Food consumption and marketing: turning toward Asia

Journal of Consumer Marketing Food consumption and marketing: turning toward Asia Yuri Seo Angela Gracia B. Cruz Kim-Shyan Fam

Article information: To cite this document: Yuri Seo Angela Gracia B. Cruz Kim-Shyan Fam , (2015),"Food consumption and marketing: turning toward Asia", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 32 Iss 7 pp. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JCM-07-2015-1498

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Food Consumption and Marketing in Asia: ways of eating, being… and seeing? In its everyday immediacy and symbolic richness, food plays an important role in consumer lives and cultures. The complex and evolving practices surrounding food, which include dietary choices, material consumption practices and rituals, as well as representational and marketing practices, constitute shared cultural ‘codes’ (Douglas, 1972) which do not only reflect but also shape wider cultural systems (Marshall, 2005). In particular, over the past two


decades, an emerging body of work in marketing has shown how consumers use food to anchor, express, and traverse cultural identities in a globalising world. Food has been variously used by consumers to provide comfort and negotiate cultural boundaries through cultural upheaval (Bardhi et al., 2010; Mehta and Belk, 1991; Thompson and Tambyah, 1999), as well as to signify ethnic tradition, intercultural adaptability, and class mobility (Askegaard et al., 2005; Üstüner and Holt, 2007). While Asian countries have become the focus of much cross-cultural and international marketing research (Fam et al., 2009), investigations into Asian food consumption and representation remain relatively scarce. Despite the important role that Asian consumer culture plays in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century (Eckhardt and Dholakia, 2013; Hong and Kim, 2013; Seo, 2013), food consumption and representation have been predominantly explored in the context of consumers in North America and Europe (see, for example, McDonagh and Prothero, 2005). This is surprising given the centrality of food within Asian cultures and the dynamic trends which make Asia a theoretically interesting site of focus. For example, to what extent are such food practices and meanings being reformulated and reshaped through rapid urbanisation, rural-to-urban migration, and exposure to Western values and practices? How does growing affluence and inequality (and in particular, a growing middle class) influence food consumption? How does the acceleration

of various forms of international mobility shape the stability of cultural codes which endow food with meaning? Accordingly, this special issue focuses on food consumption and representation in the context of Asian consumers, markets, and cultures. In this endeavour, we aim to shed light on how Asian ways of eating are embedded within Asian ways of being. It is of particular interest to explore how the meanings and practices of food consumption and marketing are


related to region-specific ideologies as well as socio-historical dynamics within Asian nations. We further ask what Asian ways of eating can tell us about theories of food consumption and representation. In other words, do Asian ways of eating provide a unique window into Asian ways of seeing? For instance, by drawing on the metaphor of ‘using chopsticks for thinking’, Fam et al. (2009) have recently called attention to the values of Confucianism in developing harmonious business relationships in Asia. Given that food is often used as a marker and metaphor of identity, might Asian food consumption practices provide a useful allegory for a uniquely Asian way of marketing? What other ideologies, cultural meanings, and viewpoints might emerge through an engagement with Asian perspectives and contexts? This special issue contributes to the literature on Asian food marketing in two ways. First, in engaging with these questions, this issue points to the importance of Asian cultural perspectives into the marketing literature on food consumption and offers Asian-lensed theoretical and empirical insights which will advance our understanding of food consumption and marketing. Second, through the articles of this special issue we trace the relationships between food consumption practices, marketing practices, and cultural multiplicity in Asian contexts. Finally, we draw the threads together in order to provide directions for future research in this area.

An integrative summary of the special issue The contributors to this special issue cumulatively advance our understanding of Asian food consumption and marketing along three themes: food consumption and culture, food marketing practices and public policy, and heterogeneity within Asian markets. In accordance with the first theme, the first and second articles shed light on how Asian food consumption practices are embedded within wider cultural meanings. Hongyan Yu, Ann Veeck, and Fang


Yu trace the relationship between the ritual of the family dinner and the strength of familial identity in contemporary urban China. Given rapid changes in wider value systems and structural economic realities which threaten to destabilise collective family identities, the family dinner emerges as a mode of consumption which provides stability and a sense of unity for Chinese families. Yoshinobu Sato and Mark E. Parry present an historical analysis of the influence of the Japanese tea ceremony and its intersections with uniquely Japanese ideologies and practices of hospitality. This ‘Asian way of eating and being’ is translated into an Asian way of seeing: implications are discussed for theories of value-in-use and value cocreation. The third and fourth articles advance knowledge of food marketing practices and public policy in Asian markets. The article by May O. Lwin provides a cross-regional comparison of food label claims from selected Southeast Asian countries, the United States, and the European Union. These findings offer valuable implications for cross-national benchmarking efforts and policy formulation around food package labelling. Makoto Ono and Akinori Ono analyse the effects of FoSHU – the pioneering Japanese government policy whereby all health claims on food products are proactively certified – on consumer evaluations of food brands. This study provides important marketing and public policy implications concerning food certification systems in Asia and beyond.

The final two articles in this collection highlight issues of intra-national heterogeneity which influence the dynamic character and contour of food consumption in Asian markets. Norazah Mohd Suki and Norbayah Mohd Suki investigate whether the importance of green food consumption differs for Muslim and non-Muslim consumers in Malaysia. In doing so, their study goes beyond previous studies which have emphasized the influence of Western ideologies on green food consumption and draws important links between religious values


and sustainability concerns. In the closing article, Katayoun Zafari, Gareth Allison, and Catherine Demangeot further explicate consumer practices of engaging with local heterogeneity in their investigation of why consumers in the multicultural city of Dubai consume non-native ethnic cuisines. In particular, their paper contributes to a better understanding of how consumers ‘practise conviviality’ for social lubrication and multicultural socialisation, providing insights into the complex social dynamics underpinning the consumption of ethnic cuisines within multicultural marketplaces.

Emerging insights and future directions for research Together, the six articles and our editorial comments shed new light on food consumption and marketing in Asia. In particular, we underline the centrality of food in Asian markets and cultures, the unique importance of Asian perspectives and contexts in advancing theories of food consumption and marketing, and the need to acknowledge the complex multiplicity and dynamic heterogeneity of Asian markets. First, food is a fundamental mode of consumption in Asian markets and consumer cultures; its importance exceeds nutrition and encompasses symbolic, ideological, ethical, representational, and material practice dimensions. As the contributions to this special issue have highlighted, food consumption is inextricably intertwined with issues of identity and culture, marketing practice and public policy, and multiculturalism. Given the multi-layered import of food consumption and marketing

practices, further investigation aiming to unpack these links and uncover new ones will provide fruitful insights for marketers and consumer researchers. Second, the contributions to this special issue highlight the importance of augmenting the dominant North American and European perspectives on food consumption and marketing with insights from Asian perspectives and contexts. Asian markets do not only offer a wide spectrum of cultural meanings and unique regulatory environments which


influence food consumption practices in unique ways, but also hold the potential to challenge and reframe existing theories. Sato and Parry’s analysis of Japanese ideologies of hospitality, for instance, challenge the implicit asymmetrical guest-host relationship as it has been conceptualized through Western lenses.

These insights underline the importance of

augmenting existing perspectives with theoretical and contextual viewpoints from Asia. Accordingly, we call for further research which draws similarities and contrasts between Western and Eastern perspectives and how these impact on our shared understanding of food consumption and marketing. Finally, as the closing article by Zafari, Allison, and Demangeot has highlighted, Asian markets are best understood as confluences of multiple ideologies, traditions, practices, and identities which are continually interacting and giving rise to further transformations. We are particularly pleased to note that the collection of articles in this special issue represent a rich array of contexts – including China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East – providing the reader with a flavour of the diverse national, ethnic, religious, and structural forces which influence food consumption and marketing in Asia. While the range of contexts and theoretical issues covered in this special issue provide a window into the complex multiplicity and dynamic heterogeneity of Asian food markets, we call for further research which represents the breadth of contexts which constitute ‘Asia’ and which aim to explicate consumer and market processes for engaging with this complexity.

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Acknowledgements We would like to offer special thanks to the former and current editors of JCM, Dr Richard C. Leventhal and Professor Dipayan Biswas respectively, for supporting the publication of this special issue. We would also like to thank all the authors who contributed to this special issue, and in particular for their ready engagement throughout the review process. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the contribution of a long list of reviewers who generously spent their time in helping to review submission. Our special thanks to: Ilaisaane Fifita, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Carol Kelleher, University College Cork, Ireland; Adam Acar, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan; Prabash Edirisingha, Northumbria University, U.K.; Caroline Gauthier, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France; Chris Hackley, Royal Holloway University of London, U.K.; Grace Phang Ing, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia; Andrea Insch, University of Otago, New Zealand; Meredith Lawley, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia; Mike Lee, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Lisa McNeil, University of Otago, New Zealand; Michel Rod, Carleton University, Canada; Gurmeet Singh, University of the South Pacific, Fiji; Ekant Veer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; David Waller, University Technology Sydney, Australia; Janine Williams,

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; and Yanfeng Zhou, Sun Yat-Sen University, China.

Biographical Details (if applicable):

Dr Yuri Seo is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington. In his research, Yuri focuses on issues related to how marketing actors acquire, utilise, cross-fertilise, and transform cultural resources for their personal and/or broader social needs. This includes research on


cultural branding, luxury brand consumption, multiculturalism, and digital consumer culture. His recent research appeared in International Marketing Review, Marketing Letters, and Journal of Consumer Culture among others. Dr Yuri Seo is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Angela Gracia B. Cruz is a Lecturer in Marketing at Monash University. Her research is focused on marketing communications and consumption at the boundary – referring to market spaces where ambiguities, tensions, and transformations abound. This encompasses research on consumer acculturation theory (the boundary between migrants and locals), posthumanism and technology consumption (the boundary between humans and machines), and food consumption and luxury branding (the boundary between East and West).

Professor Kim-Shyan Fam is Professor in the School of Marketing and International Business at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is an Editorial Review Board member of the European Journal of Marketing and International Journal of Advertising. Dr Fam’s research focuses on advertising, Asian culture, marketing of education, and small business/ entrepreneurship promotion strategy. Amongst others, his publications have appeared in the Journal of Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Advertising Research, and Journal of Business Ethics.