The branded carnival: the dark magic of consumer excitement

ABSTRACT

This ethnography outlines experiences of the marketer-facilitated World Series of Beer Pong. Consumers, in carnival spirit, augment marketer-facilitated mimetic (moderate, controlled) forms of experience with non-mimetic (dangerous, uncontrolled) consumption rituals, enacted in pursuit of contemporary excitement. Consumers serendipitously hijack the facilitating brand’s ideology resulting in the promotion of marketplace tensions. This study contributes to marketing and consumer culture theory by extending current experiential marketing frameworks via the introduction of the branded carnival, a non-mimetic communal brand-centric phenomenon; showing how non-mimetic excitement emerges in marketplace contexts; highlighting the implications for experiential and brand community marketers; and positioning the branded carnival within a broader cultural gravitation towards non-mimetic behaviour opposing marketplace ideology. Finally, limitations are discussed, and directions for further research are suggested. Readers are encouraged to engage with carnival spirit: profanities go uncensored.

KEYWORDS:

• Brandfest
• carnival
• consumer excitement
• marketplace tension
• experiential marketing
• brand hijack
• brand community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Meaning the dissolution of normative social structure role-sets, statuses, and duties: set apart in time, space, and behaviour from the routinised nature of everyday structured life (Turner, 1979, 1982)

2. Tension-inspired vitality aroused during leisure activities (Elias & Dunning, 1986)

3. Within the cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology literatures the terms ‘festival’ and ‘carnival’ are used to characterise transgressive behaviours of a similar ilk. However, in order to distinguish from the ‘brandfest’ phenomenon, ‘carnival’ will be primarily used throughout.

4. Pseudonyms are used throughout.

5. The male-dominated nature of the BPONG community raises a number of gender identity issues, which are, beyond the scope and objectives of this paper, for a detailed discussion on gender negotiation, performance, and alignment, with regard to the WSOBP, see O’Sullivan and Richardson (2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen R. O’Sullivan

Stephen R. O’Sullivan is lecturer in marketing and consumer culture at Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. His research is primarily situated in the consumer culture theory dimensions of marketplace cultures and consumer identity projects. Current research involves an investigation of contemporary play, particularly that which is harmful in nature. Additional areas of research interest include: fandom, consumer movements, brand strategy, market mavenism, edgework, and ethnographic representation.