Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Being and consuming : the dynamics of self and society in the marketing of alumni association brands

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/2z10ws370

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  • This thesis employs cultural analysis to better understand the meanings consumers have for the brands they consume. This research uses qualitative methods to elicit and analyze the brand meanings alumni and students have of their alma matter and alumni associations. Results from this research suggest that consumption is a ritual act whereby consumers develop symbolic interpretations for brands to resolve issues related to the ongoing construction of their worlds' and selves. Alumni and students infuse the interpretation of their alma mater and alumni association brand with meanings helping them to reconcile their university experience with their vocational, familial, social, and ideographic perspectives about the worlds they live in. The first part deals with the paradigmatic differences between marketing and anthropological theory as it relates to the meanings consumers have for the act of consumption. This approach replaces the marketing concepts of brand loyalty, brand communities, and the extended self with parallel concepts in anthropology of cultural projection, heterotopic consumption communities, and the centrifugal self. The second part adds to the existing research on alumni, which tends to be concerned with their potential as university donors. Consistent with other studies, this thesis suggests the relationships alumni have with their alma matter are shaped by their student experiences and continually reshaped by their current life contexts. The third part offers a unique qualitative method for discovering the personal concepts and themes shaping informants' life experiences and brand perceptions. This method involves photo elicitation techniques used with informants to help them better depict their perceptions of their worlds and their place in them. The fourth part offers structural analytical techniques for narrative data. These techniques reveal the emic structure of the data which serves as contextual information for in-depth analysis. The structural perspective in this research offers new ideas about segmentation analysis consistent with the consumer experience. The conclusions of this research demonstrate how adaptations of marketing theory by Oregon State University Alumni Association administrators have resulted in mismanagement of their brand. Applied insights from this research illustrate the way in which anthropological theory is adept at yielding emic consumer insights for the purpose of better managing alumni association brands. The applied suggestions of this research explain that companies and alumni associations ought not be concerned with finding the most loyal consumer or ideal alum. Instead, administrators should be concerned with the question of "how do alumni conceive of a more perfect alumni association?" This challenge is best resolved by understanding the differences in the student experience and post-graduate lifestyle. These experiences are not temporally distant, but mutually constructive in the present. Therefore, alumni association brands will be more sanguine in the lives of alumni if associations are constituent of the student experience, contribute to familial and vocational contexts of students and alumni's lives, and inclusive of multiple perspectives about the ideal university experience.
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