Irish Marketing Review, Vol. 20, no. 2, 2009

109 Pages·2017·2.94 MB·English

TTeecchhnnoollooggiiccaall UUnniivveerrssiittyy DDuubblliinn
AARRRROOWW@@TTUU DDuubblliinn
Issues Irish Marketing Review
2009-01-01
IIrriisshh MMaarrkkeettiinngg RReevviieeww,, VVooll.. 2200,, nnoo.. 22,, 22000099
Aidan O'Driscoll
Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/jouimriss
Part of the Marketing Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Aidan O'Driscoll, "Irish Marketing Review, Vol. 20, no. 2, 2009" (2009). Issues. 33.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/jouimriss/33
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by
the Irish Marketing Review at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has
been accepted for inclusion in Issues by an authorized
administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more
information, please contact [email protected],
[email protected].
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License

The Marketing Institute
Marketing House
South County Business Park
Dublin 18
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.mii.ie
Welcome to this issue of Irish Marketing Review,
Ireland's major scholarly marketing publication.
The Marketing Institute has been to the fore in cham
pioning the professional discipline of marketing in
Ireland for over 40 years, and we see this publication
as an important contribution to the ongoing develop
ment of marketing in Ireland.
The Marketing Institute is the national professional body for marketing
people in Ireland, offering membership, qualifications and training.
Established in 1962, the Institute today operates from our own full
facilities headquarters in Dublin. Our 3,500 members are located all
over the island of Ireland, drawn from all business sectors. We are inter
nationally affiliated with Europe's leading marketing associations
through the European Marketing Confederation.
The mission of the Institute is to develop business in Ireland by raising its
marketing capability, upholding professional standards, and improving
the skills of marketing people so they deliver exceptional business results.
Membership of the Institute may be obtained through presentation of
approved academic qualifications and/or appropriate practitioner expe
rience, and full members may use the professional designatory letters
MMII.
We heartily recommend Irish Marketing Review to all our members.
Tom Trainor
Chief Executive
Irish Marketing Review Volume 20 Number 2 2009
CONTENTS
J
ID .I.T. Library
Aungler Str£tt
Tel: [phone]
EDITORIAL ___ __
......... . ~----··-
3 Finding an Irish Voice: Reflections on Celtic Consumer Society and Social Change
Alan Bradshaw, Pierre McDonagh & David Marshall
ARTICLES
6 Subversive Consumption: Nineteenth Century Irish Immigrants in America
Linda Scott
27 Branding Irish Cinema: Reflections upon Celtic Consumer Society and Social Change
in Dublin
Pat Brereton
40 Those Left Behind: Inequality in Consumer Culture
Kathy Hamilton
feelings of exclusion from 'normal' consumption
dominated
55 Home Confined Consumers' Freedom through Surrogate Activities: the Role of
Personal Communities
Hilary Downey & Miriam Catterall
77 Magners Man: Irish Cider, Representations of Masculinity and the 'Burning Celtic Soul'
Pauline Maclaran and Lorna Stevens
89 Brand Ireland
Anthony Patterson
AFTERWORD
99 Marketing Died Today. Or Perhaps It Was Yesterday, I Don't Know
Stephen Brown
of
IRISH MARKETING REVIEW
Enhancing Marketing Thought and Practice
Editor Aidan O'Driscoll
Dublin Institute of Technology
Faculty of Business
Associate Darach Turley (Dublin City University) Manuscripts
Editor Academic manuscripts are double-blind refereed.
Invited and practitioner papers are judged assensu peri
Advisory Professor M.J. Baker, University of Strathclyde torum. Editorial enquiries, manuscripts, books for
Board Professor A. C. Cunningham, University College Dublin review should be addressed to the editors at Dublin
Professor G.S. Day, Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, Mountjoy Square, Dublin I.
Professor L. Fahey, Boston University
Tel: (353 I) 4023000. Fax: (353 I) 4024298.
Professor G.R. Foxall, Cardiff Business School, U. of Wales
Professor R.P. Kinsella, University College Dublin Indexing and Abstracting
Professor H.G. Meissner, University of Dortmund
Contributions to this publication are indexed and
Professor J.A. Murray, Trinity College Dublin
abstracted in ABI/INFORM and in Contents Pages in
Professor ].A. O'Reilly, Dublin Institute ofTechnology
Management (hard copy; UK).
P. O'Sullivan, Dublin Institute ofTechnology
Professor C. Pinson, INSEAD, France
Subscriptions
Irish Marketing Review is published in spring and autumn
by Mercury Publications Ltd, Marina House, n-I3
Assistant Norah Campbell (TCD)
Clarence Street, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland.
Editor
Tel: (353 I) 3266899. Fax: (353 r) 2366880. A subscription
costs 1€ 25 in Ireland. A personal subscription is available
Digest Kate Ui Ghallachoir (DIT) at €6o. Overseas rates are €200 and €70 respectively.
Editor
The Marketing Institute
The Marketing Institute is the representative body of
DIT T. Cooney, L. Cuddihy, A. Czerwin-Abbott,
the marketing profession in Ireland. Its members, asso
Editorial N. Deeney, T. Fennell, K. Lawlor, M. Lawlor,
ciates and students number over 4000. The Institute's
Committee ]. McGrath
mission is to position marketing as the crucial factor for
business success, and through its various activities it
Departments Design Cartoons provides a lifetime environment of career enhancing
Dermot McGuine Brendan Beirne opportunities to each member. Irish Marketing Review
is sent to members and senior students as a member
ship service. Membership enquiries to: The Marketing
Typesetting
Institute, Marketing House, Leopardstown, Dublin I8.
& Layout Sheila Stephenson & Associates
Tel: (353 I) 2952355. Fax: (353 I) 2952453.
Dublin Institute of Technology
The Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), an
autonomous university-level institution since January
Copyright © 2009 Mercury Publications I993, has provided technological and business educa
tion up to the highest levels for over roo years. It is
organised in six discipline-related faculties: Applied
Arts, Built Environment, Business, Engineering,
Science, and Tourism and Food. It has a total enrol
ment of 23,000 students, including ro,ooo full-time
third level students and over 500 postgraduate and
other post-third level students.
Printed by ColourB ooks Limited, Dublin
Editorial
Finding an Irish Voice: Reflections
on Celtic Consumer Society and
Social Change
Alan Bradshaw, Pierre McDonagh & David Marshall
Today, the old rural national image is on the wane 'common life produced a kind of unification of phys
and the country currently likes to represent itself as a ical types in a sort of habitus common to all' (p. 82).
thriving, energetic, cosmopolitan place, a vibrant he perceives diversity within the unity, but reduces
multicultural hub of postindustrial, information-age that diversity to a division into four groups-Goidels,
entrepreneurial activity. The revels of the comely Piers, Brythons (including the Gauls) and Belgae ...
maidens dancing of the local townland now are he (Hubert) reveals the close relations between
ended or linger only as national kitsch; the country Germans and Celts, and the influence exerted by
prefers instead a corporate quick-step on a global Celtic culture on Germanic, extending, indeed,
crossroads between Boston, Bermuda and Berlin. beyond the Germans to the Balto-Slavs and Finns (p.
(Cleaty and Connolly, 2005, p. xiii) 68). This influence is manifest in linguistic and mate
rial borrowings ... The Celts seem to have been for
As this opening quote suggests, much change is afoot long ages the schoolmasters of the Germanic peoples'.
in Ireland and not only has the country joined the
This special edition looks at how consumption and
surge of consumer society in a rush to be Ikeaised and
Starbucked but it has done so with its usual display consumer society plays a part in that (re)construc
of swagger and style. This special issue of Irish tion of identity through commercial activities and
Marketing Review arose from 'Finding an Irish Voice: the consumption and use of goods which serve to
Reflections on Celtic Consumer Society and Social convey and transpose meaning from the world of
Change', an international workshop organised by the Celtic culture to the world of goods (McCracken,
Centre for Consumption Studies (CCS) (www. 1990) or through the prism of what Stephen Brown
ccs.dcu.ie) at Dublin City University in October has labelled Celtic Marketing Concepts.
2007. The event was attended by academics and prac
While the recent flurry of economic and political
titioners with a range of professional interest in con
activity characterised by the Celtic Tiger and the
sumer society, and forms the backcloth to what you
peace process in the North has brought a number of
read here. From this exchange it became clear that
profound changes, to what extent has this emerging
there remains some degree of ambivalence in looking
consumer society lead to greater equality, healed old
at cultural identity and simple binary categorisations
divisions or created new ones, and brought happiness
such as Communist Fascist, Master Slave, Caucasian
or distress to the citizens? Not least, how we consume
Black, Male Female, Straight Gay, Apprentice Loser,
and its consequences (McDonagh, 1995, 1997) has
Croat Serb, Jew Arab, Good Evil, Roman Barbarian
much to contribute to our theory on contemporary
or, in our case, Anglo-Saxon Celt fail to capture the
consumption. Social change of itself within con
essence of contemporary consumer existence.
sumer culture is naturally problematic and fraught
Nowhere is this played out more than in discourses
with danger, dark choices and contradiction, requir
of what it is to be a Celt and specifically an Irish Celt
ing protagonists to muse of their certain choices in
or Irish. It seems compelling now to track how
life. This is best reflected in a 1963 interview com
Consumer Society has impacted the 'Celticness'
ment by Malcolm X to Alex Haley, an African
within the Irish Voice or indeed the Irish Voice within
American writer best known as the author of the
'Celticness'. Scholarship on the Celts has long attested
novel Roots: The Saga ofa n American Family:
the complexities of developing simplistic labels for
our people, as Berr (1992, p. xviii) reminds us: On my layovers in New York, I'd go to Harlem.
That's where I saw in the bars all these men and
There are, however, objects, forms of tombs, manners women with what looked like the easiest life in the
of speech, which allow us to classifY the Celts as Indo world. Plenty of money, big cars, all of it. I could tell
Europeans, to place them among the Europeans, to they were in rackets and vice. I hung around those
distinguish them from the Graeco-Latins, Germans, bars whenever I came to town, and I kept my ears
and Balto-Slavs, to contrast them with the Iberians and eyes open and mouth shut. Finally, one day a
and Ligurians, to determine the Celtic world and its numbers man told me that he needed a runner. Right
boundaries. Hubert clearly brings out the racial unity there was when I started my life in crime.
of the Celts; it may not be anthropological but (Haley, 1963, cited by Laity, 2007, p. 13.)
© Mercury Publications
Irish Marketing Review Volume 20 Number r 2009
As this interview shows, consumer society presents images of the Irish male as being in touch with his
a multiplicity of challenges to its citizens, all of deeply romantic self, created a space and restored a
which are still manifest in media angst of the good sense of the 'intense masculinity' that has become
and the bad of contemporary Ireland, as well as the displaced and unfashionable in 21st century repre
under-researched sinister side of consumer culture sentations of masculinity. Anthony Patterson offers
or, as Fitzgerald (2007) calls it, the 'high cost of a paper on what he terms 'Brand Ireland' and how
wealth', all of which is burgeoning despite the pop the romantic mythologies of 'lrishness' inform com
ular obituaries on the Rise and Fall of the Celtic mercial practice. The special issue concludes with
Tiger (see Jamieson, 2008). an Afterword by Stephen Brown, who bemoans the
Magnus Opus within marketing and has for a
This special issue proceeds with Linda Scott's illu number of decades personally led the charge of
minating work on Subversive Consumption: Nine Celtic revivalism, contributing multifarious works
teenth Century Irish Immigrants in America which expounding Celtic Marketing Concepts.
reminds us of the significant contribution that Irish
immigrants made to the evolution of American con Finally, the objective of the Centre for Con
sumer culture and, by implication, the global rele sumption Studies is to bring about a productive
vance of this arguably provincial special issue. The forum for the dissemination of ideas. In that spirit,
issue continues with an account from Irish film stud we are delighted that this special issue includes sub
ies' Pat Brereton, who explores how branding is shap missions from such established academics as well as
ing 'Irish Cinema inc.' as he contemplates how such from the emerging talents of scholarship. As
nascent cinematic brand identity should secure its Graham (2001) submits in his Preface to Decon
future in the global market place. Following this structing Ireland, 'Ireland is a future which is always
Kathy Hamilton muses on the growing inequalities posited and never attained', with Ireland staging its
within consumer culture and the need to reconsider own deconstruction, and at every turn the idea
consumer culture in all its forms and not solely from unravels and reforms itself. This issue is another
an economic perspective. Likewise Hilary Downey chance to reflect on this process and on that which
and Miriam Catterall's contribution to the special is Consuming Identity both within and outwith
issue is on the surrogate consumption activities of the Ireland, that for the moment at least is at the epi
home-confined, which asks us to seek redress to their centre of Celtic Consumer Society.
consumption through the domains of social policy, Consuming Identity Research Group
social capital, citizenship and volunteering. Centre for Consumption Studies
September 2009
The special issue continues with Maclaran and
Stevens exploding masculinity and the crucial aspect Alan Bradshaw
of the Magners campaign's success. They argue that Pierre McDonagh
this campaign, by drawing on nostalgic, age-old David Marshall
Acknowledgements John Desmond, St Andrews University
The editors wish to acknowledge their gratitude to Andrea Prothero, University College Dublin
the contributors in this special issue, especially the Norah Campbell, Trinity College Dublin
invited authors Linda Scott and Stephen Brown. Finola Kerrigan, King's College, University of
We thank Aidan O'Driscoll for his support to the London
project. We would like to acknowledge the assis Robin Canniford, University of Exeter
tance of Jason Healy, IRCHSS research scholar, in Donncha Kavanagh, University College Cork
Aidan O'Driscoll, Dublin Institute ofTechnology
organising the CCS workshop at Dublin City
Lisa O'Malley, University of Limerick
University in October 2007. We are also grateful to
Stephanie O'Donohue, University of Edinburgh
all of the reviewers:
Daragh O'Reilly, University of Sheffield
Harry Bradshaw, University of Life
Jonathan Schroeder, University of Exeter
Morris Holbrook, Columbia University Darach Turley, Dublin City Univer~ity
4
Finding an Irish Voice: Reflections on Celtic Consumer Society and Social Change
Editors
Alan Bradshaw is a senior lecturer of marketing at
Royal Holloway, University of London. The Centre for Consumption Studies (CCS)
is primarily associated with Dublin City
Pierre McDonagh is founder and director of the University (see www.ccs.dcu.ie) but is
Centre for Consumption Studies. His research linked with other colleges including Royal
interests include marketing's interconnections Holloway (University of LondonL the
with nature, music, food and sport within University of Edinburgh Business School,
consumer culture. He presently is a senior lecturer and the University of Exeter.
in marketing at Dublin City University Business
School. Overall, it is a research cluster which aims
to bring together people interested in how
David Marshall is professor of marketing and people consume identity such as visual cul
consumer behaviour at the University of ture via the creative arts, digital education
Edinburgh Business School and head of the and more broadly how we consume within
marketing group. His research interests and consumer culture.
activities centre on understanding consumer
behaviour as a key component of marketing. This CCS provides resources for academics, stu
includes research on children's consumption, food dents, government, research councils,
availability and access in relation to health. He has NGOs, businesses and/o r a person inter
collaborated on research into the commodification ested in consumption. Irish Marketing
and consumption of music and the role of the Review readers can join CCS on Facebook.
artist, and consumption and quality of life in an
institutional context. He edited Food Choice and
the Consumer (Chapman and Hall, 1995) and has
published in a number of academic journals
including Consumption, Markets and Culture,
journal ofM acromarketing, journal of Consumer
Behaviour, Advertising and Marketing to Children
(Young Consumers), journal ofM arketing
Management, The Sociological Review, Public
Health Nutrition, Appetite, and journal ofF ood
Quality and Preftrence.
References
Laity, Paul (ed.) (2007), 'The interview between Alex Haley
Berr, Henri (1992), 'Foreword: the expansion of the Celts', in
and Malcolm X', Playboy Magazine, May 1963. Great
Henri Hubert' The History oft he Celtic People', Bracken
Interviews oft he 2oth Century (9/r4), Guardian News &
Books, London. Media, London.
Brown, Stephen (2009), 'Marketing died today. Or perhaps Hubert, Henri (1992 [1932]). The History oft he Celtic People,
it was yesterday, I don't know', 'Afterword' to this issue. Bracken Books. London.
Cleary, Joe and Claire Connolly (eds.) (2005), The McCracken, Grant (1990), Culture and Consumption: New
Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture, Cambridge Approaches to the Symbolic Character ofC onsumer Goods and
University Press, Cambridge. Activities, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Fitzgerald, Mary (2007), 'A high price of wealth', New McDonagh, Pierre (1995), 'Q. Is marketing dying of
Statesman, r6 July, p. 18. consumption? A. Yes, and the answer is consumption!' Paper
presented at the Marketing Eschatology Retreat, 23-24
Graham, Colin (2oor), Deconstructing Ireland: Identity, September, University of Ulster, St Clements, Belfast.
Theory, Culture (Tendencies: Identities, Texts, Cultures),
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. McDonagh, Pierre (1997), 'The fable of]oseph the pig
farmer', inS. Brown, A.M. Doherty and B. Clarke (eds.),
Jamieson, Bill (2008), 'Jungle that even the Celtic Tiger can't Marketing Illuminations Spectacular, University of Ulster,
survive', Scotland on Sunday, 7 Sept. Sept., pp 83-90.
SUBVERSIVE CONSUMPTION:
NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH
IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA
Linda Scott
Irish immigrants to America during the second half of the nineteenth century
presented significant challenge to the existing Protestant ruling elite. The
provenance, religion and behaviour of the arriving Catholic Irish stood in
particular opposition to the morality of the Puritan descendents, an ancient
enemy of the Irish, who claimed cultural hegemony over the new United
States. The result was a contest of wills over the consumption of goods,
public and private, religious and secular. This article seeks to chart
historically this clash of religion, politics, gender, race and labour.
In doing so, it approaches several issues of interest today. It reframes
questions about whether consumption can be a subversive political
behaviour, and calls into question schemas in cultural theory about the role
of the 'culture industry'. As the Irish eventually came to participate as fully
as their 'oppressors' in the new market economy and its burgeoning
consumer culture, the outcome of the narrative challenges us to rethink
whether oppressed groups reach mainstream respectability as a total
'sellout' or as the legitimate ends of revolution.
Marketing, as a discipline, seldom cares about his This historical case, therefore, approaches several
tory. An article about the consumption behaviours issues of interest today. First, it reframes questions
of a long-ago immigrant group, therefore, risks about whether consumption can be a subversive
charges of irrelevancy. Yet by examining the past, political behaviour. The particulars of the case call
we can create for ourselves the critical distance to into question schemas in cultural theory about the
assess struggles over consumption controversies. role of the 'culture industry' and even the nature
Often we find that practices seen in their time as of the bourgeoisie. The outcome of the narrative
obvious and universal moral issues in truth only challenges us to rethink whether oppressed groups
articulated local prejudices and interests - while reach mainstream respectability as a total 'sellout'
also marking the path to power. We may, as a or as the legitimate ends of revolution. The case of
result, examine our own prejudices and purposes Irish immigration puts a different spin on con
in a less interested light. sumer choice by emphasising the exogenous con
straints that channel selections and pattern habits.
Irish immigrants to America during the second The story upends the idea that reformist efforts to
half of the nineteenth century posed many prob change 'dark side' consumer habits are objectively
lems for the population receiving them. The con moral or politically disinterested. Finally, this con
sumer patterns that marked the Irish immigrants frontation between a Puritan Protestant ethos and
- the first major population to emigrate to post a Celtic Catholic one illustrates, for a world
Revolutionary America - not only spoke of their recently surprised by the crossfire of religious eco
desperately impoverished condition, but also nomics, that any clear division drawn between
voiced a cultural heritage very different from the what is 'sacred' and what is 'profane' is merely an
traditions of the earlier European immigrant ideology.
groups who self-righteously proclaimed them
selves 'natives'. The Celtic habitus stood in partic Backdrop
ular opposition to the morality of the Puritan The population of the 13 colonies that became the
descendants, who were an ancient enemy of the United States of America included several
Irish but who claimed cultural hegemony over the European strains, of which the British and Dutch
new United States. The offence Irish behaviours were most prominent. However, the Puritan set
caused among the Protestant ruling class was not tlers of New England, who began arriving as Oliver
lost on the new arrivals- and the result was a con Cromwell was rising to power in Great Britain, had
test of wills over the consumption of goods, grown to dominate these colonies, as they eventu
public and private, religious and secular. ally would the entire continent. (Indeed, as
© Mercury Publications
6
Subversive Consumption: Nineteenth Century Irish Immigrants in America
Figure 1 Cartoon Depiction of Irish Immigration
unlikely as it may seem, most Americans today alcoholic beverages, even though the historical
casually view the Puritans as their cultural ances record indicates that the founding Puritans were
tors, even though the relationship is genealogically big drinkers. It is also crucial to understand that
impossible for nearly all of them.) The American the Puritans saw themselves as a people expressly
Puritans, often known as 'the Pilgrims' in popular ordained by God, given the divine right to prevail
American history, left England as unsatisfied over all others. As a result, they were outrageously
ascetics, rabid anti-Catholics disappointed in what arrogant and xenophobic, but their most intense
they saw as an incomplete transformation of their hatred was focused on the Catholic Church, its
society by the Roundheads who fought the English priests and its adherents (Benes, 1984; Demos,
Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. 1982; Earle, 1968; Hennesey, 1981).
As the most radical, secessionary fringe of a sect As part of the Puritan push to dominate the
now known to history for their extreme views and American colonies during the pre-Revolutionary
practices, the New England Puritans founded period, Catholicism had been virtually stamped
colonies that were rigidly policed, even in every out: priests and practising Catholics had been run
day particulars, by a combined force of church, off, forced into hiding or conversion, or put to
state, and commerce. They were a singularly death. Thus, at the time of the American
humourless group, fearful of the corrupting power Revolution, the Catholic population was less than
of the simplest pleasures, from storytelling to song I percent of the whole (Hennesey, 1981). So,
to socialising. Their churches and liturgies were though the US population of the Atlantic Coast
austere, symptomatic of a self-conscious distanc was diverse in ethnic European origin and
ing from the perceived decadence of elaborate included blacks and Native Americans, as well as
Roman Catholic worship. Through their strong Irish, it was uniformly Protestant. The continental
Calvinist roots, they had acquired an irrational expansions of the nineteenth century would even
fear of images, which, though originally linked to tually bring in a good number of French and
the 'idolatry' typical of Catholic churches, Spanish Catholics. Nevertheless, the immigrations
extended to include secular imagery. They assidu occurring on the Atlantic Coast during the same
ously avoided the religious holidays associated period were experienced as intensely invasive, not
with the Catholic or Anglican Church, making it only because new populations radically changed
illegal even to celebrate Christmas and allowing the numbers living in the eastern US, but because
festivities only (in their typically morbid fashion) the religion and ethnicities of the immigrants were
for funerals. They made dance, theatre, and art so different from those of the former American
illegal and also regulated grooming and dress colonists: wave after wave of Irish, German,
through the courts. In the nineteenth century, Italian, and Russian arrivals were distinctively
their asceticism extended to a fierce opposition to Catholic and Jewish (Sowell, 1981; Takaki, 1993).
7