The Starbucks Brandscape and Consumers’ (Anticorporate) Experiences of Glocalization

Prior studies strongly suggest that the intersection of global brands and local cultures produces cultural heterogeneity. Little research has investigated the ways in which global brands structure these expressions of cultural heterogeneity and consumers’ corresponding experiences of glocalization....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of consumer research 2004-12, Vol.31 (3), p.631-642
Main Authors: Thompson, Craig J., Arsel, Zeynep
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Brands
Capitalism
Coffee
Coffee houses
Coffeehouses
Communities
Consumers
Consumption
Corporate culture
Corporate profiles
Cultural hegemony
Culture
Globalization
Glocalization
Hegemony
Homogenization
Interviews
Married status
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Popular culture
Single status
Studies
Transnationalism
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Summary:Prior studies strongly suggest that the intersection of global brands and local cultures produces cultural heterogeneity. Little research has investigated the ways in which global brands structure these expressions of cultural heterogeneity and consumers’ corresponding experiences of glocalization. To redress this gap, we develop the construct of the hegemonic brandscape. We use this theoretical lens to explicate the hegemonic influence that Starbucks exerts upon the sociocultural milieus of local coffee shops via its market‐driving servicescape and a nexus of oppositional meanings (i.e., the anti‐Starbucks discourse) that circulate in popular culture. This hegemonic brandscape supports two distinctive forms of local coffee shop experience through which consumers, respectively, forge aestheticized and politicized anticorporate identifications.
ISSN:0093-5301
1537-5277
DOI:10.1086/425098