receiving end and the third emphasizing the context of brand consumption. The
relational approach belongs to the second period of time where the consumer is
the pivotal point. The relational approach is, however, very different from the
other two approaches emphasizing the consumer (the consumer-based approach
and the personality approach).
We have three reasons for identifying the relational approach as an important
indicator of a paradigm shift. First, it is the first approach applying solely quali-
tative methods. Second, the approach is meaning-based. Third, it takes brand
research into the domain of the consumer, emphasizing a holistic view of the
consumer. The interest in consumers’ life worlds is associated with a phenomeno-
logical research tradition. For these three reasons, we see the relational approach
as a trailblazer for the two forthcoming approaches, namely the community
approach and the cultural approach.
The concept of meaning is often opposed to the concept of information.
Information is considered external stimuli to the consumer, while meaning stems
from the inner reality, life and identity of the consumer: ‘Phenomenology can
conceive consumption not merely as behavioural response to external stimuli but
as a meaning-directed behaviour driven by emotions, feelings and fantasies’
(Hackley 2003, p. 112).
A phenomenological approach adapts a psychological view of the individual.
Thereby, the relational approach is based on an idiosyncratic view of meaning
creation, based on a basic idea that reality construction takes place in the mind.
The notion of meaning is also central to the community approach and the cultural
approach, but in these approaches meaning is found in the social interaction with
others and in the surrounding culture and society, respectively. In that sense, the
relational approach is the first meaning-based approach of three.
Psychological phenomenology is about investigating how an individual
interacts with external objects to learn about the structures that make up the indi-
vidual’s construction of reality. Phenomenology has special capabilities for
uncovering non-rational aspects of consumption.
The phenomenological tradition features a distinctive take on the question of
validity. The positivist research traditions assume an outer reality, a reality that
can be touched, studied and measured. In this tradition, validity means that
different studies performed by different researchers should end up with exactly
the same result.
In the phenomenological tradition, ‘lived’ or ‘felt’ experience is considered valid,
which depicts clearly how different the phenomenological tradition is from the posi-
tivist research ideal. Reality is not ‘out there’ to be touched and measured but is
rather constituted within the individual respondents. How we perceive and feel
about a phenomenon constitutes the phenomenon – the world is inseparable from the
subject, and vice versa. Phenomenological perspectives will thereby be subjectivist
and the first person perspective is an important prerequisite in phenomenology for
generating knowledge. It is assumed that no underlying world exists which is raised
over perception and conceptualizing. In other words, the way phenomena are
perceived by the individual constitutes the true world: ‘Phenomenological social
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