Over 500 Consumers Researchers Trek to Canada

by Harold H. Kassarjian

Braving rain on the first day and brisk Canadian Autumn days on the others, hundreds of ACR members from around the world flocked to Quebec for the 1998 annual conference. Those who wandered out of the city of Montreal were able to get a glimpse of the spectacular show of fall foliage. The rest, at least, had an opportunity to consume pure maple syrup and try the few words of French they may have remembered from their school days. The many French restaurants and other excellent eateries kept researchers busy in the evenings and complaining of the uncomfortable feeling of over eating the following morning.

The Wyndham Hotel, the only one large enough in Montreal to host our conference, was a different sort of location from the usual. The name of the hotel was changed twice since a year ago, causing some confusion. But that was to be overshadowed by the maze type construction of the property. The Wyndham starts on the third floor of a huge mall with a large assortment of retail and food establishments below. Getting from a hotel room to the hotel lobby to the meeting rooms consisted of taking two elevators and often escalator or stairs and long passageways. One can only wonder if there are still confused colleagues wandering the halls and stairwells; people who were originally looking for the meetings rooms but by now must simply want a way out. But the hotel and the sleeping rooms were lovely and the service beyond complaint.

The Program

The programs and papers as usual were successful with standing room audiences at times. For a few of the nine concurrent sessions it was near impossible to elbow one's way to the standing room area. Program chairs Eric Arnould and Linda Scott put together a program with sessions for most every interest although for some ACR folks it did appear a bit heavy on the interpretive side and rather light on public policy topics. Of course, program chairs can only work with what is submitted over the transom.

Scott reported that this year 89 special session proposals were received of which 40 were accepted for an acceptance rate of 45 percent. According to Arnould, 120 competitive papers were submitted, about the same as last year, of which 57 percent were accepted. In addition dozens of working papers were on the program.

Of the 80 or so sessions, arguably the most talked about was a special session entitled, "Alternative Representations of Consumer Research." Holbrook and Kuwahara handed out cardboard red and blue (or were they green?) stereographic glasses and presented material on the screen in three dimensions to dramatically point out the value of using 3-D images in consumer research. That was follow by the attempt to capture consumption through poetry as Sherry, Zinkham and Schouten read their original creations in verse. The final paper was by Cours, Heisley and Wallendorf who presented their work on meaning of family heirlooms. What made it different is that they had presented their research materials to Dylan Johnson, a professional screenwriter, who turned it into a play. Who would have thought that research findings were indeed material for the stage, and that professors could really be actors; if not great, at least adequate actors as the work was enacted on stage.

The discussant for that session was Sid Levy who appeared with his alter ego, a full sized dummy that actually looked like Sid, and with a tape recorder for a brain and vocal chords. Levy presented his critique of the papers with the A-E dummy taking the role of the bad-guy sharply criticizing the several presentations; while the real Levy valiantly defended the works. The interaction of Sid with his alter ego was as skillful, creative, and interesting as any discussant ever. ACR surely could use more of the wit, brilliance, and creativity of the likes of Sid Levy.

The only downside of the session is the fear that other researchers may now think they can present their work as a play, a movie, or a TV sit-com, be it in three dimensions or in verse. It is one thing to collect data and quite another to write a script as only a professional screenwriter is able to do.

Peter Wright and the ACR Fellow Award

Unquestionably the best-attended session, with literally hundreds in the audience, was the Fellow address by Peter Wright presented in a Plenary Session. Jim Bettman eloquently introduced Peter. Wright talked a bit about himself, a bit about his persuasion research with Marian Friestad, and a bit about how he saw the world of consumer behavior. It was a brilliantly creative paper emerging from an enviable mind. The presentation reflected much thought and a great deal of hard work, both intellectual and philosophical, not to mention many hours of clerical 'data' gathering. It was at times jocular, at times serious. It is the kind of paper that will be read and discussed long in the future. As Joel Cohen commented, "Peter Wright is indeed a Renaissance man." The audience gave him a standing ovation that at times seemed would never end. Thank you Peter. All of us were proud to have been in the audience and to have heard you. As one observer commented, "Peter Wright represents the best that the Fellow Award was intended to signify."

Other Events

Wright's paper will undoubtedly be published in this year's (that is in 1999) ACR Proceedings for those who missed the presentation. Other events at the conference included a wine tasting session Friday evening patterned after last year's beer tasting reception. But this one included both exotic and common foods to go with the wine. The night before, at the Thursday evening reception, the Program Chair had invited a well-known chef who demonstrated the gourmet sauteing of bugs and other creepy crawlies. Unfortunately the concept turned into a trial of frustration as Eric Arnold vainly tried to get people to pay attention to the chef and the program rather than chatting with colleagues and old friends. It was clear that consumer researchers simply want to be left alone to greet each other at these early bird receptions. That experience simply repeated a similar event years earlier when again a program chair tried to turn the reception into a programmed event.

Elections

The officers elected this year were announced at the Business Meeting luncheon. President-elect, that is the president for the year 2000 will be Marsha Richens (the 1999 president, elected last year is Joe Alba). Barbara Kahn, at Wharton, was elected treasurer and the Director is Christine Wright-Isak.

Keith Hunt further announced that the membership of ACR is now about 1,800 members -- an amazing number when one remembers that not so many years ago, almost the entirety of ACR attendees could fit, and often did fit, into a Penn State colleague's hotel room for late night parties. It was from there that 2 AM phone calls would be made to colleagues that dared not attend ACR that year. (As an aside, one of the recipients of a 2 AM call was Marv Goldberg on his wedding night.)

Awards

The Robert Ferber Award is made from time to time, but not necessarily every year, for the outstanding doctoral dissertation published that year in the Journal of Consumer Research. It is prestigious recognition for a superb dissertation and an outstanding article based on that dissertation. This year the award was presented to Mary Francis Luce for her paper in the March 1998 issue of JCR, entitled, "Choosing to Avoid: Coping with Negatively Emotion-Laden Consumer Decisions." Professor Luce is at Wharton; her chairs were Jim Bettman and John Payne at Duke. Congratulations Mary Francis, it is well deserved.

This year two honorable mentions were also made for the Robert Ferber Award. The first to Susan Fournier for her March 1998 article, "Consumption and their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research," (Rich Lutz, chair). The second honorable mention went to L.J. Shrum for his article, also in the March 1998 issue, "The Effects of Television Consumption on Social Perceptions: The use of Priming Proedures to Investigate Psychological Processes," (Tom O'Guinn, Chair).

The Journal of Consumer Research Best Paper award is selected from papers published three years earlier, that is in 1995. The JCR Editorial Review Board nominates a number of papers that are then judged and reviewed by the JCR Policy Board (the 12 member board of directors of the Journal Corporation representing all 12 associations that publish the journal.) The selection is a long arduous process designed to choose papers that have a "long term" impact in the field. The winners this year were A. Fuat Firat at Arizona State University West and Alladi Venkatesh at the University of California, Irvine. Their paper in the December 1995 issue is entitled, "Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption." (Indeed a fine paper but with a title that drives word processing software "spell-checkers" crazy.)

A third award was given this year, the newly created Franco Nicosia ACR Competitive Paper Award. This award carries and $500 prize provided by the Sheth Foundation for the best of the competitive paper submissions as selected by the ACR reviewers and program chairs. To the delight of the audience, the first annual award was made to two doctoral students at the University of Connecticut, Mark Ligas and June Cotte. Their paper was entitled, "The Negotiation of Brand Meaning: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective."

It might be of interest to note that the Sheth Foundation also donated JCR subscriptions to libraries in 81 Universities in third world truly less developed countries, in addition to two $2,000 grants to support two dissertation research projects. The awardees were David Crockett at the University of Arizona for best public-purpose research [Residential Segregation and Consumer Disadvantage among African-Americans, Melanie Wallendorf, Chair] and David Luna at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for best cross-cultural research [Advertising to Bilingual Consumers: An Information Processing Approach, Laura Peracchio, chair].

No candidate for the Fellow's Award in 1999 was selected this year. That award is given just once in a while and this was not one of those years. In any case, Peter Wright would have been a hard act to follow.

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