interpreting consumers a hermeneutical framework for deriving marketing insights from the texts of c

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Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Deriving Marketing Insights fromthe Texts of Consumers' Consumption StoriesAuthor(s): Craig J. Thompson

Source: Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Nov., 1997), pp. 438-455

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CRAIGJ. THOMPSON*The author describes and illustrates a hermeneutically grounded interpretive framework for deriving marketing-relevant insights from the 'texts" of consumer stories and gives an overview of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of this approach. Next, the author describes a hermeneutic framework for interpreting the stories consumers tell about their experiences of products, services, brand images, and shopping. An illustrative analysis demonstrates how this framework can be applied to generate three levels of interpretation: (1) discerning the key patterns of meanings expressed by a given consumer in the texts of his or her consumption stories, (2) identifying key patterns of meaning that emerge across the consumption stories expressed by different consumers, and (3) deriving broader conceptual and managerial implications from the analysis of consumer narratives. This hermeneutic approach is compared and contrasted to the means-end chains laddering framework, the"voice of the customer" approach to identifying consumer needs, and market-oriented ethnography. The author concludes with a discussion that highlights the types of marketing insights that can result from a hermeneutic interpretation of consumers' consumption stories and then addresses the roles creativity and expertise play in this research orientation.

Int

erpreting Consumers: AFramework forfrom theTexts of

HermeneuticalMarketing Insights

Deriving

Consumers'

Consumption Stories

is NothInthesocialsciences, there onlyinterpretation. for ing speaks itself. 'The of -Norman Denzin, ArtandPolitics Interpretation" I describeand illustratea hermeneutically groundedinterinsights pretive frameworkfor deriving marketing-relevant from the analysis of qualitative(or textual)data.Throughout this article, the meanings that consumers ascribe to their consumer experiences are discussed as texts, stories, and These metaphorsexpress a worldview characternarratives. transformaistic of the"linguisticturn":a multidisciplinary tion in social science researchthat focuses on the interpretive activities by which people"make sense" of their lives form play in shapand the roles that languageand narrative

*Craig J. Thompson is Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Business, Universityof Wisconsin,Madison.The authorextends his appreciation to Vijay Mahajanand four anonymousJMRreviewersfor theirconstructivecomments.

meanings(Rabinowand Sullivan 1979; ing these interpreted Sherry 1991). In comparisonto other social science fields and even the closely related discipline of consumer research, academic marketingresearchhas been a less active participantin this conversationregardingimplicationsof the multidisciplinary linguisticturn(see Brown 1995; Holt 1995). This state of affairs presents a notable irony. As Levy (1959) noted over thirty years ago, transactionsbetween marketersand consumers are, above all else, exchanges of meanings. Interpreted (or perceived) meanings are fundamentalto marketing's core interests,such as the study of exchanges (Bagozzi 1975) and the managementof customerrelationships(Webster 1992). Although some works in the academicmarketing literaturehave argued for the importanceof analyzing consumptionsymbolism (for a review, see Hirschmanand Holbrook 1992), the development of interpretiveframeworks for deriving marketinginsights from the texts of consumer stories has been left largely to marketingand advertising practitioners (e.g., Dichter 1964; Glaser 1985; MacFarquhar 1994; Randazzo 1993).

Journal of MarketingResearch Vol. XXXIV(November 1997), 438-455

438

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Interpreting Consumers When academic marketingresearchershave discussed research approachesof which the primaryfindings are based on iterativeinterpretations textualdata,the focus has been of on methodologicalissues of datacollection techniques,procedures of validation,and, more broadly,the epistemological standingof researchclaims thatdo not follow from a hypothetico-deductive logic (for an extensive review,see Sherry 1991). Relatively little attentionhas been given to the actual process of interpretation that enables strategicallyuseful patternsof meaning to be derived from the plethoraof situationaldetails and context-specific idiosyncracies typical of textual data.l Here, I address this underdiscussed,critically important, and r

athernebulous issue by describing and illustratinga hermeneuticframeworkfor interpreting stories thatconthe sumers tell about their consumption experiences. This approachis based on a specific set of assumptionsthat follow from a hermeneuticview of human understanding (Ricoeur 1981) and more recent work on the narrativestructuringof (Bruner1986; Gergenand Gercognition and understanding gen 1986; Polkinghome 1988; Ricoeur 1981; Somers and Gibson 1994; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994; Widdershoven 1993). Here, the term hermeneutics refers to a specific philosophicalprogramthat has provideda theoretical foundation for many genres of social science research following in the spiritof the linguistic turn(Arnold and Fischer 1994; Geertz 1983; Rabinow and Sullivan 1979; Sherry 1991). The hermeneuticframeworkdescribedin this article interpretsconsumption meanings in relation to both a consumer'ssense of personalhistoryand a broadernarrative context of historicallyestablishedculturalmeanings. The marketingrelevanceof hermeneuticinterpretation derives from the straightforward point that"marketersneed models to analyze and interprethow consumers perceive productsin relationto themselves"(Walkerand Olson 1991, p. 111). In a similarspirit,Wells (1993) notes thatdiscoveryorientedresearchaddressingthe meaning-baseddimensions of consumptionbehaviorcan generateinsights ideally suited Froma to the contemporary needs of marketing management. hermeneutic perspective, the stories consumers tell about theirconsumptionexperiencesarea primelocus of discovery. how consumersinterpret theirproduct/serUnderstanding vice needs and desires in relationto their perceivedlife circumstances is a pressing strategic issue in the currentmarketing climate where competitivepressuresnecessitatemore nuanced conceptualizations of market segments (Brown 1995; Day 1990) and lifestyle clusters (Holt 1997). The incan sights offered by a hermeneuticmode of interpretation be particularlyuseful in bridging the strategicgap between consumers' overt awarenessof their life circumstancesand the marketingopportunitieslatentto these perceptions(e.g., Amould and Price 1993; Day 1990; Kohli and Jaworski 1990).IArnouldand Wallendorf(1994) offer a notable exception to this trend. The differences between their market-orientedethnographic framework and the present hermeneuticapproachis discussed subsequently.Spiggle (1994) also addresses the process of interpreting qualitativedata. However, her model is abstractedfrom a numberof differentinterpretivist approaches used in marketingand consumer researchand therebycollapses the differences between sociological and hermeneutic modes of interpretation. Arnould and Wallendorf's(1994) discussion is groundedin the sociological traditionand provides a more informativecomparisonpoint for demonstratingthe unique qualities of hermeneuticinterpretation.

439 A hermeneuticapproachcan also contributeto"the quality movement,"which seeks to place the"voice of the cu

stomer"at the center of an integratedapproach(among research and development, marketing, and manufacturing functions) to product development (Griffin and Hauser 1993). Here, customerneeds are defined as a"descriptionin the customer's own words of the benefits to be fulfilled by the productor service" (Griffinand Hauser 1993, p. 4). The hermeneuticcaveat is that the voice of a given consumer will often express a nexus of personal meanings that are formed in a complex field of social and historical relationships. As such, a consumer's consumption needs and even his or her self-perceptionscan exhibit a considerabledegree of situational variability depending on which personal meanings are salient in a given consumption context (also see Belk 1975; Stayman and Deshpande 1989). Moreover, the heterogeneityamong consumers' personal histories can frame their perceptionsof consumer needs in very different meaning systems (Holt 1997; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). Accordingly, marketers must manage the voices of consumers speaking from these distinct cultural positions and who construct different meaning-basedrelationships (and hence different perceived needs) to a seemingly common product,service, or promotionalmessage/image (Holt 1997; Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson,Locander, and Pollio 1989, 1990; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). A hermeneuticapproachcan help marketersmanage the complexities (and respondto the opportunities)posed by the pluralityof consumers' meaning-basedrelationshipsto products,brands,services, and promotions. A HERMENEUTIC MODELOF CONSUMER MEANING assumea narrative does not automatically Experience it form.Rather, is reflecting experience we conon that struct stories. The stories we make are accounts, and to attempts explain understand experience. -John Robinson LindaHawpe, and Think"Narrative Process" ing as a Heuristic Hermeneuticscholars emphasize that the process of textual interpretation cannot be reduced to the applicationof a"method"(Gadamer 1993). Rather,the techniques used to are formulate an interpretation embedded within a framework of core assumptions. For this reason, this article's workbenchagenda of demonstratinga frameworkfor interpreting textual data requires some consideration of its underlying hermeneutic assumptions. This discussion is organizedin termsof Morgan's(1980) three-leveldefinition of a researchparadigmas (1) a general worldview, (2) the metaphorically structured theoretical models that derive from the general worldview,and (3) specific proceduresfor implementing the worldview/theories. My overview will incorporateissues related to this general worldview into a more focused discussion of a particular hermeneuticallyoriented theory of meaning. This theory of meaning draws from researchon the narrative structuringof identity and the role of stories in con(see Bruner1986; Crites 1986; structingself-understandings Gergen and Gergen 1986; Hermans 1996; Polkinghorne 1988). Across the diverse fields

of linguistics, social psyand chology, anthropology, sociology, theoristspropose that human understandingis organized in terms of culturally

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JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 In Figure 1, I presenta hermeneutic/narratological model of understanding. left-handside of the figure is based on The the paradigmatic metaphorof the person as a text, or more descriptivelystill, a person'slife history as a text. From this perspective, the meaning of particularlife events are contextualized within a broadernarrativeof self-identity. Alconstructionsmay be markedby thoughthese narratological internalcontradictionsand compartmentalized beliefs, they nonethelessenable people to constructa sense of continuity and coherence among the flow of their life experiences (Crites 1986; Gergen 1991; Giddens 1991; Polkinghome 1988). These narrativesof personal identity are themselves contextualizedwithin a complex backgroundof historically establishedculturalmeaningsand belief systems. This culturalbackgroundprovides the social categories, common sense beliefs, folk knowledge, and interpretive frames of referencefrom which personalizedmeanings and conceptions of self-identity are constructed (Faber and O'Guinn 1988; Holt 1997;Thompson,Pollio, and Locander 1994). In this model, a key term is personalized cultural

sharednarrative forms, such as stories (Edwardsand Potter 1992) and myths (Barthes 1957; Levi-Strauss 1963; Levy view of meaning 1981). In recent years, this narratological has gained considerabletheoreticalcurrencyboth as an altemative to computationalmodels of the mind (Harre and Gillett 1994; Lakoff 1987; Sarbin 1986) and as a more dynamic conceptualizationof conventionalsocial psychological constructs such as self-concept (Edwards and Potter 1992; Gergen 1991; Lifton 1993; Markusand Wurf 1986). Narratologicalmodels of meaning provide an important linkage between hermeneutic'sabstractphilosophicaltenets and the actual practice of hermeneuticinterpretation. They also groundthis particular frameworkin a series interpretive of issues relevant to the phenomenological aspects of the person/culturerelationship (Merleau-Ponty 1962; Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1989), that is, the personalized cultural meanings that constitute a person's sense of selfidentity and the biographical significance of specific life events and experiences within this unfolding narrativeof self (see Romanyshyn1982).

Figure 1A HERMENEUTICMODEL OF MEANINGCONSTRUCTION

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Cultural Background of Historically Established Meanings

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I _~ _~~~~~~~~,_~ ._~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ..._ _._,_~ _._ __ __ ._..,_~ __..J~~~~~~~~_ _ _ -. - - -_ - - - _- _ _ _ _ _

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消费者行为 从众

Interpreting Consumers frame of reference. The relationship between this cultural background and the personal meanings constructed by a consumer can assume many forms. Culturalknowledge is by no means a monolithic and internallyconsistent system. Rather,it is a heterogeneousnetworkthatoffers a multitude of interpretivepositions and endless opportunitiesfor context-specific combinations,juxtapositions,and personalized transformationsof established cultural meanings (Gergen 1991; Somers and Gibson 1994; Thompson and Haytko 1997). Personalizedconsumption meanings then express a co-constituting(or dialectical) relationshipbetween the social conditions and identity issues salient to a given consumer and a broaderlegacy of historically availableframes of reference,ratherthan being purely subjectiveor idiosyncratic constructions. This model not only conceptualizes consumption meanings as a type of narrative,but it furtherargues that consumers are"self-narrators" (Crites 1986; Markusand Wurf 1986; Polkinghorne1988; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994) whose stories impose a meaningful historical order onto life events and who selectively highlight particular facets of these experiencedevents in their retrospectivenarratives. Accordingly, the reciprocal movement in this hermeneuticmodel occurs when a specific consumernarrative or story is derived from a consumptionexperience and consumer'sbroadthen is incorporated into the interpreting er life narrative. Thus, personalized meanings emerge througha dialogical relationshipin which a consumer's interpretivepredispositionshighlight salient aspects of his or her life-world and, reciprocally,these focal experiencescan influence his or her interpretive standpoint(Hermans1996). A HERMENEUTIC FRAMEWORK FOR INTERPRETING CONSUMER STORIES The Pragmaticsof Interpretation If we see this[hermeneutic] circleas a viciousone and lookfor waysof avoiding evenif we just senseit as it, then an inevitable imperfection, the act of understandfrom up. ing hasbeenmisunderstood theground-Martin Heidegger,Being and Time

441 standing of consumers' consumption stories (Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994), that is, to articulatethe meanings that specific consumptionstories have in relationshipto a broadernarrativeof personal history. Because a holistic understanding develops over time (Giorgi 1989), the implementationof a hermeneuticframeworkalso must occur over time. Accordingly,the scope of the entire frameworkcannot be implemented in a single reading of a text. Rather,this frameworkpresentsa multifacetedstrategyof interpretation that must be implemented through an iterative process in which each readingof the text encompasses a broaderrange of considerationsto arriveat a holistic interpretation. The thirdpragmaticconsiderationconcernsthe role of the researcher interpreting the textual data. Hermeneutic reof searchemphasizes that an understanding a text always reframeof flects afusion of horizons between the inter

preter's referenceand the texts being interpreted (Arnoldand Fischer 1994; Gadamer 1993; Holbrook and O'Shaughnessy 1988; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). The implication is that the researcher's interpretiveorientation (i.e., backgroundknowledge, underlyingassumptions,and questions of interest) enables him or her to become attuned to specific characteristicsand patternsaffordedby the textual data. Conversely,the engagement with the textual data can sensitize the researcherto new questions and precipitaterevisions in his or her initial interpretivestandpoint.Thus, a seeks to be open to possibilities hermeneuticinterpretation affordedby the text ratherthan projectinga predetermined system of meanings onto the textual data (Gadamer 1993; Ricoeur 1981). Although the fusion of horizons concept may seem nebulous, it should be recalled that schema theory posits a similar dynamic as a basic quality of comprehension.Perceptual information is assimilated to preexisting schematic knowledge, and reciprocally,the processing of new informationcan lead to the accommodation(or adaptation) the of schematic structure (Neisser 1976, 1987). The following hermeneuticframeworkcan then be viewed as a schematic structurethat can enable marketing researchersto engage more productivelyin this hermeneuticprocess of assimilation and accommodationwhen interpreting consumption the meanings relevantto specific marketsegments. Selecting an A Priori Contextof Investigation But chancehappenings offseteach other,andfacts in theirmultiplicity coalesceandshowupas a certain way of takinga standin relationto the humansituation, outlineand[and]revealan eventwhichhas its definite whichwe cantalk. about-Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenologyof

A typical feature of hermeneuticallyoriented marketing researchis a methodologicalstatementthatthe interpretation of textual data proceeds througha series of part-to-whole iterations(Arnold and Fischer 1994; Spiggle 1994; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). This iterative procedure actually entails two distinct stages. The first is an intratext is cycle in which a text (such as an interviewtranscript) read in its entiretyto gain a sense of the whole (Giorgi 1989). Further readings then are undertakento develop an integrated understandingof the consumption meanings conveyed by the text. The second part-to-whole movementis an intertextual one whereby the researcherlooks for patterns(and differences) across different interviews. As well, there are interactivemovementsbetween the intratextual intertexand tual interpretive cycles. For example, a researchermay gain an importantinsight from an interview text interpreted later in the process and then reconsider previously interpreted texts in light of this newly developed understanding. A second pragmaticconsiderationfollows from the goal of hermeneuticinterpretations engender a holistic underto

Perception This first stage in the interpretiveprocess follows from both hermeneutic and marketing

considerations.The concept of the hermeneutic circle implies that a researcher's understanding of the research phenomenon necessarily entails an initiatingframeof reference.Hence, the first stage of a hermeneutic investigation is an immersion in backgroundresearchconcerning the historical and culturalconditions relevant to the domain of interest. Although such are undertakings not typically discussed as partof a methodological technique, hermeneuticresearch(like other"inter-

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442

JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 In these illustrations, use the same pseudonymsto referto I as participants Thompson (1996) does. WhereasThompson (1996) presenteda substantive analysisof these data,the present treatment uses these texts as vehicles for demonstrating how to conduct a hermeneuticinterpretation. This treatment is consistent with Arnouldand Wallendorf's(1994) demonstration ethnographic of To interpretation. enhancethe overall however,the hermeneuutility of the presentdemonstration, tic framework illustrated is texusing previouslyunpublished tual data-drawn from interviewswith"Susan," and"Betty,""Jean"-that highlighta differentset of consumptionissues thanthose coveredin the publishedtreatment. the Interpreting Textsof ConsumerInterviewsas Stories Consumption In modern Athens,the vehiclesof masstransportation arecalledmetaphorai. go to workor to go homeone To takesa metaphor-abusortrain. Stories couldalsotake this noblename:everyday and they traverse organize places;they select and link themtogether; they make sentences itineraries of them.Theyarespatial and out trajectories.-Michel de Certeau,The Practices of EverydayLife

pretivist"approaches)is premised on the metaphorof the researcher-as-instrument (Hirschmanand Holbrook 1992; Sherry 1991). Hence, the quality of the researchfindings is contingent upon the scope of the backgroundknowledge that the researcherbrings to bear and his or her ability to forge insightful linkages between this backgroundknowledge and the texts at hand.The cultivationof a sociohistorical perspectiveon the researchdomain coupled with a sensitivity to textual nuances are probably the most critical aspects of hermeneuticinterpretation. For the purposeof this illustration,the domain of interest is the consumerexperiencesof professionalworkingwomen of the baby boom generation.The marketingrelevance of this consumer group has been widely noted (Bartos 1989). Forthe presentpurposes,this consumermarketoffers an excellent context for illustratinga hermeneuticapproachbecause of the extensive body of historical literaturethat discusses (1) the evolution of motherhoodand feminine identities within Americansociety (e.g., Cowan 1983; Ehrenreich and English 1979; Sparke 1995; Strasser 1982) and (2) the central role that the social construction (and transformations) of women's identities as mothers and homemakers has played in shapingcontemporary consumerculture(e.g., Douglas 1994; Lavin 1995; Matthews 1987).2 As will be shown s

ubsequently in the specific illustrations, the consumptionstories expressedby the participants in this study offer experience-basedand personalizedmanifestationsof these historicalthemes. Forthe moment,I postpone furtherdescriptionof interpretivestrategiesfor explicating such historical relations until the final stages of this hermeneuticprocess wherethe most extensiveeffort is made at integratinghistoricalthemes into the analysis. However,a researcher'sdeveloping sense of the historicalcontext is always in play duringall stages of the interpretive process. Generationof TextualData Although the focus here is not on data collection techniques, hermeneutic marketing research is based on the"texts"of consumer stories. The type of texts generatedby"phenomenological" (Kvale 1983; Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1989) or"long"(McCracken1988) interviewsare well suited to hermeneuticanalysis.These interparticularly views typically employ relativelyfew preplanned questions. Instead,the course of the interviewdialogueemerges in relation to the characteristicsof the consumption experiences and meanings expressed by the interviewee(or participant). The illustrativeexcerpts presentedin the following section are taken from verbatimaudiotapedtranscripts generated through phenomenological interviews, which range in durationfrom ninety minutesto two and one-half hours. For each participant,two separateinterviewsessions were held. The first focused on general lifestyle issues and perceptions (including reference to many consumption issues) and the second specifically focused on everyday consumption issues. The interview texts used to illustratethis hermeneutic approachwere conducted with seven professional working women who were married,had children,and ranged in age from 32 to 41 years.2The social history of this cultural group is also one in which I have become immersed throughsix years of study. In keeping with researcheras-instrument metaphor, a research approach necessarily reflects the researcher'sknowledge, skills, and interests.

By slightly modifying de Certeau'sdescriptionof stories as"spatial-temporal" trajectories,an elegant statement of the logic that motivates hermeneutic interpretations is attained. The stories consumers tell about their everyday experiences create temporal trajectories in which a past event is relived in relationto presentconcerns and projected towardan envisioned future.This temporalorderingcreates relationships between a consumer's contemporaryunderstanding,his or her personal history,and a broaderfield of historically established meanings. As well, these stories organize the multiple contexts of experiences (i.e., de Certeau's"places")into a coherentnarrative self-identity. of There are five key aspects to this hermeneutic view of consumer stories. First, these narrativesare structuredby plot lines that organizeevents and characters(i.e., self-conceptions and perceptionsof others) in terms of goals, motives, and anticipatedf

utures (Ricoeur 1981). Second, they reflect symbolic parallels among the meanings of different events and actions (Barthes 1974). Third,they presentintertextual relationships in which meanings invoked by consumers' differentconsumptionstories become integratedin their narrativesof personal history (Polkinghome 1988). Fourth, they express existential themes by which conceptions about a person's self-identity are negotiated through reflections on consumptions experiences, special possessions, and consumerchoices (Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson, Locander,and Pollio 1990). Fifth, they draw from the cultural code of sharedsociohistoric meanings and conventionalized viewpoints (see Holt 1997; O'Guinn and Shrum 1997; Thompson,Pollio, and Locander 1994). Analyzingthe Emplotment ConsumerStories of Hermeneuticresearchershave adaptedthe analytic construct of plot from its core literaryfield to the task of analyzing the structureof human understanding(Gergen and Gergen 1986; Polkinghome 1988; Ricoeur 1981). In theseterms, consumers' interpretations are acts of emplotment,

and conversely, the interpretation of the consumers'

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Interpreting Consumers expressed meanings entails an analysis of the plots that structuretheir consumption stories (Stem 1995). From a hermeneutic perspective, the analysis of consumption stories involves a constant interrogationof plot in order to of develop an understanding the personalsignificanceof the salient experiences, circumstances,and events described in a consumer story. Plot is commonly defined as a narrative structure that imposes a chronologicalorderuponevents and organizesthese events into a meaningful whole (Gergenand Gergen 1986). The chronologicalfunctionof plot is referredto as narrative movement.Movement is what enables a story to convey a sense of"going somewhere"by organizingevents and experiences in a temporalorderdirectedtowardsome destination or goal state (Stem 1995). The holism-creatingfunction of plot is referredto as narrativeframing, which selects and highlights certain details out of the field of experience (Polkinghome 1988). The relevantcaveat is that movement and framing are clearly interrelated dimensions of a narrative plot. Hence, in the conduct of an interpretation,the analysis of movementand framingis a mutuallyinformative and intertwined processes. For purposes of demonstrating how to construct a hermeneutic interpretation, however, I find it useful to providea separatedescriptionfor each facet. tend to Analyzingnarrativemovement.Westernnarratives move in a linearfashion wherebya focal action is situatedin or relationto a"past"of precipitating enablingevents and is projectedtowardan envisioned futureof outcomes and consequences (Gergen and Gergen 1986). Hermeneuticaltheoas rists describe this projectivefeatureof understanding actions that are directed towardan emerging and hence only vaguely recognized life project (Sartre 1956). In the hermeneutictradition,terms such as historicallyestablished

understandingor personal history do not just refer to the repast but ratherto this constellationof past-present-future lations (Gadamer 1993; Heidegger 1960). Marketingtheoristsconventionallyaddressthis constellation in less philosophicallyexalted terms such as the pursuit of consumer goals (Bagozzi and Warshaw1990). However, the hermeneuticalaccount suggests a substantiveadaptation to this conventionaltreatmentof goal-directedconsumption by proposing that the relationship between a consumer's goals and specific courses of action is not a direct function of rationalcalculationsregardingthe utilities inherentto the choice alternatives.Rather,these relationshipsare mediated by the narrativesthat the consumer invokes to interprethis or her consumption situation.Hence, goals, envisioned outcomes, and perceptionsof reasonableactions are contingent on consumers' narrativeconstructionof their relevantpast and presentcircumstancesand desired(and often undesired) futurestates. A key facet of a hermeneuticanalysis of consumers'consumption stories then is discerning the constructionof personal history that underliesa consumer'sconsumptiongoals of and and his or her interpretations desirableattributes outcomes. The text of an interview with Susan illustratesthis Susan's interview,an issue interpretivelogic. In interpreting that"stood out" was her awarenessof the physical demands posed by her hectic lifestyle. As a means to reducethese demands, Susan made purchasedecisions by envisioning what it would be like to use a productand assessing how well it would mesh with her routine activities. As the following

443 passage indicates, these anticipatoryconsiderationscould take precedenceover not only rational,price-driven considerations, but also the emotional pull toward anotherbrand option:Susan: I really liked the Ford[minivan]a lot, but it had the back tailgate that lifted up instead of the doors thatopened. I suspect that if thathad been available we might have gone with the Ford instead because it was real close between the Fordand the GM[GeneralMotors].The lift gate in the back was the main differenceand we went with the General Motors because we liked the doors opening the way they did. I loved the way the Ford was designed on the inside. I loved the way it drove. I loved the way it felt and everything, but you are there manipulatingall these kids and groceries and things and you have got to lift this thing, and it was very awkward.It was hard to lift, and if you are holding something you have got to steer all the kids back, or whack them in the head. So that was a big thing. You know it was a lot cheaper than the GM. It was between$1,000 and$2,000 less than General Motors and because money was a factor,we did go ahead and actually at one point talk money with a[Ford] dealer. But we couldn't get the price difference down to where I was willing to deal with that tailgate is what it comes down to (#1).

In Susan's story, a design detail emerges as a c

entralfigure in a future-directednarrativethat portraysan ongoing ordeal of managing children while manipulatinggrocery bags and coping with a cumbersome lift gate. Despite its many attractivefeatures and a lower price, the Ford minivan's awkwardtailgateinvokeda strongaversivefeeling that overrode her usual price consciousness and the hedonic pleasuresaffordedby the kinestheticand aesthetic qualities of the Fordproduct.In contrast,the GM's design became the critical benefit because it could be envisioned as facilitating the conduct of her daily routine.From a hermeneuticstandthe point, the key issue is to understand patternof meanings that would allow this one feature to assume such a significant role in Susan's purchase decision. Thus, this specific"story"must be understoodin relation to the broaderplot line of her interview. As herinterviewnarrative unfolded,Susan'sstorytook a reof gressive turncharacteristic a tragic plot line (Gergenand futurewith Gergen1986;Stem 1995),in whichheranticipated the GM van gave way to a host of mechanicalproblems.This turnservedto magnifythe significanceof herpurunexpected chase deliberation ambivalenceover the GM productand and inspiredhistoricallytinged reflectionson the meaningof this purchase.In the following passage,the plot of this story culminatesin the questionof"Whenwill I learn?" whichalso imAs plies a sense of"I shouldhave knownbetter." is typicalof Susan'sotherconsumptionstories,she took responsibility for thedissatisfyingoutcomeandinterpreted thesenegativeevents as somethingthatshe could have foreseenandavoided.In this some action context,an acceptable endingto the storyrequired thatcould providea symbolic remediation therebylessen and the tragicand self-impugning dimensionsof the story:Susan: It has got General Motors defects and that is I really frustrating. mean the transmissionhad to

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444be rebuiltafter about 150 miles. You know, you spend$20,000 on something and it should be right. The transmission had to be rebuilt and then it had this horriblevibrationproblemand it has been back to the shop five or six times for that. We took a long vacation where you couldn't go over sixty miles an hourbecause the thing startedshaking so bad. Interviewer: How do you feel about the problems that you have had with the GeneralMotors? Susan:I feel mad. I put it in my Christmasletter to 62 people across the country[laughs]. I mean, I told everybody don't buy one of these things because the transmissionis bad. We should have known that too because our Buick-the Buick that is in the shop right now-its transmission lasted about 3000 miles and had to be rebuilt. My husband'sparentsare GM people and they have hadone go bad. I keep thinking,When I am going to learn?I think that this one has done it. I don't thinkI will ever go back to GM afterthis. I really don't. It just doesn't make any sense (#2).

JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 minivan experience in which she furtherarticulatesa constellation of

meanings underlying her interpretationabout makinga regrettable purchase: I Susan: stilllikeit[thedining roomset]a wholelotbetterthanwhatwe usedto have.ButI thinkif we hadtaken we havegotten moreprelonger would I cisely whatwe wanted. meanwe got a great deal.Youcouldn't thatforthatprice,so I am get stillhappy themoney of it,butsomedays with part I wishwe hadspent moreandgotten a something littlebit different. I thinkthatfearwas one And reason we[sheandherhusband] that the bought General Motors because wereafraid if van we that we bought Ford.... the is Well,there a feelingthat if something too muchless,thenyou start is askingyourself is it thatmuchless, andI think why is that oneof thethings kept we about the thinking Ford. mean hadread[magazine] I we the articles. WehadreadhowFord usesmoreautomatization in theirmanufacturing we knewthatit cost and themlessto make carthan a GM.So we knew that there a realreason whytheirs so much was for is but cheaper, you keep askingyourself,"AmI Am goingto kickmyselfforthis? I goingto wish thatI spentmoreandgottenthe otherone?"So thisis thecaseof it happening reverse in (#3). This passage also illustrates the way that consumption meanings emerge throughthe intertextualrelations among different events. Her narrativecenters on the purchase of two different products with distinct purchase rules: going with the best price and compromisingon featuresin the case of the furnitureversus paying more to get a salient, desired feature in the case of the GM. In this narrativeassociation, however, these purchases became symbolically related events. Herinterpretation the furniture of purchaseprovidesan imfromwhichshe constructs future-dia plicitframeof reference In rectednarrative. this narrative, Fordoption (which cost the less and lackeda desiredfeature)is associatedwith a dystopian outcomein whichshe regretsnot payingmoremoneyto get a desired feature.However,this experience-driven judgment leads to a regrettable choice. Hence, the symparadoxically bolic significanceof not being able to"getthe price ... down" on the Ford alternative, she recountsin the first excerpt, as emerges in relationto a broadertheme expressedthroughout her interviews: importance being a balancedperson. the of I drewthis linkage by reevaluating interviewtexts in a her mannersensitized by the question"Whatare the symbolic meaningsthat renderthese two purchasessalient in Susan's narrativeof personal history?" This reading revealed an overarchingnarrativetheme of wanting to lead a life that would be free of regretwhen she looked backed on her personal choices. ForSusan,a key personalmeaningassociated ideal is that of being a balanced with this future-orientation person, which she defines primarilyas being both a caring motherand a"professionalperson"(i.e., an engineer in an architectural design firm).Although she recognizes that undertakingthese dual roles necessitates compromises in both the professionaland domestic spheres,she has constructeda

life story in which these compromisedcircumstancesequate to a balancedlife. Hence, the stresses and moments of frustrationthat arise in her currentcircumstancesare moderated by her sense that her various"compromises" offer the

These two passagesillustratethe way in which plot movementcontextualizes"reasoned" consumerchoices andsituates these choices in a broadernarrative personalhistory.One of for pursuingthe theoretical path significanceof Susan'ssymbolic resolutionto this otherwisedissatisfyingoutcome is to draw linkages to previous consumer researchthat suggests thata desirefor completenessandclosureis a prominent consumer motivation(Thompson,Locander,and Pollio 1990). My logic for this movementis thatthe act of complainingand spreading negative word of mouth to friends and family the cards) (through symbolicallysignificanttextsof Christmas enabledherto metaphorically"writeoff' her pastassociations with GM. The narrative linkingof these events also createda sense thathernegativeexperienceshadbeen balancedto some extentby potentiallycosting GM its once loyal customers(on her husband's side of the family)and protecting othersfrom a similarlyproblematic consumption experience. Anotherstructural featureof consumernarratives attained through phenomenological interviews is the movement of the narrative throughchains of symbolic associations.A reflection on one event triggers a reflection on anotherevent holding a similar meaning, though the movement would seem to be a non sequiturif a researcher only focused on the factual circumstancesbeing discussed. This associative logic relates to de Certeau's(1984) commentaryabout the way stories organize spaces. In consumer stories, these reflections organize differentexperientialcontexts (and times) by unifying meanings.These chains of associations interjectan intertextualquality into the consumer texts in which one consumptionstory may invoke referencesto previouslydiscussed consumption experiences. Analyzing the symbolic referencesoffers a way to interplayamong these intertextual of enrich understanding each story and identify the key thematic meanings that structurea consumer'soutlook. This intertextual characteristic can also be illustrated throughSusan's interview.About twenty minutes after initially discussing the GM experience, she also expresseddisover a recentlypurchaseddining room set. This appointment story inspires a reflection on the previously discussed GM

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Interpreting Consumers prospect of a future free from personal regret over choices made in the present. is My interpretation that this personalizedlife meaningis symbolically expressed and affirmed in her consumption stories. Both her furnitureand minivan choices were constructed as imbalanced ones that respectively placed too much emphasison price in the case of the furniture purchase and on a more expensive differentiatingfeature in the case of the minivan.In her interviewnarrative, these storiesabout two regrettable purchases provide

the setting for a story (which flows immediatelyfrom the discoursein Excerpt#3) that affirmsher ideal of being a balancedperson. This story concerns the purchaseof an expensive Ethan Allen bunkbed. Susan discusses being"torn" between a more expensive option (which had the aesthetics and quality she wanted) and a more affordableone that did not offer these same benefits. In this case, however, she waited until her local Ethan Allen dealer ran a sale on floor displays, which enabled her to buy the bunk beds (with"a few dings and scratches")at an acceptable price. Hence, her personal satisfaction with the bunkbed purchase is grounded in her broaderpersonalview that balancedsolutions offer the path to a regret-free future. This story also expresses another theme that is intertwinedwith Susan's conception of balance. For her, being balanced requiresa sense of patience and a constantself-affirmationthatshe does"nothave to accomplish everythingnow,"and thatshe will have opportunicaty at a laterpoint in her life to accomplishher"deferred" reer goals. The EthanAllen story providesa symbolic affirmation that a balanced and patient approachto life will result in long-termhappiness. To place this hermeneuticreading in a comparativecontext, a fairly standardtheoreticalassessment of the"GM or Ford van" story would be that Susan had mistakenlyplaced too much reliance on the price-qualityheuristicin assessing the relativeutilities (or value) offeredby these competingalternatives (e.g., Rao and Monroe 1989). While offering a parsimoniousexplanation,such a reading does not address the symbolic significance of the choice or the meaningsthat underlie the requisite perceptionsof"value."In contrast,a hermeneuticreading provides insight into the symbolic dynamics underlyingher choice of the GM over the Ford and into why her"fear"of the lower-pricedproductcould not be of assuaged by her rational understanding productioncost differences. It also shows how threeseemingly differentpurchase situationswere symbolically linked within a common narrativeof personal identity. Hence, Susan's interview illustrates that narrativemovement functions much like de Certeau's"metaphorai" linking a multitudeof temporalby ly disparateevents in a common life-projecttrajectory. Analyzingnarrativeframing. Framingrefersto the meanings throughwhich a given experience is understoodand the narrativelinkages (such as thematicand symbolic parallels) thata consumer creates among differentevents discussed in her or his consumption story. The following passage from Betty illustrates the way"dining out" is framed by a constellation of meanings relatedto her professionaljob, sense of domestic responsibilities,and personaldesires to be cared for, ratherthan having to care for others:Betty: I usually do it[eat out for dinner]on days when I've just been workingso hardand the thoughtof

445having to come home and to just work harder still is just more than I can take. I perceive fixing dinneras

falling in the categoryof the strawthat breaks the camel's back. I've worked real hard and all I want to do is go out and have someone else do the work. So, I don't want to have to worry about the cooking and the fixing and the thinking about what to make. I want to go and see a menu and just on the spur of the moment say,"Yeah,that's what I want"(#4).

frame, Betty creates an association Throughthis narrative between work days that are particularlydemanding and cooking dinner,a domestic activity that is framedas another form of demandingwork. In her passage, an implicit"balance" metaphorcan be discerned in which having to cook dinnerbecomes the"strawthat breaksthe camel's back":it tips the balanceof responsibilitiesin an overly stressfuland demanding direction. A relevantbackgroundconsideration is that Betty's professional responsibilities require her to move between a"systems analysts"role that involves little direct interpersonal involvementand a counseling/problemsolving role that is client-centered and interpersonally engaging. Betty interpretsher unusuallyhard work days as those where she has been heavily immersedin the interpersonal dimensionsof herjob and has spent the day"responding to other people's needs and problems,"ratherthan"getting her own work done." In this framing, Betty interprets herjob in such a way that her"systemsanalyst"role constitutes its core, whereas the interpersonalactivities are rendered as tertiarydemands that get her"off schedule." To interpretthis passage, I first engaged in a thoughtprocess known as imaginative variation (Giorgi 1989).

considers alternativeways thata particHere, the researcher ipant could have framed an event. Through this process, a researchercan become sensitized to the specific alignment or patternof meanings that frame an experience. For example, I noted that Betty could have interpretedher job in a manner whereby involvement in its interpersonaldimensions would have been the"core,"thereby alleviating her frustrationsover not getting her work done. My next task was to analyze the patternof meanings that supportedher framing of these interpersonalresponsibilitiesas stress-inducing distractions.In addressing this aspect of her narrative, I became sensitized to a distinctionbetween doing for self and doing for others thatemerged in her interviewsand framedher interpretation cooking in Excerpt#4. of On her interpersonallyfocused"hard"work days, cooking dinner for her family is framed as yet anotherform of"other-directed" work that functionsas a regressiveelement in her story. That is, it promises to accentuateher sense of being fatiguedfrom doing things for others. In contrast,eating out standsout as a progressiveelement thatoffers a needed respite from work and, more important,affordsan experience in which someone else caters to her needs. For Betty, as"cooking at home" is interpreted the normalroutine(e.g., the stability element), which then allows"eatingout" to be as interprete

d a much coveted experienceof being cared for. Thus, eating out is interpretedas a pamperingexperience that has been earnedthroughhardwork and is needed to alleviate stress and rejuvenateBetty for the next day. An importantfunction of narrativeframing is selecting those aspects that will be salient in the narrativefrom the

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JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 the idea of home cooking. Betty interprets cooking dinneras an act that interjectsa sense of traditionalfamily togetherness into the usual condition of her family being apart all day long. She also views cooking as somethingthatshe does well and, as discussed elsewhere in her interviews, as an artisticundertaking throughwhich she can express her creativity. Hence, the personal salience of having her cooking overtly praised coheres with the self-expressive meaning thatcooking holds within her narrative self-identity. of A useful and time-testedmeans to explicate the structure of narrativeframing is to interprettextual data in terms of binary themes ((Levi-Strauss 1963; Levy 1981; Spiggle 1994). A theoreticalrationalefor this interpretive strategyis offered by a body of psychological research that indicates thatbinarycontrastsprovidemajororganizingprinciplesfor human cognition (Gardner1985; Harreand Gillette 1994) and by literarytheory,which arguesthatbinarycontrastsare endemic features of Westernizedplot lines (Barthes 1957; Derrida1976). In a pragmaticvein, this interpretive strategy enables marketing researchers organizesystematicallythe to multiplicityof textual details that emerge in consumer stories into a more manageableset of underlyingthematic dimensions (Spiggle 1994; Thompson, Locander,and Pollio 1989). For example, some of the binarycontraststhat structure Betty's narrativeinclude doing for others versus doing for self, being togetherversus being apart,being appreciated versus not being appreciated,being helped versus being nagged (or dictated to), and finally, giving pleasure versus receiving pleasure. A particular form of binary relations-based on the gestalt theory of figure/groundperception-can be particuthe larlyuseful for representing holistic qualitiesof narrative framing(Thompson,Locander,and Pollio 1989, 1990). This theory holds that the perceivedcharacteristicsof a"figure" (i.e., an image that is salient in a person's perceptualfield) emerge in a codeterminingrelationshipto a contextualbackwhen ground.This relationshipis most clearly demonstrated a perceptual reversal occurs in a figure/ground diagram, such as the well-known face/vase image (see Thompson, Locander,and Pollio 1989). Here, the perceptualtotality is neitherone form nor another;rather,it is a dynamic perceptual relationship that presents multiple configurations of part-to-whole relationships(Kohler 1947). As applied to textual meanings, the figure/ground metaphorconceptualizesa"theme"as a dynamic meaning relationshipconstitutedby contrastingthematic aspects. In to the Betty's narrative, meanin

gsshe attributes cooking and theme as eatingcan be interpreted expressinga figure/ground of doing for others/doingfor self. For Betty, activities that had overt for-self connotations(such as personaltime away from her family) presentedexperientialdilemmas (such as feelings of guilt) that arose from her overt awarenessof the limited time that was available to spend with her daughter and husband.This guilt issue was particularlysalient in regard to time spent (or not spent) with her daughter.Hence, the dual meaningsBetty ascribedto cooking-as an activity does for othersand a personallyrewarding thatshe primarily form of creative expression-offer a narrativestrategy for balancingthe series of trade-offsshe sees arising from her lifestyle choices. In lieu of this implicitpersonalbenefit,Betwould assume a regressivequality in which her ty's narrative sense of self is constantlysacrificedto the needs of others.

welter of details that constitute a consumer experience. In other words, consumernarratives never tell the"whole story"of a situation;rather,they highlight specific characteristics while renderingother characteristicsmarginalor even invisible to the plot. An awarenessof this selectivity function encouragesresearchersto interrogatethe"givens"of a consumptionstory by asking,"Whatare the meanings that renderthis detail or issue salient in the consumer's narrative?"In conductinga hermeneuticinterpretation, questhis tion will tend to be answeredin terms of the salient event's symbolic function, such as representingbroaderlife issues and concerns (Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson 1996; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). In Betty's two interviews, she continuously circled back to issues related to revealedcookcooking and eating out. Hence, her narrative ing to be a focal consumptionexperiencethat was relatedto a personallysignificantconstellationof meanings:Betty: I learnedto cook watchingmy mothercook for a family, and to me cooking is cooking for someone other than myself. And I get pleasureout of someone externally,respondingto what the food is or how it's cooked. Interviewer: Well, what's it like for you when you're cooking for your family? Betty: Well, it's a duty;it's somethingthatI do. And this goes a lot deeper, is knowing that when I cook and I cook well, I give pleasure.My husbandhas finally learnedover the years-because he's not one of these people to say any way, shape, or form that he really likes anything-is that if he really likes something he betterspeak up, otherwise I won't make any special effort to fix it again. My daughter,she knows how to say the right things,"Oh, mother,this is the most delicious supper,I love this." I really do want them to get pleasure,and it gives me some satisfaction when they say they really like something I've made.And the cooking is just sort of a preludeto knowing that we'll spend a certain amount of time all togetherafter a day when my husband's been at work and my daughter'sbeen at school and day c

are, and I've been at work. You know, to come home and all of us be together and sit aroundthe table ... we're all here together. When you said cooking is kind of a duty Interviewer: could you tell me a little bit about that? Betty: Well, the sense of duty lies in feeling responsible both to myself and to my family, that we have balanced,nutritiousmeals, and knowing that themeal we eat at dinner fits into that because I

don't always know what they eat duringthe middle of the day (#5).

This passage illustratesthe symbolic relationsbetween a specific framingof an experience or activity (i.e., cooking) of and a consumer'snarrative personalhistory.Betty's interpretationof cooking as a kind of a duty does not convey an entirely negative connotation, as might be inferred if this phrase is not assessed in the context of the interview as a whole. Rather,this"sense of duty"expresses an ambivalent of role thatcooking holds within her narrative personalidentity. In a positive sense, cooking provides an historical link to memories of her motherand the warmfeelings evoked by

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Interpreting Consumers This narrativeframe selects out details such as the sense of personalrewardshe gains when her meals bring pleasure to her family and, conversely,a sensitivity when her efforts this are not explicitly appreciated.Furthermore,"forothers" of interpretation cooking rendersit as an activity that is devoid of self-care. For example, her narrativewould not support a constructionsuch as"coming home to preparea special meal for herself." However, the symbolic association between care and cooking frames"eating out" as a salient consumption experience in which she does something for herself. This meaning then underlies more pragmaticrationales such as the ease and convenience offered by not having to cook. InterpretingConsumptionStories as Self-Referential Projections a Thesymbolizing centers its ownnarrative,life on self and recreated. storythatis itselfcreated constantly-Robert Jay Lifton, The ProteanSelf

447 standingof the text has been attained,he or she can reassess the text with an eye for the self-referential qualitiesof a conAt sumer'snarrative. this stage, the interpretive question becomes"What meanings and symbolic associations expressed in this specific consumer event/experience is the consumer using to construct his or her sense of identity?" of This existential readingenriches understanding both the symbolic dimensions of the focal consumptionevent and the ways in which a consumer'sself-concept predisposeshim or her towardcertainconsumptionpreferences. This interpretivelogic can be illustratedby considering the patternof relationshipsthatemergedin an interviewwith"Jean,"a 40-year-old financial executive who is married with three children.An importantfacet of Jean's life narrative is that she sees herself as a"recovering who supermom" now looks critically on the once motivatingidea of"having (and doing) it all."As the following example demonstrates,

this transformation her life narrative in presentsan existential theme that manifests itself throughthe symbolic meanings she attachesto some routineconsumerbehaviors: Jean: Food Lion, it's a little smallerthan the super stores.I don't thinka groceryshouldtry to be and a to everything, it is almost physical challenge because haveto get cosget through Kroger you meticsand pharmacy film development and and I videorental. am organized the pointwhereI to havea set number thingsI needto get and I of wantto get in thereandout.We don'tbuycigarettes,we don'tbuyice creamor potato chipsor cookies.Wejustbuybasics,andFoodLionis the best placefor us. Theydon'thaveas grandiose a varietyof thingsbut I don't need that.Another we so familyactivity haveis cookingtogether we makea lot of thingsfromscratch, you don't so needa lot of prepared itemsforthat.So we go inthere armed with the Joy of Cooking, and we

The rationale for this stage of the analysis follows from contemporarytheories of self-identity (Gergen 1991; Giddens 1991; Hermans 1996; Markus and Wurf 1986; Polkinghome 1988), which suggest that personalidentityis continuously adaptedand at times reformulatedthrougha peras son's ongoing actions. This projectis characterized one in which people appropriateelements from the multitude of"identity positions" that are culturally available (Kellner of 1992) and then incorporatethese into a coherentnarrative self (Hermans 1996). Accordingly, the negotiation of selfidentity is situated within and, to some extent, constrained by sociocultural influences. From this perspective, people are socialized in specific social and class-based contexts, and their subsequentconstructionsof identity furthercommit the person to a relationalnetworkof social and institutional relationships,such as social and familial ties, educational capital, career skills and trajectories,and systems of consumer tastes (i.e., preferringvarious forms of fashion, music, and lifestyle options over others) (also see Bourdieu 1984; Holt 1997). Self-identity is then a process of negotiatinga fundamental existential tension between stability (i.e., the historical developmentof a person'ssense of self-identity)and change (i.e., a person'sability to redefinehis or her historyand to incorporatenew identity elements into his or her life and selfconcept) (Gergen 1991; van den Berg 1970). The interpretation of consumers'self-referentialprojectionsfocuses on the meaningsthatserve to define theircurrentsense of self-identity and the type of envisioned identitiesthatthey seek to realize through consumption activities. In these terms, the much discussed"deep meanings" of consumption (Belk, Sherry,andWallendorf1988) aregroundedin this existential quest to construct self-identity and, relatedly, to manage conflicts and tensions in these constructionsof self-identity. Addressing this self-referential dimension of consumer narrativesoffers a means to articulatefurtherthe constellation of symbolic meanings explicate

d by a hermeneuticinThis interpretation self-referentialmeanings of terpretation. is best undertakenat a later stage in the interpretivecycle when the researcherhas analyzed thoroughlythe plot structures and symbolic meanings expressed in consumer interviews. When the researcherbelieves that a holistic under-

muchget thejob doneat FoodLion(#6). pretty A conventional level of interpretationwould focus on Jean's practical/rational reasons for preferringFood Lion, such as the shopping ease and time efficiency offered by its smaller stores and the perceived fit between its basic product line and her grocery buying patterns(see Griffin and Hauser 1993). In the context of Jean's two interviews, it became clear that these valued aspects of Food Lion reflectedmeanings salient to Jean'snarrative self-identity. of The personal salience of Food Lion's"no frills" image is symbolically consistent with changes that Jean desired to make in her lifestyle and self-conception. In her interviews, she describedhaving become"caughtup" in a drive for upward mobility, as symbolized by an ongoing cycle of consumer purchases (i.e., better clothes, more expensive automobiles, and eating out regularly).This transformationin Jean's self-narrativearose in concert with a decided shift in culturalattitudestowardsupermom-ism,careerism,and the careeristand materialisticmilieu of the 1980s and the emergence of a consumer trend toward voluntary simplicity (Schor 1992). However, recognizing the parallel between these culturalshifts and the viewpoint of a given consumer is not sufficient for hermeneuticinterpretation. Rather,the corresponding interpretivegoal is to understandhow this culturally shared meaning becomes self-relevant and per-

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JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 construct an enhanced sense of self-esteem (Thompson 1996; Thompson,Pollio, and Locander 1994).3 A hermeneuticinterpretation then explicates the personalized meanings by which consumers understandthe characteristicsof their (perceived)actual identities, ideal identities, and undesiredidentities (Markusand Wurf 1986) and the ways in which these identity perceptions(and their underlyingmeanings)are manifestedin everydayconsumption activities. This logic of interpretationcoheres with McCracken's (1988) view that consumption meanings are an importantmeans by which people cope with disjunctures between their perceived actual circumstances and valued ideals. Through consumption meanings, people construct their biographicalnarrativesin terms that align their identities with valued and/or idealized aspects of their lifeworld circumstanceswhile rejectingor devaluingits undesired(or these consumptionmeanings disliked)aspects. Furthermore, function as symbolic vehicles for pursuinga desired future life or conceptionof self. To illustratethis point, the higher-order theme of Thompson's (1996)-"holding it all together/fallingapart"-indicates that the meaning of self-esteem for these participants was steeped

in two interrelatedidentity issues: (1) their sense of being connective forces that hold their families together and (2) their feelings of being organized,productive, and accomplishedpeople. This second identityissue was intimately connected to their engagement in the professional world. This constellation of self-perceptions stood in relation to the undesiredimage of"fallingapart," which applied to both their families (and households) and their own selfidentities.The existentialgoal of being a"balancedperson" reflects the significancethatthe participants ascribedto both of these identity/esteem issues. Many of their lifestyle choices can be seen as displacing their identity idealswhich are constantly threatenedby the necessary concessions to the demandsof the schedule-to an idealized past time (i.e., seeking to recreatea traditionalfamily moments) or an envisioned future. Given these self-perceptions,consumptionactivities that served the goal of being a balanced personenhancedtheir sense of self-esteem and accordingly rendered"juggling" as their most experientially viable lifestyle alternative. from the Textsof Constructingan IntegrativeInterpretation Stories Consumer'sConsumption All self-knowledge arisesfromwhatis historically preand it all intentions givenbecause underlies subjective and actionsand, hence, both prescribes limits every for possibility understanding.-Hans-Georg Gadamer,Truthand Method

sonalized in ways that resonatewith the particularities a of consumer'ssense of personalhistory. For Jean, devoting more time to the family activity of cooking was a salient sign of having shifted towarda more basic and less materialistic lifestyle. Jean's interpretation that Food Lion does not"tryto be all things to all people" exhibits a noteworthysymbolic parallelto the following biographicalreflection aboutgraduallydiscovering her"true" self over the course of her life. Jean'smetaphoricconception of this self-discovery process evokes a consumption-oriented theme in which she now interpretsher earlier life stages as a process of tryingon"differentlabels"until she came to realize her true, inner-directed identity: I Jean: wouldn'tgo through 20s againfor all the my You moneyin theworld. areoutof undergraduate school and it's like,"What's expectedof me?" Youstill haven't cometo knowyourself, it's and likethatthereis thisgigantic worldoutthereand you mustsomehowget all the experiences you can underyourbelt beforeyou can get to know So yourself. youtryon a lot of labelsandI guess thatsomehowyou thinkthatthatassemblage is you, whenit isn't.I thinkin your30s you tendto that consolidate andget closerto who you really are(#7). In summary,Jean's renderingof Food Lion expresses a patternof self-referentialmeaningsthatreflects her sense of evolving self-identity and the personalized cultural ideals that she is attempting to realize in her everyday life. For Jean,her image of havinga consolidatedidentityalso entails other associations such as the

rejection of a materialistic lifestyle and a back-to-basics orientation that is implemented practically by making cooking a family activity. Again, these personally salient consumptiongoals and values are linked to a desiredidentityand reflected in the interpretationsthat structureher preferencefor Food Lion, such as its being a focused, no frills, basic grocery store. This stage of the interpretiveprocess is consistent with theoretical proposals holding that the manageriallysignificant constructs of involvement, motivation, and consumer learning are contingent on the perceived self-relevance of the productor service (Celsi and Olson 1988). In the marketing literature, the predominantapproach to analyzing perceived self-relevance (from textual data) is the means-end chain analysis of ladderinginterviews (Gutman 1991; Walkerand Olson 1991). Whereas means-end chain analysis interpretsthese product-consumerrelationshipsin terms of higher-order"values" that constitute the"core" sense of self (Gutman 1991; Walkerand Olson 1991), the present hermeneutic frameworkinterpretsconsumer selfidentitiesas emerging from a multiplicityof narratives(i.e., identity positions). This hermeneuticapproachcan generate a more richly textured understandingof the consumption meanings that arise from these constructionsof self-identity conand the differenttypes of higher-order identity-relevant sumption meanings, benefits, and hence motivations that of arise in a consumer's narrative personal history. For example, means-end chain analyses tend to culminate in the (or higher-order terminal)value of"enhancingself-esteem." Ratherthan treating self-esteem as a self-evident, explanaseeks to undertory construct,a hermeneuticinterpretation stand the pattern of meanings through which consumers

The final stage of a hermeneuticallybased interpretation is deriving a broader understandingof cultural, societal, and/orhistoricalprocesses from the iterativeanalysis of the specific (i.e., idiographic)cases (Geertz 1983). At this stage, as individual-levelexperiencesand meaningsare interpreted particularisticexpressions of a broadercultural system of meaning (Holt 1997; Thompson 1996; Thompson, Pollio,3Holt (1995a, 1997) offers a parallel theoretical critique of traditional conceptionsof consumervalues thatdraws from Bourdieu'sworkon"local systems of taste."

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Interpreting Consumers and Locander 1994; Willis 1981). This logic of interpretation follows from the hermeneuticview that a culture is a living legacy of historically established meanings that provide the"conditionsof intelligibility"(Gadamer1993) from which people make sense of their lives. This legacy of cultural meanings is itself constituted and conveyed through narratives(Ricoeur 1981). Thus, consumers' narrativesof personalhistory are situated in a broaderculturalsystem of meanings that have been diffused throughadvertising,mass media, educational curriculum, and the"collective meanings" used to create a sense of a shar

ed social identity among individuals (Faber and O'Guinn 1988; Holt 1997; Willis 1981). A sociohistoricperspectiveis particularly relevantto marinterestsbecause of the role that mass media, adverketing forms of martising, and public relations (three interrelated keting communications)have played in shaping public perceptions regardingmattersof identity and lifestyle options (Kellner 1992; O'Guinn and Shrum 1997). Productand service promotionshave long been situatedin ideologicalrepresentationsof varioussocial roles (such as what"good"mothers should do and buy) that diffuse and affirm specific culturalconstructions(Douglas 1994). Froma hermeneutic perspective, these forms of marketingcommunicationprovide more thanentertainment information; or they offer culturally salient representationsfrom which consumers can assess theirown lives (Kellner 1992; O'Guinnand Shrum 1997). This stage in the interpretive process drawsmost explicitly from the researchers'immersion in a backgroundof historical literaturerelevantto the researchdomain.This interpretive movement is neithera case of derivinga theory that is"in"the data waiting to be discoverednor a matterof a researcher"projecting"an a priori frameworkonto the text. Rather, the process is a dialectical one in which a researcher'sdeveloping knowledge of the culturaland historical background provides an orienting frame of reference from which to interpretthe narratives,and conversely, the engagement with the textual data enables these initial conceptions to be modified and extended. This iterativemovement or"dialecticaltacking"(Geertz 1983) between consumer narrativesof identityand a broader system of sociohistoric meanings can draw from two distinct (but not mutuallyexclusive) forms of historicalknowledge. The first arises from a primaryanalysis of historical texts, such as archival records, consumer diaries, and oral histories,and the second derives from existing historicaland sociological analysis relevant to the market segment (i.e., social group) being studied. For purposesof this article,emphasis is placed on the latter form of historicalknowledge. (For discussions on the conduct of primaryhistoricalanalysis in consumer and marketingresearchcontexts, see Belk 1992; Fullerton 1987; Lavin 1995; Lavin and Archdeacon 1989; Smith and Lux 1993.)44As a practical matter,the time requirementsneeded to conduct both a hermeneuticinterpretation consumer narratives a primaryhistorical of and analysis are likely to be prohibitive for most applied marketingresearch questions. In academic marketingresearch, studies of this type are also uncommon.This form of pluralisticresearchwould seem most appropriate when the consumer group in question has specific ties to a relatively circumscribed context. For example, Tambyah(1997) is now using such an approachto investigate how the social history of an ethnic neighborhood shapes the consumptionpatternsand meaningsamong immigrantsnow living there.

449 Hermeneuticmarketingre

searchersshould strive to become familiar with a broad range of interpretiveperspectives on the relevantsociohistoric issues. The goal is to develop a sound working knowledge of the major social and historical themes that have been identified as shaping the contemporarycultural situation of the market segment in question. Because of the constraintsof time and the extensiveness of the historical literaturethat could be broughtto bear, however, this working knowledge is inevitably bound to be limited and selective. As such, the cultivationof an historicalperspectiveis itself a form of interpretation. speThe cific mix of historical works (and hence perspectives)that will informthis last stage of the analysis is, therefore,an interpretivechoice thatmust be negotiatedin relationto the issues and themes that have emerged through the previous stages of the textual interpretation. By analyzing an interviewtext's salient metaphors,common expressions, and categorical distinctions in light of these historical considerations,insights can be gained into the"culturalmyths" that are manifest in consumers' interpretationsof their consumptionexperiences. In this usage, culturalmyths refer to narrativesthat have become ostensibly detachedfrom their originatingsocial conditions but reflect a collective memory of the historicalpast (see Barthes 1957). The implicationis that many consumermeaningsare groundedin a collective culturalmemory (Lipsitz 1990) of bygone patternsof social organizationand ways of life. Understandingwhy these culturalmeanings have transcended their precipitatingsocietal conditions and how these myths are appropriated contemporaryconsumers can offer imby portantinsights into the psychosocial dynamics that underlie consumption meanings. As a case in point, marketing practitionersand academics have argued that appeals to mythic themes (i.e., narrativesthat hold a special significance to membersof a cultureor subculture)are highly effective for positioning productsand creating resonantpromotional messages (see Randazzo 1993; Stem 1995). In these interviewtexts, for example, the participants' frequent referencesto the distinctionbetween workingand traditional mothers (and the often contested image of the supermom), images of June Cleaver or"staying at home and wearing an apron,"and even the ubiquitous metaphor of"juggling"all provide entries into the historical conditions that have implicitly or explicitly shaped the viewpoints of the participants. These metaphorsexpress longstandinghistorical conceptions of gender and motherhoodthat are particularlysalient to this generationof baby boom women and support a number of thematic commonalities among their personalizedconsumptionmeanings (Thompson 1996). I propose that the specific life issues and consumption meanings expressed by these participantsare personalized manifestations a well-documented of culturallegacy particurelevantto lives of middle-class,baby boom-generation larly women.Throughthis le

gacy,the culturalconceptionof motherhoodhas becomeembeddedin a societaldistinction between the privateand public spheresand a relatedsystem of moral connotations.For the middle and uppersocioeconomicclasses, the late 19thand early 20th centurieswitnessedthe transformationof"home"from a site of economic production a to"private" sphereremovedfrom the public worldof work (see Cowan 1983;Strasser1982).The cultural categoryof motherhood, in turn, became closely aligned with the care of the

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JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 fessional careers and family lives. The personally salient to meaningsand benefits these women attributed goods and services arose within this narrativetheme of being a balanced person. For these participants,the existential significance of beidentity ising balanced was groundedin a future-directed sue: Whatkind of memorieswould theirpresentday actions create for themselves, theirspouses, and theirchildren?The personal significance of time-saving products arose from their symbolic relationto theirbalancingor juggling efforts and the underlyingquest to create a desired future. Timesaving products precluded, rather than created, complicato tions and enabled the participants incorporatesome semblance of valued"traditional"family activities into their felt routines.In this way, participants most assuredthatthey would rememberthis stage in their lives with few regrets and that their children would also have warm and happy memories of this time. The participantsfurtherinterpreted these productsas partiallycompensatingfor gaps in the support availablefrom their social network,such as an absence of nearbyrelativesor a spouse who is unable (or unwilling) to take a proactiverole in day-to-daydomestic responsibilitension allevities. Reducing these sources of interpersonal ated sources of daily stress and was seen as setting the stage for more pleasant memories to be recalled at some point in the future. The positive meanings attached to reliable, supportive of productsalso reflected severalcharacteristics the"caring orientation"that these participantssought to maintain in reliableprodtheirdaily lives. For example, they interpreted ucts as embodying an admirableattention to detail on the and partof the manufacturer as reflecting a concern for the of customers.In contrast,poor-qualityproductsinterplight jected additional contingencies, complications, and demands into their time-pressed routine. The significance of these impositions was magnified by the participants'sense that these businesses did not care about the personalinconveniences and stresses createdby these unreliableproducts. assessment A similar set of issues arose in the participants' service experiences.Thus, of satisfactoryand unsatisfactory reciprocal counterpartsto these consumers' life-themes of being balancedpeople are marketingactions thatare seen as responsiveto theirconstantlyshifting schedules and feelings of time pressure.In so doing, productsand servi

ces provide several higher-orderbenefits: (1) reducing daily stresses of the participants' juggling lifestyle and the concern that they may be making trade-offsthat will lead to a sense of regret in the future;(2) increasing the participants'sense of conconcerns aboutthe negative trol;(3) alleviatingparticipants' effects their lifestyle choices may have on their children; to and (4) enabling participants experience greaterlevels of personal satisfaction from their efforts to lead balanced lives. Ethnographic Comparisonto Market-Oriented Interpretations The preceding discussion highlights differences among of the types of interpretations consumption behaviors and preferencesthatfollow from the presenthermeneuticframework, means-end chains analysis, the"voice of the customer approach,"and rational consumer decision-making frameworks.In this section, I discuss an interpretiveframe-

home and sustainingthe emotionaland spiritualneeds of the family.Domesticactivitiessuchas cooking,cleaning,organizthe ing, and decorating home acquireda culturalsignificance as maternalduties that fostereda proper"moralsetting"for family life and createda domestic haven from the"profane" influencesof the publiceconomic realm(see Sparke1995). Although dramatic transformations in socioeconomic conditions and gender roles have since transpired,this culturalintertwiningof motherhoodand sanctifiedconceptions of home (and care of the domestic realm) remainsa prominent featureof contemporary gender ideologies (Hochschild 1989; Jackson 1992). In this sociohistoricalmatrix,the personal identities of working women are divided between the sanctified (private) and profane (public) spheres. Understanding this underlying mythic distinction helped to explain the salience of the balance metaphor in the particiand the difficulties they reportedin"compants' narratives promising"on the domestic activities traditionallyassociated with motherhood.Such compromises symbolized that larger issues related to the emotional well-being of their families might also be compromised by their professional careers, and a felt moral obligation to their children thereThese morally and emotionally fore would be transgressed. charged questions of identity posed the crux of the lifeworld dilemmas that these participantssought to manage throughconsumptionactivities. DISCUSSION Strategic Implications In this section, I highlight some of the strategicallyoriented marketinginsights that arise from this hermeneutic The consumption stories expressed in these interpretation. interviewsare consistentwith previousresearch,which indicates that feelings of time scarcity pervade the life experiences of this marketsegment (Crosby 1991; Gerson 1985; Hochschild 1989). In the marketingliterature,orientations toward time have been suggested as a powerful theoretical variable for better understandingthe nature of consumer preferences and experiences of postpurchase satisfaction (Bergadaa 1990; Gross 1987; Hirschman 1987; Hom

ik 1984; Kaufman,Lane, and Lindquist 1991). A hermeneutic approachcan provideinsightsinto the meaningsthatsupport and energize these perceptionsof time scarcity and underlie the consumptionpreferencesof time-pressedconsumers. In this illustrative analysis, these time-pressed female consumersall describethe personalimportanceof consumer benefits such as the cooking speed of microwaveovens, the reliability of their cars, the convenience of easy-to-use appliances, and the responsivenessof service providers.The personal resonanceof these consumerneeds emerged in relation to emotionally charged meanings such as being able to fulfill perceived interpersonalobligations, creating a space for quality time with theirchildrenwithin an activitydense lifestyle, and finally, compensatingfor gaps in their social supportnetworks.Hence, their consumer preferences did not reflect the inherentutility providedby the sum of a product's context-independent attributes. Rather, preferences emergedfromthe meaningfulrelationsthe women experienced between the salient conditions of their lives and products and services. A life issue that arose consistently across their consumptionstories regardedtheir ongoing efforts to balance the often competing demands of their pro-

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Interpreting Consumers work that bearsa closer family resemblanceto a hermeneutic orientation:market-oriented ethnography. Amould and Wallendorf's(1994) descriptionof marketorientedethnographicinterpretation relevanthere in three is respects.First,theirarticlepursuesa similargoal of providing a"workbench" process for dedescriptionof an interpretive rivingstrategicallyuseful marketing insightsfrom qualitative data. Second, market-oriented and ethnography hermeneutic betweeninanalysisbothaddressthe fundamental reciprocity dividual level perceptionsand shared social meanings; for both, the meaningsthat marketingphenomenahold for consumersareseen as emergingthrougha dialecticalrelationship between personalviewpointsandcommon sense belief structures.Third,the authorssharea generalinterestin developing of a multileveled,"thickdescription" consumptionmeanings. these similarities,however,these two interpretive Despite frameworkspursue substantivelydifferent types of understanding.Amould andWallendorf(1994, p. 484) define market-orientedethnographyas"an ethnographicfocus on the behaviorof people constitutinga marketfor a productor service" that"aims to explicate patternsof action that are culturaland/or social ratherthancognitive"(p. 485). Their key analyticcategoriesfor explicatingthe culturallogic manifest in these patterns of action-from the texts of verbal reports-are overgeneralization, metaphoric glosses, and claims of idiosyncracy.Although these are narrative-based constructs,they are designed to reveal the operinterpretive ation of a general system of culturalbeliefs ratherthan the personalized cultural meanings that these consumption exof periences hold in the consumer'snarrative self-identity. As Arnoul

d and Wallendorf(1994) describe, the analysis of"emic" meanings is ultimately placed in the service of developing an"etic"explanationfor the patternsof behavior-or behavioralconstellations-that exist within a cultural setting. These etic explanations are steeped in a structuralist logic. The identified patternsof meaning and their as ensuing behavioralpatternsare interpreted the means by which a society maintains an integratedequilibrium and manages potential sources of disruptionto its social order (see Jenks 1993). In contrast, the present hermeneutic frameworkfocuses on the ways in which people use cultural meanings and consumptionpracticesto manage issues of identity and the multitudeof tensions and threatsto a coherent sense of self that are posed by the conditions of modern life (e.g., Cushman 1990; Gergen 1991; Lifton 1993). can Thus, hermeneuticinterpretations providea necessary supplement to this structurallyoriented approachby highof lighting the symbolic meaningsand patterns personalconcerns and life goals thatconstitutethe uniqueframeof reference from which a person derives a coherent sense of personal history. Although these personal frames of reference are ultimatelygroundedin a background pregivencultural of meanings, the hermeneuticproject is to explicate the ways thataspects of this culturalbackground incorporated are into a person'ssense of personalhistoryandadaptedto the unique contingencies of life experiences(Ricoeur 1981;Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). To adaptthe idiom of Arnould and Wallendorf(1994), hermeneuticinterpretations seek toexplicate consumers' perspectives of life meaning.

451 for entationis more appropriate some types of marketingresearch intereststhan others.The more aggregate,sociologically focused mode of ethnographicanalysis is likely to be more attunedto marketingresearchseeking to documentthe patternsof social interactionsthat arise duringconsumption activities and/orto analyze the social scriptingof consumption through rituals and other types of collectively shared practices(Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993; Hill 1991; Schouten and McAlexander 1995), gift-giving (Sherry 1983), particiand pation in holiday festivities (Wallendorf Arnould 1991), and group-oriented consumptionphenomena,such as sports spectating (Holt 1995b) or extended service encounters (Arnouldand Price 1993). CONCLUSION I shouldnot like my writing spareotherpeoplethe to of trouble thinking. if possible, stimulate someto But, of one to thoughts his[her]own.-Ludwig Wittgenstein,Logical Investigations

As with any researchorientation,hermeneuticinterpretations cannot address the full complexity of consumption meanings and practices, and as such, this hermeneuticori-

The preceding account describes and illustrates a hermeneuticframeworkthat can be used to interpretconsumers'consumptionstories in relationto their broadernarratives of self-identity and a background of historically established cultural meanings. This framework integrate

s the tenets of hermeneutic philosophy and contemporary researchon the narratologicalnatureof humanunderstandconsumer meanings in a ing into a process for interpreting holistic mannerto generatemarketinginsights. The hermeneutical processes through which marketing researchersinterpretqualitativedata often is characterized as a subjective and largely intuitive experience that bears many similaritiesto the creationof artisticworks (e.g., Holbrook, Bell, and Grayson 1989). Recently,Spiggle (1994, p. as 500) described textual interpretation"playful, creative, subjective, particularistic,transformative, imaginative, and In representative." this spirit, a popularmetaphorfor charis acterizingthe process of interpretation thatof an improvisational jazz solo (see Oldfather and West 1994; Sanjek 1990). Unquestionably,these characterizationshighlight some important aspects of the interpretive process. However, when not placed in a comparativecontext, such aesthetic analogies run the risk of romanticizing (and even worse mystifying) the process of textual interpretation.From a hermeneuticperspective,interpretation an improvisationis al process in which the researcherdraws from his or her stock of backgroundknowledge and personalexperience to derive insights from textualdata.However,this intuitiveand creativemode of understanding not the exclusive province is of a rarifiedartistic sensibility. Rather,it is a defining characteristicof a more prosaic phenomenon:expertise. In everyday life, we quickly recognize the profounddifference among those who performa skill with only technical competence (and a self-conscious awareness of what they need to be doing) and experts who seem to have an intuitive sense for what to do in a given circumstanceand who bring a sense of artistryto the task at hand. This everyday perception of what constitutes expertise accords with research on the psychology of expertise, which indicates that of experts are more attunedto critical characteristics a situation and that they can recognize patternsof interrelation-

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JOURNAL OF MARKETINGRESEARCH, NOVEMBER 1997 able them to develop products,brand images, promotional appeals, and service offerings that are attunedto the meanings salient to the lives of consumer segments. This last point provides a segue for discussing my motivatedclaim that marketingresearchers hermeneutically must become experts about the life-world circumstancesof specific consumersegments.The moreconventionalresearch have extensive knowlparadigmis one in which researchers edge of specific methodologies,brandor productcategories, and in the academiccontext, theoreticalmodels. In this conare ventionalcase, marketingresearchers assumedto have a generalizedviewpointfrom which to evaluatethe criticaldimensions of the brand/product(or theoretical construct) acrossa diversearrayof social contexts or groups.In applied settings, this orientationcan lend itself readily to a research thanthe cirrather focus on productor serv

ice characteristics cumstancesof consumers'lives and the meaningsthatdefine their sense of self-identity (e.g., enable researchersto conduct a surveyto measureconsumerattitudesaboutproducts; enableresearchers conductfocus groupsto discoverif custo tomers want these productsto have this featureor this style or this color). In theoretically driven research, the correspondingrisk is that theoreticalanalyses become overly abstractand removedfrom the personal and socioculturalcircumstances of everyday life (Hirschman 1986; Hirschman and Holbrook1982;Thompson,Locander,and Pollio 1989). The followingparable offers some relevantinsightsintothe theirinterpretive between marketing researchers, relationship and orientations, the texts of consumersconsumptionstories: A storyis told in a children's bookof the disappointof ment a smallboywhoputon his grandmother's specof taclesandtookup herbookin theexpectation being ablehimselfto findin it the storieswhichshe usedto tell. The tale ends with these words:"Well,what a but fraud! Where's story?I can see nothing black the andwhite" 1962, (Merleau-Ponty p. 401). The hermeneuticreadingof this allegoricaltale is thatthe spectacles are not a magical entity that cregrandmother's ates a meaningfulstory. Rather,they are a backgroundfactor thatfacilitatesher ability to constitutea meaningfulrelation to the text. To place undue emphasis on the role of the the spectacles in understanding text, however, is to misconstrue the experience of reading and understandingit. The exciting story that capturesthe child's imaginationexists in the gestalt relationamong the text, the spectacles, and more important,the grandmother,who knows how to bring the text to life. In an analogous fashion, a research method or frameworkcannot in and of itself generatemarinterpretive keting insights. To bring these consumption stories to life, marketingresearchersmust possess the backgroundknowledge needed to recognize the relationships between these narratologicalstructureof consumers' consumption stories and the rich texture of their self-identities and life-world contexts. REFERENCESArnold, Stephen and Eileen Fischer (1994),"Hermeneuticsand Journalof ConsumerResearch,21 (June), ConsumerResearch," 55-70. Arnould,Eric J. and Linda L. Price (1993),"'River Magic': Extraordinary Experience and the Service Encounter,"Journal ofConsumer Research, 20 (June), 24-46.

ships and similarities among different circumstancesmore readily than novices. Expertsalso have a more"automatic" command of their backgroundknowledge, and their modes of reasoning are more adaptableto contextual exigencies (see Winogradand Flores 1987). In the phenomenonof expertise, we find yet anotherillustrationof the now familiarhermeneuticaxiom thatall understandingderives from a backgroundof interpretivepreand dispositions.In these terms,the improvisational creative of textualinterpretation reflect generalcharacterproperties istics of understanding that is accentuatedas a person bec

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