What’s the story, allegory?

Abstract

If ever a literary genre were made for consumer research, that literary genre is allegory. The word comes from the Ancient Greek allegoreo, meaning to speak of the other in the marketplace. Building on the pioneering research of Barbara B. Stern, this article considers the character and characteristics of allegorical storytelling. It does so by means of an empirical study of a richly storied apparel brand, Hollister (HCo), whose sudden rise and rapid fall contains allegorical lessons for retailers and researchers alike. Part of a project to promote literary criticism, it identifies three key themes that typify allegories -Life, Location and Languageall of which figure prominently in a sizeable introspective study of HCo consumers.

A story to sell: The influence of storytelling on consumers' purchasing behavior

“…The relevance of storytelling lies in the story's ability to achieve an emotional connection with the consumer (Lim & Childs, 2020). For this dynamic connectivity, stories must be structured similarly to an allegorical (Brown et al, 2022) or classic (Mitchell & Clark, 2021) pattern, with elements such as a protagonist, an antagonist, incidents, inflection points, goals to be achieved by a character, and obstacles to be overcome (Karpinska‐Krakowiak & Modlinski, 2020). The protagonist has the function of highlighting the similarity between the company and the consumer.…”