Consumer Culture

An Other Kingdom takes us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where life is ours to create together. This way depends upon a neighborly covenant—an agreement that we together, will better raise our children, be healthy, be connected, be safe, and provide a livelihood. The authors invite you on a journey of departure from our consumer market culture. Discover an alternative set of beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable.

Can anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing. It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect.

This book focuses on how to negotiate in different countries. This focus brings to light how to conduct oneself along with cultural nuances for the listener to be aware of. When experiencing and engaging in different countries and cultures, it is of the utmost importance to not disrespect local traditions and embrace the uniqueness of the country's history and customs.

Why do we get so embarrassed when a colleague wears the same shirt? Why do we eat the same thing for breakfast every day, but seek out novelty at lunch and dinner? How has streaming changed the way Netflix makes recommendations? Why do people think the music of their youth is the best? How can...

Dealing with customers isn't easy, they aren't always right or even pleasant. Business author Renée Evenson ensures you’ll always have the right words to defuse tense interactions. Practical and insightful, this book ensures you’ll never again be at a loss for what to say to customers. In...

Culture transformation expert Siobhan McHale defines culture simply: “It’s how things work around here.” The secret to the success or failure of any business boils down to its culture. From disengaged employees to underserved customers, business failures invariably stem from a culture...

"The challenge facing Christianity today is not a lack of motivation or resources, but a failure of imagination.A growing number of people are disturbed by the values exhibited by the contemporary church. Worship has become entertainment, the church has become a shopping mall, and God has become...

Starting with the publication of their seminal bestseller, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have given millions of readers new ways to think about personal life in today’s high-speed world with its constantly changing, seemingly random impacts on our businesses, governments, families and...

With a bit of know-how and money, you, too, can have it all. At least, that's what teen pop culture was selling in surround sound at the turn of the millennium. From movies like Clueless to TV's Dawson's Creek to the music videos on MTV's Total Request Live and the catalogs of Abercrombie & Fitch, a consumer-minded ethos drove pop culture storytelling as millennials came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But in the long shadow of the Great Recession, the upwardly mobile aspirations fostered by the era's popular culture and media seem to have been thwarted.

There's got to be more to church than this. People around the world are seeking a community that focuses more on others than on themselves. Yet most don't know where to start. Drawing from his own journey, Brandon Hatmaker reminds us that serving the least is not a trendy act of benevolence but...

Starting with the publication of their seminal bestseller, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have given millions of readers new ways to think about personal life in today’s high-speed world with its constantly changing, seemingly random impacts on our businesses, governments, families and...

In history class, we’ve been taught that the Great Depression was all about crashing stock markets, snaking breadlines, and ecological disasters. We learned that FDR tried to put it right with the New Deal, but it was only World War II that finally succeeded in revitalizing the American economy. But that’s not the whole story.

Normative Psychoanalysis: How the Oedipal Dogma Shapes Consumer Culture' (Scholarly Articles, Vol. 14) is a critique of Sigmund Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex. This study demonstrates that Freudian psychoanalysis, applied to children, is not permissive, but castrative; in addition, it is normative and actually a tool for forging the ideal consumer child within a consumer culture that is based on the economic paradigm of total consumption.

The church spends $1.5 million for every one new follower of Jesus. Apple sells 26 iPads every minute. What is it that makes Apple so exciting and Jesus so boring? What is it that compels someone to bring their iPod everywhere and their Bible nowhere? In a word: marketing. Jesus is a life-changing product with lousy salespeople-people who are intimidated and embarrassed by the word "evangelism" and who show more enthusiasm for their gadgets than their God.

Any organization can win more customers and increase sales if they learn to be more strategic with their customer service. When customers complain, employees respond. The typical service model is riddled with holes. What about people and businesses who never speak up, but never come back? Learn...

Each essay in Producing Fashion is presented in full and has been selected from the original print edition. The essays show how economic institutions in Europe and North America laid the foundation for the global fashion system and sustained it commercially through the mechanisms of advertising, licensing, marketing, publishing, and retailing.

Leading brand designer Marc Gob builds on his highly successful Emotional Branding strategy with Citizen Brand, a powerful new concept designed to help companies earn the trust of today's consumers. Gob argues that corporations need a new vision to survive in the present "emotional economy", challenging them to develop more passionate, human, and socially responsible brand strategies. He shows how to transform Consumers to People, Products to Experiences, Honesty to Trust, and more.

Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who now trains some of the world's biggest companies and consulting firms, argues that the CCO would keep a finger on the pulse of contemporary cultural trends, from sneakers to slow food to preppies, while developing a systematic understanding of the deep waves of culture in America and the world. The CCOs professionalism would allow the corporation to see coming changes, even when they only exist as the weakest of signals.

In this book, Eric von Hippel, author of the influential Democratizing Innovation, integrates new theory and research findings into the framework of a "free innovation paradigm." Free innovation, as he defines it, involves innovations developed by consumers who are self-rewarded for their efforts, and who give their designs away "for free." It is an inherently simple grassroots innovation process, unencumbered by compensated transactions and intellectual property rights.

A titan of modern media, Sumner Redstone shares how he became the head of one of the world’s great media empires and one of the richest men in the entertainment business. In one of the most fascinating and eye-opening business autobiographies written, Sumner Redstone shares the unvarnished...