Literary Criticism and Consumer Research: Overview and Illustrative Analysis

This article proposes literary criticism as a source of insight into consumer behavior, presents a broad overview of literary criticism, provides a specific illustrative analysis, and offers suggestions for further research. Literary analysis of advertising text reveals elements that provide additional information to consumer researchers, and contributions of literary criticisms to consumer research are discussed. Major postwar critical schools are reviewed, and relevant theoretical concepts summarized. An ad for Ivory Flakes is analyzed using a variety of concepts drawn from literary schools, primarily sociocultural and reader-response ones. Suggestions for additional research on content analysis, image analysis, and the history of consumption are made. Copyright 1989 by the University of Chicago.