Meanings of consumption and abandonment: understanding smoking cessation symbolism.

AutorSuarez, Maribel Carvalho
CargoReport

Introduction

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills nearly six million people a year and thus accounts for one in 10 adult deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2013). Giving up smoking benefits smokers' health and increasing the smoking cessation rate can save many lives. Despite important developments in tobacco control, the consumption of tobacco products is increasing globally (WHO, 2013) and US national data for the 1991-2010 period shows no consistent upward trend in the population cessation rate during this two-decade period (Zhu, Lee, Zhuang, Gamst, & Wolfson, 2012).

In tobacco control studies, several advances have been made in the understanding of smoking cessation, specially the effect of pharmacotherapies and media campaigns (see Zhu et al. 2012 for a recent literature review). However, most of these studies focus on physical or cognitive aspects of smoking behavior.

Marketing and consumer behavior researchers can contribute to these studies by incorporating a perspective that addresses the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumption (Arnould & Thompson, 2005). This approach considers that products are consumed not only because of their functionality but mainly due to their symbolic dimension. Pechmann, Biglan, Grube, and Cody (2012) stress this difference, calling for papers based on ethnographic studies that focus on smoking habits around the world.

In addition, very little attention has been focused by the marketing and consumer behavior area on investigating abandonment and, more specifically, its symbolic dimension. The present study aims to investigate how meanings are created and negotiated through the abandonment of cigarettes. This study used a qualitative methodology to collect and analyze the data generated by one-on-one semistructured in-depth interviews with 15 Brazilian ex-smokers.

Literature Review

With the aim of investigating the meanings associated with the abandonment of cigarettes the present study articulates two specific fields. The first involves studies developed in the area of tobacco studies that investigated smoking cessation, while the second consists of studies in the marketing and consumer behavior area relating to abandonment.

Over the past 20 years, smoking cessation researchers have investigated different actions involving encouragement and support for the abandonment of this category. Researchers in this area have, for example, studied the impact of pharmacotherapies such as nicotine patches and other forms of nicotine replacement therapy (Cahill, Stead, & Lancaster, 2011; Hughes, Stead, & Lancaster, 2007; Stead, Perera, Mant, & Lancaster, 2008). Recent studies indicate that use of cessation medications has increased substantially in the USA (Shiffman, Brockwell, Pillitteri, & Gitchell, 2008) and UK (West, DiMarino, Gitchell, & McNeill, 2005).

The effect of quitline services on smoking cessation indices has also been analyzed by various studies (Anderson & Zhu, 2007; Miller, Wakefield, & Roberts, 2003; Sheffer et al., 2010). Recent research has found that quitline use is influenced by promotional efforts (Miller et al., 2003) and state announcements about new secondhand smoke policies or tax increases (Sheffer et al., 2010). Different studies also suggest that inserting a quitline number on cigarette packs along with graphic warning labels, dramatically increases quitline calls (Li & Grigg, 2009; Miller, Hill, Quester, & Hiller, 2009; Willemsen, Simons, & Zeeman, 2002). The positive contribution of new technologies has also been studied by researchers interested in the theme. Cobb and Graham (2006) state that 9% of all internet users have searched for information on how to quit smoking, but evidence regarding the effectiveness

of such action is inconclusive (Civljak, Sheikh, Stead, & Car, 2010; Rabius, Pike, Wiatrek, & McAlister, 2008). Other researchers (Brendryen & Kraft, 2008; Brendryen, Drozd, & Kraft, 2008) also found a positive effect on smoking cessation related to the sending of messages using various means (like email, web pages, text messages, calls).

Other studies have sought to map the importance of health service providers in encouraging cigarette abandonment (Aveyard et al., 2007; Rice & Stead, 2008). In this context one should highlight the role of doctors and actions such as offering brief advice, prescribing medications and behavioral counseling (Fiore, 2008; Ockene et al. , 2007).

According to National Cancer Institute (2008) tobacco cessation is also influenced by paid advertisements and earned media. Their effect is related not only to their ability to motivate smokers to quit, but also to change social norms regarding smoking (Cowling, Modayil, & Stevens, 2010). In a similar way news coverage conveys the importance of the issue being discussed while framing the public's perception of it (Chapman, 1999; Malone, Boyd, & Bero, 2000).

More than the effect of the medium, a recent report sought to discuss the effectiveness of different approaches by compiling several studies (National Cancer Institute, 2008). This work highlights that emotional or personal adverts were found to be more effective than humorous adverts in encouraging quitting. It also states that messages on the dangers of secondhand smoke to nonsmokers can motivate smokers to quit just as much as those on the risks to smokers themselves.

Various studies have repeatedly found that higher cigarette prices, usually due to tax increases, can decrease smoking prevalence (Hopkins et al., 2001). Higher prices not only deter non-smokers from starting to smoke (Chaloupka & Wechsler, 1997), but also lead current smokers to reduce consumption or quit completely (Chaloupka & Warner, 1999; Scollo, Younie, Wakefield, Freeman, & Icasiano, 2003). According to Siahpush, Wakefield, Spittal, Durkin and Scollo (2009) and Martire, Mattick, Doran, and Hall (2011) this effect may be greater among low-income smokers.

In the field of marketing and consumer behavior the first analyses of abandonment were only recently performed in the context of anti-consumption studies. Hogg (1998) affirms that abandonment, avoidance and aversion represent different degrees of anti-choice although they overlap to some extent. Anti-choice is related to offers that were actively not chosen because they are seen to be inconsistent or incompatible with a consumer's other choices or preferences (Hogg, 1998).

For Hogg, Banister and Stephenson (2009), aversion is the act of physically and emotionally disentangling oneself from something. This is the clearest expression of disgust, involving more definitive decisions of non-consumption. Avoidance, on the other hand, refers to the act of keeping oneself apart and is more related to the wish to minimize consumption choices that may have undesirable symbolic or cultural associations. Abandonment is the action of giving up something previously consumed and presupposes the existence of a deliberate choice (Hogg, 1998). According to these authors, aversion (expressed as disgust, loathing or repulsion) may generate avoidance and abandonment behaviors. The former tends to precede or appear together with expressions of avoidance and abandonment.

Kleine and Kleine's (2000) suggest that individuals manage facets of their self-concept by discarding certain aspects of their identity as their self-concept evolves. In this process, the abandonment of products and categories may serve as an indicator of new identities and social conditions. Other authors also relate disposition and abandonment behaviors to social transition, that is, changes in the life-cycle or status of individuals (Hogg, Banister, & Stephenson, 2009; Roster, 2001; Young, 1991). Hogg and Banister (2001) affirm that in order to maintain a positive self-image or at least a normative self-standard - consumers avoid risks, rejecting products, brands or suppliers that are associated with undesirable or negative stereotypes or reference groups.

Recently, Suarez, Chauvel and Casotti (2012) examined the specificities of category abandonment, showing that it is a process rather than a decision or an action circumscribed by a given moment. According to those authors, abandonment may include inertia or procrastination behavior

(abandoning use without effectively making a decision) and situations where a deliberate choice is made. The authors outline different types of abandonment: when the product is no longer within the consumer's means (concrete problems like lack of money, space, time, comfort, health); when there is a rejection of the product's symbolic aspects and, finally, when there is an ideological and collective motivation that make consumers believe that society should abandon or rethink consumption.

In their study the authors describe abandonment not only as a movement of distancing oneself from negative meanings in order to protect self-esteem (Hogg et al., 2009), but also as one of affirmative differentiation, helping individuals to constitute positive identities through nonconsumption. Suarez et al. (2012) states that those symbolic associations continue to be used, created and manipulated even after abandonment has occurred.

In the field of marketing and consumer behavior the abandonment of consumption is a largely unexplored topic. In the present study, the understanding of smoking cessation can be increased by an analysis that addresses this behavior not only through its physical (for example the effect of medication), cognitive (processing of anti-smoking campaign messages), and instrumental (effectiveness of quitlines, role of health professionals) dimensions, but also though a broader perspective that sees consumption as a cultural phenomenon; i.e. as involving the production of socially-shared meanings.

Method

This study used a qualitative research design to explore meanings that arise from the abandonment of cigarettes. For data collection I...

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