Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing: Drama ... · Extending the dramaturgical...

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ACADEMIC PAPERS Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing: Drama structure, drama interaction and drama content in shopping experiences Received in revised form. Risto Moisio is a doctoral student of marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Eric J. Arnould is E. J. Faulkner College Professor of Agribusiness & Marketing and CBA Agribusiness Program Interim Director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA. His recent research investigates consumer rituals, household consumption behaviour, postmodern motivation, magical consumption, service relationships, West African marketing channels and the uses of qualitative data. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Consumer Research. Abstract The dramaturgical framework in marketing provides a rich theoretical framework for understanding shopping experiences. The purpose of this paper is to extend the current dramaturgical framework on shopping experiences by distinguishing between drama structure, drama interaction and drama content. The extended dramaturgical framework provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ways in which cultural resources, active consumer agency and formal components of shopping performances contribute to shopping experiences. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION Marketing researchers use the term ‘dramaturgical’ to refer to marketers’ impression of management efforts (Goffman, 1959) and to the idea that shopping environments can be construed as theatres (Grove and Fisk, 1992). Grove and Fisk (1992: 455–456) characterised services as drama: ‘insofar as it is a discourse involving articulation, definition and interaction ... concerned with the tactics and strategies employed by people to create and sustain desirable impressions before an audience’. Grove and Fisk (1992) also construed shopping environments to be theatrical stages involving a setting, actors, an audience and the performance. Marketing researchers used the dramaturgical framework to analyse consumer– product (Deighton, 1992), consumer– consumer (Gorn, 2002), as well as consumer–marketer encounters (John, 1996). Researchers have also found the dramaturgical framework useful for analysing how performances should be organised (John, 1996), and how shopping performances may facilitate Risto Moisio Department of Marketing, 310 College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, P. O. Box 880492, Lincoln, NE 68588- 0492, USA Tel: þ(402) 472 2316 Fax: þ(402) 472 9777 e-mail: risto@ unlserve.unl.edu Keywords: Drama, shopping, servicescapes, experiences, qualitative 246 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246 – 256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817

Transcript of Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing: Drama ... · Extending the dramaturgical...

ACADEMIC PAPERS

Extending the dramaturgicalframework in marketing: Dramastructure, drama interaction anddrama content in shoppingexperiencesReceived in revised form.

Risto Moisiois a doctoral student of marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Eric J. Arnouldis E. J. Faulkner College Professor of Agribusiness & Marketing and CBA Agribusiness

Program Interim Director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA.

His recent research investigates consumer rituals, household consumption behaviour,

postmodern motivation, magical consumption, service relationships, West African

marketing channels and the uses of qualitative data. He is Associate Editor of the Journal

of Consumer Research.

AbstractThe dramaturgical framework in marketing provides a rich theoretical framework forunderstanding shopping experiences. The purpose of this paper is to extend the currentdramaturgical framework on shopping experiences by distinguishing between drama structure,drama interaction and drama content. The extended dramaturgical framework provides a morecomprehensive understanding of the ways in which cultural resources, active consumeragency and formal components of shopping performances contribute to shopping experiences.Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

Marketing researchers use the term

‘dramaturgical’ to refer to marketers’

impression of management efforts

(Goffman, 1959) and to the idea that

shopping environments can be

construed as theatres (Grove and Fisk,

1992). Grove and Fisk (1992: 455–456)

characterised services as drama: ‘insofar

as it is a discourse involving articulation,

definition and interaction . . . concerned

with the tactics and strategies employed

by people to create and sustain desirable

impressions before an audience’. Grove

and Fisk (1992) also construed shopping

environments to be theatrical stages

involving a setting, actors, an audience

and the performance. Marketing

researchers used the dramaturgical

framework to analyse consumer–

product (Deighton, 1992), consumer–

consumer (Gorn, 2002), as well as

consumer–marketer encounters (John,

1996). Researchers have also found the

dramaturgical framework useful for

analysing how performances should be

organised (John, 1996), and how

shopping performances may facilitate

Risto MoisioDepartment ofMarketing, 310College of BusinessAdministration,University ofNebraska-Lincoln,P. O. Box 880492,Lincoln, NE 68588-0492, USATel: þ(402) 472 2316Fax: þ(402) 472 9777e-mail: [email protected]

Keywords:

Drama, shopping,

servicescapes,

experiences,

qualitative

246 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817

consumer satisfaction (Deighton, 1992).

Some have used the dramaturgical

framework to understand how shopping

performances create either positive

(Clark and Salaman, 1998) or negative

customer value (Grayson, 1998).

Despite these contributions, the

dramaturgical framework fails to

provide much insight into the role of

interactive (eg McGrath and Otnes, 1995)

and co-constructive marketer–consumer

practices in service production and

delivery (eg Rodie and Kleine, 2000).

Work on the dramaturgical framework

generally represents consumers as

passive agents who embrace various

behavioural rules and expectations

under the marketer’s authority (Grove

and Fisk, 1992). Furthermore, the

dramaturgical framework provides little

conceptual help in analysing drama

content (Stern, 1990). This should be of

concern to marketers since successful

dramas are always stories about

something (Stern, 1996). Dramas

communicate aspects of everyday life in

a meaningful form by resorting to

convention (Turner, 1986). Hence,

dramas use selective cultural resources

that cast the performance as meaningful.

Drama is a cultural vehicle through

which the actors, the plot and

performances can be organised to

facilitate various experiences (Boller,

1990).

To push the dramaturgical framework

further, this paper introduces conceptual

distinctions between drama structure,

drama interaction and drama content.

These conceptual distinctions enable

marketing researchers to distinguish

between the formal components of

drama (drama structure), the narrative

resources that organise performances in

shopping contexts (drama content) and

the active roles that consumers can take

in drama performances (drama

interaction). The extended

dramaturgical framework incorporates

distinctions between drama structure,

drama interaction and drama content

and offers marketing researchers and

managers a more comprehensive

understanding of the ways in which

cultural resources, active consumer

agency and formal components of

shopping performances contribute to

shopping experiences.

EXTENDING THE DRAMATURGICAL

FRAMEWORK

This paper distinguishes between drama

structure, drama interaction and drama

content. The term drama structure refers to

the set of theatrical components: setting,

actors/audience and performance, or the

formal components of drama (Grove and

Fisk, 1992). The concept of drama

structure does not address adequately

the active role of the consumer in drama

performances, however. In order to

capture this role in staging shopping

experiences, this paper builds upon

Firat’s (1977) notion of the human

involvement dimension in consumption

and defines drama interaction as the level

of consumer involvement or activity,

ranging from active to passive, that can

shape, redirect and structure the

unfolding of the drama performance.

The active role of drama interaction

exemplifies drama performances that

incorporate active consumers’ agency

and assimilate their spontaneous actions

into the unfolding of the drama

performance, such as those seen in

studies of brand communities (eg Muniz

and O’Guinn, 2001). The passive role of

the human involvement dimension can

be seen in studies that treat the consumer

as a managed component of service

delivery supporting the prevailing script

(Kellogg et al., 1997; Rodie and Kleine,

2000), or as an ‘audience’ rather than as

‘actors’ who have the ability to shape the

unfolding performance (Grove et al.,

1998). Few treat consumers as

participants in performances, with roles

ranging from a passive, segregated

audience to an audience that is involved

and integrated into the performance

(Deighton, 1992).

To provide a conceptual vehicle for

understanding the cultural resources

Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817 247

that organise performances into

meaningful wholes, this paper offers the

drama content concept. Drama content

refers to the cultural resources that

‘infuse . . . activity with signs which

dramatically highlight and portray

confirmatory facts that might otherwise

remain unapparent or obscure’

(Goffman, 1959: 30). Drama content

provides an organising resource that

integrates meanings, the plot and the

characters in order to cohere and

facilitate enriched shopping experiences.

This paper distinguishes between two

basic types of related cultural resources:

cultural self and cultural other.

Cultural-self-related resources

originate from connections to the cultural

self and in-group community (Arnould

and Price, 2000). Cultural-self-related

dramas capitalise on narrative resources

related to the cultural self (ie imagery,

ideas, myths, events, places and people

related to the culture of production),

examples of which are the National

Western Stock Show (Penaloza, 2000),

Thanksgiving celebrations (Wallendorf

and Arnould, 1991), or the Florida

Classic (Stamps and Arnould, 1998).

Drama content can also capitalise on

resources from the cultural other (ie

imagery, ideas, myths, events, places and

people related to foreign countries).

While research on tourist experiences

(Costa, 1997), branding (Batra et al., 2000),

advertising (O’Barr, 1994), third-world

souvenirs (Jamison, 1999) and exotic

food consumption (May, 1996) has noted

the role of cultural otherness as a cultural

resource, marketing researchers have not

addressed the role of cultural otherness

in shopping environments. This paper

focuses on elaborating how shopping

experiences can capitalise on cultural-

other-related resources and how they

contribute to drama content.

METHOD

The site of this study was a small-size

European grocery store in a small

midwestern town in the USA. This

grocery store’s market positioning

strategy made it suitable for the study:

the grocery store portrayed itself as

specialising in ‘European’ food products,

suggesting that it could be a site for

cultural-other-focused drama. Its

business model built on the putative

appeal of cultural otherness, specifically

European, Anglo-French cultural

otherness. In addition, the small size of

the grocery store induced spatial

proximity between the participants and

facilitated interaction between them

(Price et al., 1995), which made the

grocery store a suitable site for

investigating drama interaction in situ.

The research used a market-oriented

ethnographic design (Arnould and

Wallendorf, 1994), using approximately

ten hours of participant observation,

more than 100 photographs and two

interviews.

FINDINGS

Drama structure: The components of

the theatrical performance

Setting

The setting component of the drama

structure (Grove and Fisk, 1992) refers to

the physical environment in which the

drama unfolds or its substantive staging.

The setting of this study represents a type

of servicescape termed ‘marketscape’

(Kozinets et al., 2002; Sherry, 1998),

defined through the references it makes

to foreign places and cultures. For

instance, chalkboards located outside the

grocery store referred to foreign

countries such as Britain, Italy, France,

Japan and the Netherlands and used

foreign terms (see Figure 1). The

chalkboards described ‘European’

everyday products, a number of which

had a foreign spelling, used foreign

words, or represented products

otherwise alien to everyday US meals

and cuisine. These verbal and symbolic

references on the chalkboard, the

windows and the door of the grocery

store represent ‘spatial brackets’

(Goffman, 1974): they set the grocery

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store apart from its midwestern cultural

context. In addition, these spatial

brackets help to build ‘dramatic

anticipation’ (Durgee, 1988) by

providing the consumer with the

expectation that they can experience

culturally-other culinary experiences in

the grocery store as well as encounter the

‘exotic’ cultural other.

Inside the grocery store, the

consumers’ exposure to cultural

otherness was intensified. The grocery

store was full of cultural artefacts,

posters and other merchandising that

linked it to foreign places (see Figure 2).

As illustrated in the following excerpt

from the field notes, the management

had tagged and symbolically marked the

foreign origin of the displayed products

using small pieces of blue paper:

‘‘‘Ritter sport bars, from Germany $2.25 eachall varieties’’ with small varieties depicted insmall letters . . .The second shelf contains threebig glass jars with blue papers glued on the side‘‘catllebaut baking choc. BittersweetChocolate’’ with similar descriptions for theremaining two jars. Next to them is located ametallic basket filled with small-sized chocolatebars with a blue paper taped on top of thehandle: ‘‘Sugar-Free Chocolate Bars fromIsrael $1.50’’.’ (Field notes, 10-26-02)

These small pieces of blue paper

represent what MacCannell (1999) called

‘truth markers’, or signs that cement a

bond between the consumer and the

attraction. The truth markers

communicate to the consumers that the

grocery store is a repository of genuine

cultural otherness and help to imbue the

setting with meanings of cultural

otherness. In addition, French music

played in the store made the cultural

other present:

‘anything but country music. Um, becausethat’s not [laughs] the type of thing you wouldplay in a European [grocery] . . .We play a lotof French music. Um, a lot of modern Frenchmusic. Like um, I, this band I’ve heard of, thatmy French teacher in high school used to playfor me called Louisa Attach . . .Or older Frenchmusic like Eddie Piaf . . . some Italian . . . It’sstill a store in the United States, but we want tonot portray . . . like for instance playingcountry music again would not be a good thingto, to do in this store. Just to keep it as far fromlike American type of thing as possible.’(Interview, W-F-20s)

The music played in the grocery store

asserted by negation the non-North

American character of the setting (Wilk,

1997). The managing owner and the

employee deemed this practice of

playing foreign music important. In fact,

according to the younger employee,

playing ‘country music’ in the grocery

store would have been so out of line that

the managing owner would have

reprimanded her for such actions,

actions that can be described according

Figure 1: Photograph of the exterior of the grocery store

Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817 249

to Goffman (1974) as being ‘out of frame’.

Following McCracken (1986), the music

can be interpreted as a sign-vehicle that

moves meaning from the cultural

category of cultural otherness to the

setting and the props it contains.

Actors/audience

The second component of the drama

structure comprised the grocery store’s

actors and audience (Grove and Fisk,

1992). In this grocery store, the

management and part-time employees

represent ‘actors’, while the ‘regulars’,

gift shoppers and occasional shoppers

represent the ‘audience’. With regard to

the actors, employees have multicultural

competence acquired through foreign

travel, stays abroad and knowledge of

foreign languages. Their role was to be

competent representatives of the cultural

other who provided audience members

with images and experiences of the

cultural other. This significance of the

role-related expectations (Solomon et al.,

1985) could be seen in the fact that the

managing owner took care to provide

employees with training that made them

competent actors in their roles.

‘whenever an employee works by themselvesthe next day, or if they come in and I leave, Ialways leave a list of instructions of things thatneed to be done that day. But when I hiresomebody new, they usually work with me for awhile just to see how I talk to people. That’s why‘‘Noelle’’ is so good, because she always works

with me. So she’s always watching me. And sheknows how I talk to people. But I try to educatemy employees on our products. They get,um . . . 20 dollars worth of free food everymonth, so they can take whatever they wantand try it out at home. And then I quiz themand say you know, what did this taste like? Didyou like it? Why did you like it? Oh, you didn’tlike it. Why didn’t you like it? Okay. So youdidn’t like it, but a customer comes in and theyask you about it. How are you going to describeit so that it still sounds like it has some sort ofgood quality to it?’. (Interview, W-F-30s)

When employees did not possess the

necessary knowledge of the cultural

other, they needed to be educated. Both

the managing owner and the audience of

the grocery store expected them to

possess intimate familiarity with the

cultural other. For their part, the

consumer audience had to possess

certain cultural skills to participate in the

performance. The manager depicted the

regulars as consumers who came from

the upper echelons of the Midwestern

community.

‘It’s not one cookie cutter person . . .within theage group of say 30 to 70. So it’s really, youknow like 40 years there, or 50 years I guess.Thirty to 70 years old. Most of them are collegeeducated. I would say a good number of themprobably have a Masters degree. Um, a goodnumber of them . . . are at least upper middleclass. Um . . . a lot of them . . . have traveled inEurope, or have lived in Europe . . . as a whole,our customers are probably quite different fromthe people who shop at Wal-Mart.’ (Interview,W-F-30s)

Figure 2: Photograph of the interior of the grocery store

Risto Moisio and Eric J. Arnould

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The regulars were a negation of the kind

of consumer who shops at Wal-Mart.

They implicitly negated the mythological

themes recognised in an examination of

Wal-Mart’s promotional flyers: homo

economicus, family, America, community

and hometown (Arnold et al., 2001).

Regulars represented consumers of

cultural difference, the upwardly mobile

middle class seeking encounters with the

cultural other through travel or food

consumption (May, 1996). From the

perspective of the performance, the

regulars represented an audience

that became engrossed in cultural-

other-related themes evoked by the

setting and the actors.

Performance

The third component of the drama

structure is the performance (Grove and

Fisk, 1992). Performance refers to the set

of activities that occur before an

audience. In this grocery store, the

managing owner described the

performance in the following way.

‘they come in, and, and I say ‘‘hi, how areyou?’’ And then they’ll say something, andthen I’ll ask them if I can help them withanything. And hopefully they’ll say yes, ‘causethen it makes it nicer for me; ‘cause I canactually help them. Um, so we’ll talk aboutwhat they need. And then I try to, I generallytry to keep the conversation going. Because I docare. I’m curious. So, yeah, I’ll just talk about,why you are buying this. And if they’ll say,‘‘oh, well, I just got back from France. I’mhaving my friends over, I’m gonna do a Frenchmeal. Then, always I’ll say, ‘‘oh, wow, that’sexcellent! So where did you go?’’ And they’lltell me about their vacation.’ (Interview,W-F-30s).

Upon entry into the grocery store, the

salesperson greeted the consumer and

encouraged them to share their stories

about cultural experiences. The

performance also involved the

salesperson’s demonstration of

cultural skills.

‘we get a lot of people who aren’t familiar withanything. And they come and just look around.Or they’ve heard of one thing, and they, um,

want to find something. So, I’m supposed toalways ask, um, if I can explain what somethingis. If I can help. Because a lot of times they don’tknow anything about European products.’(Interview, W-F-20s)

The salesperson took the role of the

cultural interpreter. Consumers

expected the sales personnel to be able to

translate the writings on product labels,

to describe how consumers could use the

products and to know how the products

tasted. For their part, the consumers

expected the sales personnel to possess

intimate familiarity and knowledge of

foreign cultures.

‘Or if somebody comes up to me and asks mewhere I’ve traveled in Europe and then we cantalk about that. And then for other people in thestore who aren’t so talkative, they can at leastlisten to the conversation about Europe.’(Interview, W-F-20s)

At times, the performance involved the

active display of the mastery of foreign

languages.

‘mostly American people want me to speak.They just wanna hear, you know, a foreignlanguage. They find that interesting. Uh, uh,the little kids, the parent will be like she’ll speakFrench to you, and all this, all thisstuff . . .They just ask me to say something inFrench.’ (Interview, W-F-20s)

The consumers expected the sales

personnel to demonstrate detailed

knowledge about the foreign products

offered in the grocery store. These

expectations were internalised in the

form of ‘dramaturgical loyalty’

(Goffman, 1959) that makes actors hold

themselves responsible for meeting the

expectations that they have attached to

their roles.

Overall, the performance was enacted

using imagined scripts for small-town,

French retailer–consumer relationships.

These scripts involved the use of first

names, invitations for self-disclosure and

encouragement of consumers to share

their cultural-other-related stories. The

performance simulated the imagined

experience a consumer might undergo in

France as a French consumer.

Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817 251

Drama interaction: The role of active

consumer agent in performances

Drama interaction is a new dimension of

shopping dramaturgy defined as

consumer involvement in, or an activity

that can shape, redirect and structure the

unfolding performance. In the grocery

store, the consumer was involved in the

shaping of the performance in three

different ways: enacting oral

performances, sharing stories and

speaking in foreign languages.

Once the consumers had entered the

grocery store, the most involved regulars

engaged in ‘oral performances’ (Harris

et al., 1995). During these acts, consumers

took the dominant role in the interaction.

‘The salesperson cuts the meat and the femalebegins to describe her recent experience witholive oil: she had bought last year some olive oilduring her visit to Italy. She tells that this oilwas cold pressed by the family of the person sheknew in Italy, ‘‘stoccio oil’’ which was ‘‘ . . . todie for!!’’, she says. The SP nods and the femaleasks for crackers ‘‘do you have crackers yourecommend?’’ to which the SP responds‘‘Australian crackers’’ and directs her to thestand on the left-hand side saying a momentlater after finishing the meat cutting ‘‘well thatolive oil sounds really good!’’. The femaleresponds by saying that she will save some oilfor the SP so that she [the salesperson] can getto taste it.’ (Field notes, 10-26-02)

While both consumers and the sales

personnel shared thoughts and

experiences related to travel, food

consumption experiences and foreign

products, consumers took an active role

in selecting the topics and directing the

progression and terms of the interaction.

In fact, some consumers took advantage

of this rare situation where they could

demonstrate their cultural knowledge by

telling the salesperson stories.

‘they like to talk with me about what they’rebuying . . . I like it when people like give mestories. Like they’ll buy something and they’llgive me a long story about how their motherused to fix them for ‘em when they were little.And, you know, we can talk about that.’(Interview, W-F-20s)

The stories were part of the active display

and communication of specialised

knowledge, experiences and skills

related to foreign cultures. The context of

telling stories was also opportune for

practising cultural skills rarely used in

everyday life, such as speaking in

German or French. Indeed, during the

participant observation, the researcher

captured one consumer-driven

interaction carried out in French. These

acts of speaking in French can be

conceived in terms of Goffman’s (1959)

distinction between the expression one

‘gives’ and the expression one ‘gives off’.

The display of specialised, rare and

valorised language skills corresponds to

the expression that the consumer gives,

and the cultural significance of this self-

display relates to the expression that is

‘given off’— the idea that consumers

shared with grocery store management

an affiliation with the cultural other. The

significance of consumers’ active

engagement in the setting and the French

utterances resides in the fact that they

represent agentic acts, realised without

marketers’ direction or

predetermination.

Drama content: Organising the

cultural meanings of performances

Drama content is a second new

dimension of shopping dramaturgy. As

previously stated, drama content refers

to a cultural resource that provides the

framework within which the drama’s

meaning, plot and characters can come

together. Drama content also fosters

differentiated consumption experiences.

The grocery-store context illustrates the

organisation of drama and here drama

content references cultural otherness. As

cultural otherness was the overarching

theme of the grocery-store servicescape,

the grocery store became a site for the

consumption of cultural difference

(Firat, 1995). The grocery store was a

place where both the comfort-seeking,

post-tourist (Ritzer and Liska, 1997) and

the post-Fordist, authenticity-seeking

tourist explorer met (Urry, 1990). As

pointed out by the manager, elements of

the scene evoked an idea of the grocery

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store as a genuine ‘European’ grocery

store. The part-time employee conveyed

this during an interview:

‘Um, I think that a lot of places try toAmericanize. Umm, any store that’s, um, notnative to the United States . . .Uh, like I’ve hadpeople who take Spanish tell me that when theygo to, um, any, any like type of Mexicanrestaurant, that it’s toned, the food’s toneddown a little for American tastes. Not quite as, Idon’t know, spicy, things like that. Umm . . . soI think that if, um, we did something, anythingto, umm, make the place seem Americanized, Ithink we’d just be kind of undermining whatwe were trying to do here, which is ignore[laughs] completely the fact that we’re a store inthe United States.’ (Interview, W-F-20s)

The quote resonates with a sense of

reflexivity about the compression of

space in a globalised economy (Waters,

1995). More importantly, the quote

resonates with the idea that the grocery

store purposefully utilised culturally-

other content to facilitate consumption

experiences (MacCannell, 1973) and this

content was inherently ‘Americanised’,

intertwined with the US cultural context

of its appropriation (eg Lu and Fine,

1995). Probably what makes cultural

otherness a valued organising resource

of shopping experiences is that it is a

fluid category with permeable

boundaries, making the grocery store a

site for crafting a ‘cultural mosaic’ of

differentiated experiences that blend

elements from multiple cultures (Firat,

1995).

The malleable, polysemic content of

cultural otherness enables the marketer

to service the consumers’ discrepant

expectations and experiences, as

suggested in the following interview

excerpt.

‘Oh . . .well, you know, like I say, it depends onthe customer. If it’s an American person,they’re gonna look at it and they’re gonnathink, ‘‘I’ve never seen this before. This istotally different.’’ Or, ‘‘Oh wow! I haven’t seenthis since I was in France ten years ago.’’ All ofa sudden I’m remembering my wonderfulvacation. Or, if it’s an, if it’s a German student,who’s been studying abroad for eight months,and they really miss Mom and Dad, and theycome in and they see this Ritter sport bar, and it

has German on it, it’s gonna make ‘em feelhomesick. So it depends on the customer really.’(Interview, W-F-30s)

For foreigners the cultural otherness of

the grocery store provided a set of signs

that were ‘temporally’ or ‘corporally’

indexical (Grayson and Shulman, 2000).

These signs evoked associations with

persons and times in distant places and

the past. These signs may also have

evoked nostalgia (Schindler and

Holbrook, 2003). On the other hand, for

Americans, the servicescape provided a

context in which cultural otherness

might be incorporated into an internally

differentiated social self (Cook and

Crang, 1996) who experienced foreign

cultural identities (James, 1996), or gazed

voyeuristically at cultural diversity for its

aesthetic value (Urry, 1990).

In this capacity as a repository of

cultural otherness, the grocery store

became the vehicle for moving the

consumer ‘out of the ordinary’ (Urry,

1990) state of being.

‘I think that it’s trying to . . . help you forgetjust for a second. To just kind of remove youfrom ordinary life into something . . . It dependson who you are. For Americans it’s trying toremove you from ordinary life and to move youinto something different for once. Just, just tomake you forget for a second, that, of the hustleand bustle of what’s outside.’ (Interview, W-F-20s)

The grocery store facilitated a temporary

disconnection from the midwestern

cultural context, enabling consumers to

escape the North American consumer

way of life (eg Arnould and Price, 1993).

In a sense, the cultural content mobilised

in the grocery-store shopping experience

enabled consumers, like post-tourists, to

realise a ‘liminoid’ state (Turner, 1986), a

temporary transcendence of everyday

roles and statuses.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this paper was to extend

the dramaturgical framework of the

shopping experience by distinguishing

between drama structure, drama interaction

Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817 253

and drama content. To bridge research

focused on the substantive and

communicative staging of shopping

experiences, the paper built on prior

studies in marketing and consumer

research. It used data from a particular

shopping context to illustrate the analytic

value of the newly differentiated drama

structure, drama interaction and drama

content components of the extended

dramaturgical framework. The paper

makes four contributions.

First, the paper demarcated drama

structure from drama content. This

distinction provides a better

understanding of the relationship

between the structural and cultural

resources that operate in the organisation

of shopping performances. The paper

proposed that drama structure provides

the theatrical components instrumental

for the organisation of performances;

however, drama structure alone is

insufficient for a comprehensive

understanding of shopping as drama. In

order to understand how drama creates

value-adding shopping performances

one must go beyond the formal

components of drama. Researchers also

need to pay attention to the cultural

resources through which the

components of the drama structure gain

coherence and intelligibility.

Secondly, the paper introduced drama

interaction as a dimension of drama

performance. Previous studies have

focused on examining consumers in the

role of the audience rather than as active

participants or actors. Extending the

dramaturgical framework to include

interaction between consumers and

marketers enabled a set of behaviours to

be recognised related to active

participation and shaping of drama

performances over the course of

interactions. For example, agentic

consumers enact behaviours that both

give and give off certain impressions that

affect performance outcomes, including

those for less-active consumer audiences.

Observations affirmed the role of active

consumer agency in providing resources

for the variation of the performance

script rather than merely supporting the

service providers’ delivery roles.

Consumers’ spontaneous participation

in the drama illustrated the importance

of focusing on consumers’ active roles in

shaping, redirecting and structuring the

unfolding of performances.

Thirdly, the paper introduced drama

content as an integral component of the

dramaturgical framework. As pointed

out by Holt (2003), commercial products

such as brands become more valuable

when they tap into rich cultural

narratives. These cultural resources

provide coherence, coordination and

direction for the performances. This

paper introduced the concept of drama

content and distinguished between

cultural-self and cultural-other-focused

drama performances, which helped to

isolate two types of cultural resources

operative in performances. The context

drew on Anglo-French cultural resources

in organising the shopping experience

and revealed a new avenue of research

into the use of specific narrative

resources in the creation of shopping

performances. Future research should

try to extend the repertoire of drama

content by examining specific types of

cultural-self and cultural-other-focused

dramas by borrowing theoretical

concepts and frameworks from the

humanities and anthropology.

Fourthly, this research highlighted the

role of cultural otherness in the

organisation of shopping environments

and experiences, which previous

research has not investigated. In line with

Holt (2003), who suggested that

managers should look closely into

culture for specific narrative resources,

this study pointed out that businesses

could pay more attention to foreign

cultural scripts as resources for the

organisation of value-adding shopping

experiences.

CONCLUSION

For researchers, this study indicates the

value of bringing the consumer into the

Risto Moisio and Eric J. Arnould

254 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 4, 246–256 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1472-0817

drama as an active rather than as a

passive character. Active consumer

participation in the performance creates

positive shopping experiences by

enabling consumers to play along with

the drama and to appropriate the cultural

resources necessary for these

experiences. From a managerial

standpoint, the study points out that

managers could facilitate consumers’

interactive and co-communicative roles

in appropriate shopping environments.

Furthermore, managers could provide

consumers with the possibility of taking

more dominant roles in shopping

performances, roles that can shape the

unfolding of the drama. In conclusion,

the extended dramaturgical framework

could help to elaborate and deepen

research related to the orchestration of

shopping experiences.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first author wishes to acknowledge

the financial support of Kauhajoen

kulttuurisaatio and the William Levitt

Foundation. In addition, the first author

wishes to acknowledge the valuable help

of Fleura Bardhi, Mariam Beruchashvili,

Dr James W. Gentry, Michelle Jacobs and

Susie Pryor, all from the University of

Nebraska-Lincoln.

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