The objective of this research is to examine the symbolic meanings of contemporary food consumption and provide an in-depth understanding of related practices. Specifically, we view food as a prominent cultural category representative of postmodernism and approach our study using a postmodern perspective. The paper provides an insight into how US consumers relate to food and highlights the symbolic dimension of food in a culture that is often depicted as highly individualistic. Offering a theoretical framework rooted in an ethnographic account of food consumption we uncover its postmodern complexities that take into account social, cultural, and contextual dimensions. Food is discussed in the context of relationships, desire, and a globalized commodity.

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The anthropomorphism of brands, defined as seeing human beings in brands (Puzak:ova, Kwak, and Rosereto, 2008) is the focus of this study. Specifically, the research objective is to understand the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike. By analyzing consumer readings of stories found on food product packages we intend to show how marketers and consumers humanize a spectrum of brands and create meanings. our research question considers the possibility that a single brand may host multiple or single meanings, associations, and personalities for different consumers. We start by highli밟lting the theoretical and practical significance of our research, explain why we turn our attention to packages as vehicles of brand meaning transfer, then describe our qualitative methodology, discuss findings, and conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future studiesThe study was designed to directly expose consumers to potential vehiclεs of brand meaning transfiε:r and then engage these consumε:rs in free verbal reflections on their perceived me없ungs. Specifically, we asked participants to read non-nutritional stories on selected branded food packages, in order to elicit data about received meanings. Packaging has yet to receive due attention in consumer research 떠ine， 1995). Until now, attention has focused solely on i않 utilitarian function and has generated a body of research fuat has εxplored fue inlpact of nutritional information and clairns on consumer per， α낀ptions of products (e.g., Loureiro, McCluskey and Mittεlharnmer， An exception is a recent study that turns i않 attεntion to non-nutritional packaging narrativεs and treats them as cultural productions and vehicles for mythologizing the brand κniazeva and Belk, 2007). The next step in tllls stream of research is to explore how such mythologizing activity affεcts brand personality perception and how these perceptions relate to consumers. πlese are fue questions iliat our study aimed to address.We used in-depth interviews to help overcome the lirnitations of quantitativε studies. our convenience sample was 1) * , @ 2010 KAMS. AII rights reserved forrned wifu the 0에 ective of providing demographic and psychographic diversity in order to elicit variations in consumer reflections to food packaging stories. Our inforrnants represent nliddle-class residents of the US and do not exhibit extreme altemative lifiεstyl얹 described by Thompson as " cultural creatives" (2004). Nine people were individually interviewεd on their food consumption preferen않s and behavior. Participants were askεd to have a look at the twelve displayed food product packages and read all the textual inforrnation on fue pac뼈ge， after which we continued with questions that focused on fue consumer interpret없ions of the reading material (Scott and Batra, 2003). On average, each paπicipant rεflected on 4-5 packages. our in-depfu interviews lasted one to one and a half hours each. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, providing 140 pages of text. The products came f...