Being a consumer has become a major part of life in a modern society, says marketing professor Julie Ozanne. “Living, flourishing, suffering, and dying are more interdependently related to acquiring, owning, and disposing than at any other historical time.”

Identifying problems and possibilities in consumerism

In a forthcoming book, Ozanne and her co-editors note that serious problems have resulted from the process of consuming—but so have genuine opportunities for remedial action. Consequently, Ozanne says, “there is a great need for consumer scholars to collaborate and communicate their most important insights in order to aid consumers, policy makers and administrators, business executives, non-profit groups, as well as other researchers.”

To address the problems and opportunities more directly and effectively, the Association for Consumer Research—the world’s largest and most diverse group of researchers who focus on the nature and influences of consumer behavior in daily life—has launched an initiative called “transformative consumer research,” defined as “rigorous and applied consumer research for improving human and earthly welfare.”

In June 2009, Ozanne co-chaired a conference on this research area that explored such topics as poverty, materialism, sustainable consumption, food and health, social justice, at-risk groups, and immigration, culture, and ethnicity.

The problems and challenges related to consumer behavior today, she says, include unhealthy eating habits and obesity, poor savings rates and financial planning, ineffective and unsafe use of the Internet, substance abuse, aging, disabilities, poverty and illiteracy, “socialization” of child and adolescent consumers, sexually transmitted diseases, discrimination, and ecological deterioration.

At the same time, she notes, many types of consumer behavior “successfully support and enhance life.” These include consumer activism, conservation and sustainable consumption behavior, creative uses of products among the poor and homeless, donations and communal consumption, gift exchange, exercise, hobbies, and festivals and celebrations.

Ozanne and her co-editors hope their forthcoming book, Transformative Consumer Research for Personal and Collective Well-Being, will be a pioneering and comprehensive “compendium of the state of knowledge in consumer behavior and quality of life.”

Low-literacy consumers and coping strategies

An award-winning researcher and teacher, Ozanne has conducted research on low-literacy consumers to better understand the strategies they use to cope in an information-rich marketplace. “Almost half of all U.S. consumers read below an eighth-grade level, yet we know little about how these consumers get their needs met in a text-filled marketplace,” says Ozanne. In a co-authored journal article that won a Ferber Award, she found that consumers “who could challenge the stigma of low literacy and employ a range of coping skills were better able to get their needs met.”

Her study, she says, supports the view that consumerism is a social practice of identity maintenance and management. “Our findings suggest that consumer education must expand beyond disseminating information to include developing consumers’ confidence and abilities to engage socially when their needs are being denied.”