brand avoidance and coping are capable of providing useful theoretical tools for the examination of anti-consumption within the social marketing context. The article identifies some of the implicit tensions of being an anti-consumer in an environment of excessive consumption and provides examples of how consumers seek to manage these tensions. The use of the above theoretical perspectives can usefully inform policy that aims to promote sensible drinking among young people and students in particular.

Purpose-We discuss the use of creative qualitative techniques for research studies focusing on young participants and encourage the development of what we term a "child-centric" approach. We hope that by sharing our experiences we can help move forward the discussion of child-centric approaches and methods, providing a useful starting point for researchers considering conducting qualitative research with children, and food for thought for those experienced at researching the lives of young consumers. Design/methodology/approach-We begin our paper with a general overview of approaches to childhood as a social category, discuss methodological approaches to research with children and review the literature that informed our methodological approach. In the second part of the paper we focus on an empirical investigation, outlining a methodology with which we sought to embrace children's active participation. Our qualitative approach incorporates the following: quasi-ethnographic methods; interviews; projective techniques and photography. Findings-It is suggested that by shifting our research focus from a top-down perspective into one that embraces childhood as a culture in its own right, we can greet children within their own language, using terminology they understand, and ultimately providing the context for a more fruitful and exciting data collection process. Our research design was effective in providing children with a voice with which to relate their experiences, and in this way we saw ourselves as facilitators, letting children tell us their own story in their own words. Originality/value-We argue that it is only by recognising and taking on board some of the recommendations that have emerged from the debate concerning research with children that consumer researchers will discover a fuller appreciation of the participants we seek to understand. Lessons from this approach can also be fruitfully used to enhance the experiences of research involving participants other than children who should also benefit from more participant-centred research designs.

No abstract