• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UA Campus RepositoryCommunitiesTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournalThis CollectionTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournal

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About

    AboutUA Faculty PublicationsUA DissertationsUA Master's ThesesUA Honors ThesesUA PressUA YearbooksUA CatalogsUA Libraries

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    The cultural construction of consumers' olfactory experiences

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    azu_td_9720670_sip1_m.pdf
    Size:
    6.079Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Bruneau, Carol Lorraine, 1956-
    Issue Date
    1996
    Keywords
    Business Administration, Marketing.
    Advisor
    Puto, Christopher P.
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Abstract
    Marketers commonly scent a large variety of products ranging from toilet paper to crayons in order to differentiate their products from the competition. Exploratory research suggests that the meanings consumers attach to fragrances are a critical part of the consumption experience in many product categories. Such meanings may be symbolic (e.g., what the scent communicates about the personal or social identity of the product user) or functional (e.g., what the scent implies about product performance). Product scents range from being centrally to peripherally important to the primary function of a product depending upon the product category. In each of these cases, both functional and symbolic inferences of product benefits based on scent are guided by a set of learned associations which are the focus of this research. This dissertation takes an anthropological perspective, arguing that cultural construction plays a major role in how consumers acquire, cognitively represent and use these olfactory meanings in day-to-day consumption. The central thesis is that cultural models anchor what consumers experience when they encounter scents in consumption contexts. The empirical work first uses a qualitative long interview methodology to discover how consumers acquire these shared cultural models of product scents for four product categories. This approach also explores the cognitive representation of these cultural models, attempting to identify the propositional and image schemas in which consumers store these learned symbolic and functional meanings. The dissertation then focuses on how consumers use these schemas to evaluate products. The stability of these representations are empirically tested by examining whether consumers can reliably and validly assign a range of product stimuli to these categories based only on exposure in the olfactory mode or whether additional marketing stimuli are necessary to determine a product's meaning. Finally, a pilot experiment assesses how manipulating product scents to be consistent or inconsistent with the functional or symbolic benefits influences product evaluations, as well as assessments of objective product performance. The findings provide insights into the use of olfactory meanings for market segmentation and product differentiation.
    Type
    text
    Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)
    Degree Name
    Ph.D.
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Graduate College
    Industrial Management
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
    Collections
    Dissertations

    entitlement

     
    The University of Arizona Libraries | 1510 E. University Blvd. | Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
    Tel 520-621-6442 | repository@u.library.arizona.edu
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2017  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.