The search for self-identity is a key determinant of postmodern consumption so it is essential for marketers to understand the concept and dynamics of self, the symbolic meaning of goods and the role played by brands. Building from the concept of advertising literacy, this paper outlines a model of the dialectical relationship between self-identity and social-identity, the domains of self-symbolism and social-symbolism, and the process of the mediated experience of advertising and the lived experience of products/ services. Implications for brand strategy are discussed in relation to trust, deep meaning and the possibilities for mass-market brands to have personal meaning for the individual.

Through pleasure, a foundational concept in consumer behavior, we offer an analysis of the history, development, and experience of clubbing, the postcursor of rave and the contextual focus of this article. On the basis of a 5-year study primarily involving participant observation and interviewing, we present an analysis of how the clubbing experience is cocreated by promoters, DJs, and clubbers themselves. We develop and demonstrate a biosocial conceptualization of pleasure and show how the shared experience of music and dance, the organization of space, and the effects of the drug ecstasy combine to produce a highly sought-after, calculated suspension of the rules and norms of everyday life. Further, we suggest that the club, as well as the pleasurable practices and experiences that it supports, has become a site of contained illegality. Here, the illicit, subversive practices of rave have now become shepherded and channeled into more predictable, manageable, and regulated environments facilitated by the "knowing wink" of club promoters, police, and state authorities. Implications for consumer research are discussed. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Rave; Dance Culture; Consumer Behaviour; Postmodernism; Identity; Popular Culture; ; Neo-tribesPopular music is one of the most ubiquitous forms of contemporary culture. This paper looks at the phenomenon known as rave or dance culture in Britain. It examines the nature of the consumer experience at a dance club through the use of a two stage methodology. Based on observations and the collection of phenomenological data, the findings suggest that the experience is linked to a series of behaviours, which are related to fragmentation and identity. These include narcissistic identity, the emergence of new communities, the need for escape, engagement and prolonged hedonism. The paper examines these concepts in relation to postmodern consumption. In particular, an evaluation of postmodern theory and its focus on fragmentation and the project of the self is offered, by arguing for a return to "community"

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If marketing is truly the "ultimate social practice of postmodern consumer culture" (Firat, 1993) then it carries the heavy burden of "determining the conditions and meanings of life for the future" (Firat and Venkatesh, 1993). Certainly, social theory is now focusing on consumption as playing a central role in the way the social world is constructed, and it can be argued that marketing is too important just to be left to marketers as it plays a "key role in giving meaning to life through consumption" (van Raaij, 1993). Marketing has been criticized from within as being a "technique" without moral regard for the consequences of its actions, and there is no shortage of critics of its most public face: advertising. This paper aims at identifying some of the issues raised by postmodern and poststructuralist accounts of consumption. In particular, it is argued that consumption can be conceptualized from cultural, social and psychological perspectives as being a prime site for the negotiation of conflicting themes of freedom and control. It is proposed here that in postmodernity the consumption of symbolic meaning, particularly through the use of advertising as a cultural commodity, provides the individual with the opportunity to construct, maintain and communicate identity and social meanings. This use of consumption as a resource for meaning creation and social transactions is a process that involves the making of choices that are sufficiently important to be considered as existential. This is not an attempt at rehabilitating the practice of marketing, but is intended to demonstrate that the consumer is far from being a passive victim but is an active agent in the construction of meaning. In part this can be seen as a response to Ölander's call for "consumer research for the consumer's sake" (Ölander, 1993), but also as providing theoretical underpinning for concepts such as "advertising literacy" (Ritson and Elliott, 1995a) which attempt to build new socially located and meaning-based-models of advertising. Exploring some consumption dialecticsAs a heuristic device to help unpack some of the complexity of the consumption experience, five dialectics will be explored and their (sometimes polar) tensions used as analytical frames for reviewing competing discourses on the meanings of consumption: