1 When Narrative Brands

When Narrative Brands End:

The Impact of Narrative Closure and Consumption Sociality on Loss Accommodation

CRISTEL ANTONIA RUSSELL

HOPE JENSEN SCHAU

Cristel Antonia Russell ( [email protected] ) is professor of marketing, American

University, Washington, DC. Hope Jensen Schau ( [email protected] ) is professor of marketing, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Correspondence: either author. The authors thank all the brand fans who graciously contributed to this data set, the University of Auckland for its generous financial and research assistance support for this project, and American University and the University of Arizona for research funding. They thank Vanisha Narsey for her contribution to the data collection as well as Mary Gilly for reading and advising on multiple iterations of this manuscript, and all the scholars who heard various permutations of this research at conferences or campus research talks and helped refine this article. Personally, they thank Dale Russell and Per

Schau for their moral support through years of research and review. Finally, the authors thank the

Editors, review team and, especially, Associate Editor Eileen Fisher, for their support, guidance and insights.

When Narrative Brands End:

The Impact of Narrative Closure and Consumption Sociality on Loss Accommodation

ABSTRACT

This research emically documents consumers’ experience of the end of a favorite television series. Anchored in the domain of evolving narrative brands, of which TV series are an archetypal example, this work draws from narrative theory, brand relationship theory and basic research on interpersonal loss to document the processes of loss accommodation. We triangulate across data sources and methods (extended participant observation, long interview and online forum analysis) to unfold the processes of loss accommodation triggered by brand discontinuation. Accommodation processes and post-withdrawal relationship trajectories depend upon the nature and closural force of the narrative inherent to the brand but also the sociality that surrounds its consumption. Consumption sociality allows access to transitive and connective resources that facilitate the processes of accommodation during critical junctures in consumer-brand relationships.

. “It’s like now what? Now where did they go? And what happens to them? And you never get to know.... So, I think that’s really hard for people, but I think that’s the sign of a good show. Because if people don't care about the characters, then it’s like oh yeah that’s over with. But it’s hard to let go of people you care about, it’s like somebody that you loved died, or moving away… I think there’s a grief process almost, you know you spend six years of your life hanging out with these people basically. And then what, you know?” Yvonne, 50 years old, reflecting on the end of Outrageous Fortune.

“When it first ended I think we all felt sad and more than a little lost. We had grown so dependent on the program and getting together. I knew most of the group before we started watching together, but by the end of the program, they were definitely some of my best friends. I looked forward to our show parties all week and we even got together in the off season and on the show’s hiatus to watch the DVDs… an excuse to get the gang back together. I miss that… the group lost its focus now. We don’t have that same shared interest you know… I miss that… I miss them.” Marc, 45 years old, reflecting on the end of The Sopranos.

Consumer research on terminal phases of consumer-brand relationships is scant. Our research emically documents consumers’ experience of the end of a favorite television (TV) series and how they cope. Yvonne’s response to the ending of her favorite TV series invokes the language of loss and grief. But what has she lost? What is she missing and grieving? Yvonne laments the demise of characters with whom she spent six years and is pained by her inability to know “what happens next.” Our research reveals that Yvonne grieves the loss of the narrative evolution, specifically the denial of narrative closure surrounding the characters’ fates. Marc also feels a strong sense of loss and, as our research illustrates, Marc’s loss is twofold: the show ending and the collapse of the social network that supported his Sopranos consumption for six years.

Together, Yvonne and Mark exemplify two critical losses associated with their consumption: the loss of narrative evolution and the loss of consumption sociality.

We argue that television series belong to a category of brands characterized by an inherent narrative that evolves over time. While all brands may use narratives, not all brands are themselves narratives. Narrative brands are, by nature, diegetic: the core of the brand is its narrative. Sports teams (Holt 2004), video games, book series, movie sagas (Brown, Kozinets and

Sherry 2003), and human celebrities (Thomson 2006) are examples of brands whose inherent narrative keeps evolving, instilled with market-infused elements, from the brand producers but also from co-creating consumers (Muñiz and Schau 2005). This brand narrative evolution fuels consumers’ active relationship with a “live” partner (Fournier 1998): the brand is ripe with dynamic and perhaps unanticipated content. Narratively evolving brands offer a new perspective on consumer brand relationship theory, premised on far less elaborative narratives with less explicit narrative evolution (cleaning products and ingredient foods). Given the well-established view that “consumers buy brands to experience (their) stories” (Holt 2004), what happens to the relationships when the stories end? Further, does the brand story or brand narrative structure impact consumers’ experience?

While other events that prompt relational changes have been studied in consumer-brand relationships, such as crises (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004) or consumer-initiated ruptures

(Fajer and Schouten 1995), there has been little research on an important “turning point”: producer-driven brand discontinuation/withdrawal. Our research centers on how consumers respond and accommodate to the loss of a narratively evolving brand, reveals these final stages of consumer-brand relationships, and contributes to loss literature more generally.

We focus on consumer responses to the ending of TV series, perhaps the archetypical exemplar of narrative brands. TV narratives have two central characteristics that sustain their continuing evolution: their focus on characters and their continuous storylines that flow between episodes and across seasons (Porter et al. 2002). Characters sustain viewers’ engagement and fuel their continuing interest in finding out what happens to them (Chatman 1978; Cohen 2004; Horton and Wohl 1956). The architectonics of the narrative, through visual storytelling, provide the road for the characters’ journey of ascents and descents (Alexander 2007). Because the narrative continuously evolves, TV characters appear to live on similar time scales to their audience and

6 exceed their textual existence (Fiske 1992). Some viewers come to relate with TV characters in parasocial ways resembling real interpersonal relationships (Levy 1962, Russell et al. 2004).

Social media further fuel the perceived closeness by accentuating the impression of intimacy and of a bilateral relationship (Schickel 1985). Parasocial relationships with media figures can be so intense that they become abnormal, leading to worship (Maltby et al. 2004; McCutcheon et al.

2003), and sometimes to seeking out and harassing actors (Spitzberg and Cupach 2008). The other defining characteristic of TV narratives is their continuous storylines. Story arcs often overlap several episodes or even an entire season, which sustains the characters between episodes and creates a “sense of the future, of the existence of yet unwritten events” (Fiske 1987, 145). TV series’ explicitly evolving narratives keep viewers engaged from episode to episode, and the suspenseful breaks, within and between episodes, sustain viewer concern for and attachment to characters whose stories unfold (Porter 1998). Together, parasocial relationships with characters and continuously evolving narratives make television series lifelike.

When TV narratives come to an end, their ending interrupts not only the development of the characters but also the continuity of the storyline. Loss of parasocial relationships can be traumatic, especially when they involve dependence (Lobb et al. 2010) or when the media figure is inherently connected to one’s identity and its loss is perceived as a loss of one’s sense of self (Hall and Reid 2009). A budding, but limited research stream is emerging on how viewers respond to the loss of TV series. Recent communications research shows that responses to suspension, permanent or temporary, of favored TV shows bear strong similarities with ‘real’ break ups

(Cohen 2004; Lather and Moyer-Gusé 2011) but that body of research has focused squarely on the loss of characters within the show, not of the entire narrative or show, and has offered purely descriptive accounts of viewer reactions, not process evidence of how they deal with the loss.

Even in their mild forms, attachments to characters can be strong and their loss can trigger

7 affective and cognitive reactions similar to the loss of real friends (Meyrowitz 1994; Sanderson

2009). For instance, Eyal and Cohen (2006) find levels of parasocial relationships with specific characters in Friends and overall levels of affinity and commitment to the series predicted the level of distress when the show ended.

Furthermore, because the continually evolving meanings of these narrative brands are often negotiated collectively (Ritson and Elliott 1999; Rose and Wood 2005), the ending of such brands may impact the social and cultural environment in which they are embedded. Television serves as a common center of attention and a communicative resource, where co-viewing activities fluctuate between companionable silence and narrative involvement to lively gossip and debate (Lull 1980;

Radway 1991). Group viewing, in private homes and public spheres, such as a pub or tavern, fuels social interactions, discussion and interpretation of content, and encourages parasocial relationships (May 1999). In those collectives, the series’ textual materials become anchors for socially enacted linkages that often extend beyond mere discussions into practices of creative production, textual poaching (Jenkins 2013), and fantasy (Kozinets 2001; Schau et al. 2009a), fueled by the increasing complexity of TV narratives and heightened requirements for viewers’ engagement and effort into the decoding process (Mittell 2006).

TV is a part of the cultural fabric, where series can hold great cultural significance (Kellner

1995; Russell, Schau and Crockett 2013). Popular series offer a cultural repertoire of humor, lifestyles, and references that permeate a culture and are used by members, from preschool children to adults, to communicate shared knowledge. TV series help communicate, reinforce, or sometimes change cultural identity, at the local, national, or global levels (Thornham and Purvis

2005). Television programming is so crucial in developing shared values and symbols that countries and regions claim that they need their own programs in order to sustain cultural references (Castelló 2007). The transmission of cultural values through television is visible in how

8 people use television to acculturate to a new environment (Wallendorf and Reilly 1983) or when imported programs alter local cultural values (Varman and Belk 2008). Thus, even when brands are consumed privately, collective identities and sociality impact consumers’ brand experience, and the sociocultural environment that embeds consumption impacts loss responses.

Understanding consumer responses to the discontinuation of an evolving narrative brand requires not only an assessment of the psychological elements of the accommodation process to the loss, as Yvonne’s quote illustrates, but also of the social and cultural repercussions as consumers’ social networks inhibit or facilitate consumer loss accommodation, as reflected in

Marc’s statements. Previous research, having focused mainly on self-reported emotional responses when a TV series stops, has fallen short of demonstrating how these multi-faceted processes of loss accommodation unfold. Here, we explicitly examine loss accommodation in situ as complex processes with distinct relational trajectories. We document consumers’ lived experience of the conclusion of TV series and the subsequent relational trajectories that emerge as functions of characteristics of the brand narrative and the sociality that surrounds its consumption. We examine

TV series that vary in production duration (6-41 years) and narrative structure (weak versus strong closural force): The Sopranos , OF , Entourage and All My Children (AMC).

Guided by brand relationship theory and the core discipline on interpersonal loss, we draw from data that triangulate across sources and methods (extended participant observation, long interview and online forum analysis) to unfold the processes of loss accommodation triggered by brand discontinuation. In documenting the lived experience of consumption loss, we show that this critical juncture in a consumer-brand relationship impacts and is impacted both by characteristics inherent to the narrative brand and by the nature of sociality that surrounds the consumption practice. Our contributions to the broader research agenda on consumer-brand relationships are three-fold: first, we offer a novel perspective of consumer-brand relationships through the lens of

9 narratively evolving brands; second, we emically document the experience of consumers faced with critical junctures in their relationships with brands and the accommodation processes that ensue; and in doing so, we situate consumer-brand relationships within a wider social and cultural context to document the role of consumption sociality in the sustenance of an evolving narrative brand and in the loss accommodation process.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

We draw from four bodies of literature: 1) relationship research to review prior work on critical junctures and their impact on relational trajectories, 2) narrative research to document how critical junctures, such as producer-initiated brand withdrawal, and narratives’ closural force may alter consumers’ relationship trajectories with evolving narrative brands, or diegetic brands, 3) interpersonal loss research to provide foundations on the processes of accommodation to the loss of a relationship partner, and 4) consumption sociality.

Relational Trajectories

Relationships have trajectories in which critical events occurring over the life course help establish meaning. Turning points are key to narrative evolution: they involve discontinuities, relatively abrupt changes that may produce serious and long-lasting effects and even reverse the life course trajectory (Settersten and Mayer 1997; Wheaton and Gotlib 1997). They trigger processes of accommodation as a function of the intensity of the events, whether they are controllable, anticipated, desirable, and acute versus chronic (Settersten and Mayer 1997, p. 246).

These events may be critical junctures in a relationship if they close or open opportunities, make a lasting change on the person's environment, or change a person's self-concept, beliefs, or expectations (Rutter 1996).

Critical junctures alter relationship trajectories and may lead to their complete dissolution.

Interpersonal relationship frameworks about relationship maintenance or dissolution (e.g. Duck

1982) have informed much of the research on consumer-brand relationships. However, the focus has been on either failures within the relationship, such as incongruity between consumers and brands, poor brand performance resulting in decreased customer satisfaction, failure to execute effective brand management strategies, corporate scandals, and other misbehaviors (Fajer and

Schouten 1995) or on consumer-initiated dissolution, such as the disposition of meaningful possessions (Bradford 2009; Lastovicka and Fernandez 2005; Price, Arnould, and Curasi 2000) or voluntary severance of marketplace relationships, as when individual consumers break ties with service providers (Coulter and Ligas 2000; Dwyer et al. 1987; Tahtinen and Halinen 2002).

Brand loss, a critical juncture prompted by the departure of the relationship partner, is more akin to what Duck (1982) called sudden death in which new, unexpected and negatively charged information about a partner hastens the dissolution of the relationship. A nascent stream shows that consumers collectively respond to brand death, as in market withdrawals. Research on Apple

Newton (Muñiz and Schau 2005), Xena: Warrior Princess and 4Com Audrey (Schau, Muñiz and

Arnould 2009) document active collective resistance to discontinuation. Otnes et al.’s research on the rebranding of Marshall Field’s retail store (2008) shows consumers collectively mourned family rituals associated with the retailer, and actively protested the rebrand as a loss of a symbol of civic pride. Still, relatively little is known about how producer-initiated brand withdrawals, which result in the loss of the relationship partner, affect consumers’ relationships with brands.

Narratives

Although the definition is still widely debated, narratives are generally defined as a temporal sequence of causally related events (Richardson 2000). In marketing practice, narratives help structure marketing communications, such as advertisements, into meaningful and potentially immersive stories (Escalas 2004); they provide the underlying symbolic and cultural architecture for brands such as American Girl (Diamond et al. 2009). And some brands, here referred to as narrative brands, are diegetic by nature because the narrative is a construct of the brand. Because the existence of diegetic brands relies on the infusion of new narrative materials, understanding what happens when the narrative ends requires a turn to the field of narratology.

Narrative theorists address the functions and structure of narrative endings and there is an expansive body of research on closure. Some argue that, because the essence of a narrative lies in the narratable, the purpose of closure is to rid a text of all traces of the narratable (Miller 2002). A definite, causally derived closure, as prescribed by Aristotle, inhibits any further narrative productivity. In the traditional chronotope, closure is brought about by the characters eventually finding answers and harmony in a horizontal movement (Alexander 2007). But, “closure, though it implies resolution, never really resolves the dilemmas raised by the narratable” (Miller 2002, 275) and, often, ending narratives have enough left over to produce more narrative.

Further, narratives vary in closural force. Some are erotetic in that they answer all questions and sustain complete closure (Carroll 2007): for instance, detective narratives are characterized by the strong closural force of their denouement (Sweeney 1990). Erotetic narratives do not leave any narratability. In contrast, certain genres are known for their eternal middles. Soap operas, with their “indefinitely large, expanding, and wide-open middles, with no conclusions in sight” (Carroll

2007, 2) epitomize this unending narrative format (Mumford 1994). The continuing serial form resists narrative closure (Allen 1989) and its purpose is to “never end” and to indefinitely delay closure (Feuer 1984, Porter 1977, 783). Carroll asserts, “Even if All My Children and The Guiding

Light ever go off the air, they would never be able to tie up into a tidy package all the plot lines they have set in motion” (2007, 2).!TV series producers often attempt to answer questions in the final episode(s) of a series by referencing historical events within the series, and to offer parasocial closure with the characters by bringing back past or occasional ones and showing the main ones move on, saying good bye or going about their regular business (Piccirillo 1991). But TV narratives’ increasing complexity of plots and characters and oscillations between long-arc storytelling and stand-alone episodes within given series make it difficult for the producers to answer all questions (Mittell 2006). Because remains of the narratable keep the narrative open, narratives perceived to have weak closural force generate different reactions to their endings than erotetic narratives, where all questions are answered. Narrative closure is therefore both a function of the narrative itself, some having strong inherent closure and leaving little need to establish it, and a function of the active process whereby the reader establishes closure. But regardless of how it is achieved, closure is essential because it fixes the narrative’s meaning and “endows all that preceded it with a retrospective meaning, refiguring the entire text in terms of its ending, which now assumes a degree of inevitability it may or may not have possessed” (Mumford 1994, 71).

Accommodation to Loss

Process Models of Loss Accommodation. King et al. (2003) distinguish between three meaning-making processes through which people draw sense and meaning from critical junctures in relationships: “accommodating,” “self-understanding,” and “transcending.” Through these processes, events are reframed into a larger context and perspective so that the meaning of the situation is changed even though the situation’s content itself cannot change (Sandidge and Ward

1999). Accommodating to irreversible losses is adaptive because it promotes self-understanding

(Bruner 1994). Literatures on grief, depression (Klinger 1977) and aging (Baltes 1987) show that

13 critical events can alter people’s life course because, as they “transcend the loss by transforming it into a gain,” people recognize new things about themselves and can “reinvest energy in another direction” (King et al. 2003, 200).

The consensus in the extensive research on loss responses in anthropology, sociology, and human loss specifically in the field of death studies (Raphael 1983) is that adjustment is not a singular event but a process that unfolds over time (Orbuch 1992) and that relationships continue after they have supposedly ended. Thus, adapting to a loss requires, not the severance of the bond, as traditional models emphasized (Bowlby 1979; Parkes and Weiss 1983) but rather the establishment of a changed bond. Thus, Silverman and Klass, in their review of research on loss

(1996), argue that “rather than emphasizing letting go, the emphasis should be on negotiating and renegotiating the meaning of loss over time” (19) and advocate the use of the term accommodation instead of recovery, closure, or resolution.

Phasic models, mainly derived from attachment theory (Bowlby 1979) and interdependence theory (Thibaut and Kelley 1959), are commonplace to explain accommodation processes for the loss of a relationship partner to death, but also to divorce or break-up (Herman 1974; Guttmann

1993), relocation (Fried 1966) or job change (Deits 1988). Although most often presented in a phasic sequence, many models recognize back and forth oscillations between phases (Raphael

1983). Consumer research offers evidence of the phasic sequence in studies of consumers facing the loss of animal companions (Stephens and Hill 1996) or material loss due to a natural disaster

(Baker, Hunt and Rittenberg 2007; Delorme et al. 2004). Consumers who experience a sudden loss of possessions to which they are strongly attached experience initial “deep sorrow at the dissolution of the emotional bonds” (Stephens and Hill 1996, 201) followed by phases marked by crying and searching, but eventually they enter a rebuilding phase (Delorme et al. 2004).

Dimensions of Loss Accommodation. Loss models identify several dimensions of

14 accommodation. The emotional dimension, commonly referred to as the grief process (Parkes and

Weiss 1983), has received the most attention (Parkes 2006). The initial numbness, which may be interrupted at times by outbursts of anger or deep despair, gives way to a period of strong emotions as awareness of the loss develops, leading to yearning and protest; eventually the overriding urge to search for the lost person/object is abandoned, leading to a phase of despair

(Rando 1988; Stroebe and Schut 1999). The cognitive dimension focuses on thought processes: so-called “grief work” entails developing causal explanations for loss and, in many traditional models, eventually leads to acceptance (Stroebe 1992). However, there is debate over whether the outcome of grief work is necessarily to accept the loss (Silverman and Klass 1996) or to develop a revised relationship with the lost person or object (Parks 2007).

Losses also prompt identity work, where reconstructing meaning in response to a loss necessarily entails identity reconstruction (Gillies and Neimeyer 2006). The loss of a significant attachment figure or object requires “the reestablishment of a (sufficiently) coherent self-narrative and resolution to the incongruence between the reality of the loss and one’s sense of meaning”

(Neimeyer et al. 2010, 75). The reconstructed self-image reflects the reality of changed circumstances. This identity work may involve adjusting aspects of identity that were tied to the lost object/person and other objects and people that were associated with this identity, but it may also include reinvesting in new tasks (Leick and Davidson-Nielsen 1991), developing relationships that fulfill roles previously satisfied by the lost person or object (Worden 1991) and experimenting with new social roles and identities (Stroebe and Schut 1999).

The Role of Sociality in Accommodation to Loss

Even though traditional loss models mainly focus on the individual and private experience, or intrapsychic symptomatology (Fowlkes 1990), many scholars noted that, especially when the

15 lost object or person is directly part of a social network, adjusting to its loss requires taking into account the social structure in which the loss occurred (Fowlkes 1990; Rosenblatt, Walsh and

Jackson 1976). Social networks affect the coping process during irrevocable relationship dissolutions. Social sharing can facilitate coping: it enables the disclosure of emotions regarding traumatic experiences (Smyth 1998), helps make sense of a loss, and allows the cultivation of a collective memory (O’Donohoe and Turley 2005).

Impact of Social Forces in Loss. Consumption loss must be anchored in a broader psychosocial domain (Duck 1982; Fowlkes 1990; Rosenblatt et al. 1976). Yet, the impact on and of social forces in a consumption loss scenario is equivocal. Research finds that social forces can be centripetal, holding relationship partners together after a common loss (Davis 1973). For instance, consumers collaborate to form a structure to frame and facilitate active continuation of post-withdrawal relationships with the Apple Newton (Muñiz and Schau 2005), Xena: Warrior

Princess and 3Com Audrey (Schau et al. 2009b). Other studies suggest that social forces may instead be centrifugal, where network connections that surrounded a lost object/person loosen or even dissolve (Davis 1973; Parks 2007). Roberts (1991) finds the impact of job (and status) loss on social interactions was complete social withdrawal. A loss can lead to social loneliness, because of the disorientation and excommunication one feels when the loss alters one’s place and status in a social network (Weber 1998).

Impact of the Cultural Context. Finally, loss accommodation is affected by how the broader community views the relationship with the lost person or object and sanctions ways to deal with the loss. When the general community provides sympathy and support for one’s loss, it acknowledges its legitimacy and thus facilitates the accommodation process (Kamerman 1993).

When the loss is felt throughout a given community, such as in a natural disaster (Delorme et al.

2004), the sociocultural dynamics surrounding loss are essential to the meaning making process

16 and identity reconstruction that ensues (Bonsu and Belk 2003). Conversely, if the broad culture does not recognize the validity of the loss, disenfranchisement can ensue. When the loss is a

“socially undervalued relationship,” people may feel stigmatized and this stigma “contravenes or cancels out the meaning of the loss” (Fowlkes 1990). The absence of social validation for the loss prevents one from disclosing one’s feelings and can lead to so-called disenfranchised grief.

Because of the sociality and cultural fabric in which evolving narrative brands are embedded, their withdrawal may also impact the social interactions and networks surrounding them. The social surroundings may be supportive to the expression of brand loss, such as families experiencing the loss of a ritual-infused retail space (Otnes et al. 2008) and fellow brand enthusiasts (Kozinets 2001; Schau et al. 2009b), or unsupportive, such as the Star Trek fans who experience social derogation stemming from mainstream North American attitudes about their brand devotion being “geekish” etc. (Kozinets 2001). Hence, it is crucial to also document the social and cultural dynamics that surround the dissolution of consumer-brand bonds.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The extant research indicates that the discontinuation of a brand represents a critical juncture in the consumer-brand relationship that may lead to its dissolution. Further, in the context of diegetic brands, research suggests that loss accommodation strategies may differ as a function of characteristics inherent to the brand narrative, such as whether it can sustain closure, as well as the social and cultural environment that embeds brand consumption.

Our research addresses the main question: How do consumers experience and accommodate to the loss of an evolving narrative brand? And our secondary question is: How do

17 the diegetic brand’s narrative structure and the sociality that surrounds its consumption affect the experience of loss and loss accommodation processes?

METHODOLOGY

Research Objectives

Our research addresses the questions above. Anchored in the domain of evolving narrative brands, of which TV series are an archetypal example, we triangulate across three data sources

(extended participant observation, long interviews, and netnography) to document the manner in which consumers experience and cope with the loss of diegetic brands, and the roles of narrative structure and consumption sociality in consumers’ experience of loss and consumers’ loss accommodation.

Data Sites: Four Television Series

To examine consumer experiences of, and coping strategies for, discontinuation of an evolving narrative brand, we theoretically sampled consumers of formerly live brands (newly dead brands), specifically consumers of recently cancelled television series. Series were strategically selected to capture variance in brand narrative structure: evolution, arcs presented and the closural force, or the manner in which all aspects of the plot are detailed, leaving little interpretive ambiguity. We chose four focal television series, none of which had significant closural force: The

Sopranos, Outrageous Fortune (OF) , Entourage , and All My Children (AMC) . The Sopranos and

OF have an episodic narrative evolution, unexpected arcs, and ultimately a moderate closural force all consistent with the hour long [actually length is 42 minutes] television dramedy genre

(combination of dramatic and comedic arcs) which is a staple of primetime television

18 programming (Del Valle 2008). Entourage epitomizes the half hour [approximate length is 22 minutes] television dramedy genre and in the final season exhibits relatively high closural force

(Sewell 2010). AMC is typical of the soap opera genre, with a very slow episodic evolution, multiplying and never-ending story arcs that generate overall irresolution and hence offer very low closural force (Allen 1985; Mumford 1994; Palmer 1991).

Our research program includes: a) a 7-year extended ethnography of eleven fans who viewed and discussed The Sopranos together; b) in-depth interviews with fans of OF , conducted in conjunction with participant observation at the opening event and then 6-month long series exhibit at the national museum in New Zealand after the series ended; c) in-depth interviews with fans of

Entourage conducted immediately following the series finale; and d) a study of fan forums devoted to AMC , The Sopranos and Entourage (see table 1).

–––––––––––––––––––– Insert table 1 about here ––––––––––––––––––––

Extended Participant Observation

The Sopranos. To investigate whether the ending of a series severs not just a personal relationship with the series but also the network of social connections built around it, this data component examines the experience of a series’ ending for consumers who are actively participating in collective consumption at the time the brand is discontinued. Prolonged engagement with an interdependent small group, or idioculture (Fine 1979) an itinerant part of the larger brand community (Muñiz and O’Guinn 2001), allowed us to witness group dynamics within a set of emotionally invested consumers and the evolution of individual and collective consumer- brand relationships. This aspect of the data gave us a good foundation to interpret other group viewing contexts in the data set: OF and Entourage .

A group of eleven friends plus the second author congregated in private residences to view

The Sopranos (see table 2). Group members ranged from age 28-54, included both males and females, and were located on the East Coast near the primary setting/geography of The Sopranos .

They developed norms for viewing (dim lights, standard menu offerings, discussion protocols, and rules governing pausing and rewinding). The venue rotated among those residences with requisite resources: large, high-quality television (definition of which changed over time as the technology developed – e.g., “big screen” to “hi-def”), comfortable seating for the intended group (3-11), and accessible, safe parking. Italian food was always present and all members contributed food and/or money for food. They developed rules governing the appropriate manner for expressing emotions related to the brand, e.g., members could make emotional utterances immediately following screen action, but could not discuss events in detail until the series concluded. Gatherings were rich with character and plot discussion, ripe for examining the development of the consumer-brand relationships, and ideal to witness the impact brand withdrawal on a highly engaged consumer set.

Using participant observation, the second author was able to make inquiries of members, much like interviews, but occurring in situ over an extended period of time that reduces the context artificiality and the potential for response bias. Unlike interviews that are self-reports of recollected brand engagement, we witnessed emerging brand discussions evolving throughout the series as communicated during group viewing events. In the spirit of “prolonged persistent observation” (Hill and Stamey 1990, 205-306; Hill 1991, 300), we logged an estimated 75 hours of group viewing and over 150 hours of series discussion over a seven-year period which gave us a solid foundation to understand collective viewing; however in this article we report mostly from the last season and immediately following it. This gave us grounding in collective viewing that we could apply when interpreting informant quotes from OF and Entourage .

–––––––––––––––––––– Insert table 2 about here ––––––––––––––––––––

OF. This New Zealand-made series aired for six seasons (2004 to 2010). The final episode aired November 15, 2010 and attracted 18.2% of the country’s population. Sold to networks in over eight countries, the success of the show is attributed not only to exceptional writing and acting (winning over 60 awards) but also cultural resonance, enabling a connection between fiction and everyday New Zealand life. The proximity to New Zealand culture could also be seen through anecdotal evidence of a steady flow of fans who regularly drove past the private residence used as the exterior of the West family house, in the blue-collar neighborhood of West Auckland.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand’s largest museum, created a six-month long exhibit about the show that opened one month after the end of the series. This participant observation consisted of attending the museum exhibit and its opening event. The museum gave the authors full access to the exhibit, opening event, and proprietary marketing data. The exhibition included a behind-the-scenes look at the series, revealing the inspirations that sparked the writers such as real-life headlines, scripts and brainstorming notes for each episode. The centerpiece of the exhibit is the series’ main set – the Wests' living room, which visitors could experience: they were able to sit on the couch, interact with the props, and photos or videos. The exhibit included a display of costumes and fictional brands created especially for OF , a section dissecting the main characters and personalities, with a quiz for visitors to discover which character they most resembled. The exhibition closer featured a never-before-seen 3D short.

The opening event boasts 650 guests including actors who portrayed characters, writers, film crew, and media (as well as the researcher team). Fans from across the country could purchase

VIP flight package tickets including a chartered Outrageous Flight to Auckland, accommodation in a Westie-themed room at a downtown hotel and exclusive tickets to the opening. Packages without the flight were available for sale for local fans. Weekend flight and accommodation package deals continued to be sold throughout the exhibition. The event began with Westie-

21 themed drinks and nibbles served in the museum’s atrium. A photo booth in the atrium (which remained throughout the exhibit) allowed for fans to memorialize their experience of the party and

Westie-themed makeovers (which also continued weekly thereafter) provided entertainment for some. Speeches followed, with the formal portion of the evening concluding with a parade of

Cheryl West lookalikes. Event attendees were then invited to peruse the exhibition after which they were ushered to the upstairs atrium where New Zealand band Hello Sailor performed the show’s theme song and more Westie-themed drinks and nibbles were served (see Appendix).

Throughout the 6-month exhibit, the museum promoted interest through competitions: a lookalike competition where women competed to resemble the main character of the show,

Cheryl; as well as a script writing competition (in which some of our interviewees participated) and being featured on the popular weekday current affairs show, Campbell Live.

Participants were recruited at the museum and received an Outrageous Fortune Revealed

DVD, a NZD20 value. In total, 24 fans, mostly females, were interviewed (see table 2). Interviews lasted between 45 and 90 minutes and yielded 299 single-spaced pages of transcripts. Although all participants visited the exhibit, they varied in their level of engagement with the series in its last season: some had viewed it adamantly until the end, others were only casual viewers, and still others had stopped watching regularly in the last two seasons when the ratings dropped.

In-depth Fan Interviews

Entourage is considered to be uniquely male-centered with high resonance among men 18-

45. It is acclaimed for its dialog, famous for its guest stars and known for beautiful women and a high degree of sexuality (Zayer et al. 2012). Like The Sopranos and OF , Entourage is often collectively viewed. Our informants describe viewing within fraternities, with housemates and friends and within families; they describe viewing Entourage alone as unusual. Our in-depth

22 interviews were conducted immediately following the series finale. Interviews lasted between 32-

74 minutes and centered on the plot, the show’s resonance to fans’ lives, as well as the experience of the show’s discontinuation. They yielded 136 single-spaced pages of transcripts.

Longitudinal Netnography

The netnographic component of our research program was conducted over a four-year span on online archival forums centering on three active forums regarding AMC . In addition, we also conducted netnographic analysis on The Sopranos and Entourage in large part to gauge the more general experience and behaviors of the larger fan base. OF did not have a sizeable online fan community which may be a reflection of its cultural roots (New Zealand) or the ease with which the fan base can and does congregate in person (a more consolidated geographic fan base).

Analytical Strategy

Our data consist of interviews with 35 highly engaged consumers regarding OF (24) and

Entourage (11), participant observation of brand-based experiences (celebrity-studded gala and museum visits) associated with OF , a seven-year extended ethnography of a consumer idioculture devoted to The Sopranos , and three years of naturalistic observation of consumer activities in brand-oriented forums. Data consist of interview and forum transcripts, interaction videos and audiotapes, still photos of informants, in situ discussion transcripts, and field notes of the observations. These data reveal the robust nature of the phenomenon: consumer loss experienced as a direct result of market imposed brand cessation. This dataset allows for myriad consumer perspectives regarding multiple modes of consumer engagement. Interestingly, the triangulated data sources reveal a tightly patterned set of consumer responses to brand cessation with clear consumption implications.

We performed axial coding of the transcripts and field notes noting relationships between the

23 codes (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Miles and Huberman 1994). Patterns of behavior and discussion content were sought and identified across data sources (Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson,

Locander and Pollio 1990). Next, field notes and transcripts were reread and iterative coding progressed to flesh out thematic relationships (Spiggle 1994). We reached consensus regarding themes and patterns. To achieve emic validity, we performed member checks by asking key informants to read and comment on the collective interpretation (Wallendorf and Belk 1989).

FINDINGS

What Is Lost?

We examine consumer loss emanating from the end of a television series, and consumers’ loss accommodation strategies, which are dependent upon what consumers feel they have lost.

Yvonne’s loss, as vividly expressed in the opening quote, centers on the characters and her inability to know their evolving fates. Others lament the loss of the evolving narrative, and accommodation differs for those narratives that had lost their wind and were expected to end compared to the potential-ridden ones that died an early death. Yet others ( AMC fans) experienced the double loss of cancellation and promised webisodes that threatened never to come to pass, stalling in production phase for almost two years before airing and then only half the promised weekly installments. Finally, as Marc’s opening quote illustrates, some also eventually mourn the consumption sociality that centered on the live brand.

Loss of Narrative Evolution. The ending of narratives creates a vacuum in narrative evolution and consumers’ initial responses are emptiness and numbness, as Rick describes:

I read it on the official program website. I knew it was true, but right off I didn’t process it - what it would mean to me, to our Sopranos’ group – I wasn’t sad or anything. Nothing. Like the words just didn’t reach me (Rick, 44).

An OF fan echoes the absence of feelings, as he seeks the correct words to describe the emptiness, the low that followed all the emotional highs in the series, and especially the climax of the final episode, “It was sort of like you build us up to this, you climax and you are like waiting for this big climax and then it just ended and it was like oh. Sort of a big letdown” (Anthony, 33).

Similarly, Alan (21) recalls watching the credits roll on the last Entourage episode, “there was like

45 seconds of still; of nothing. And then, someone broke the silence with, ‘are you freaking kiddin’ me or somethin’?” Likewise, Derek (22) says his group was silent as the credits rolled, “no one really said anything. It’s just silence… it was definitely noticeable silence.”

This initial emptiness gives way to the need to establish and search for closure in the narrative itself so that its meaning can surface (Mumford 1994). Closure is easier to reach when narratives had exhausted their narratability or when they provided answers to all open questions

(i.e. they are erotetic). As Natasha ( OF fan; 34) rationalizes: even though you are sad, you are

“keeping things in perspective and being logical you know things [narratives] can’t go on forever… they do drag them out too much and then they end up dying a very unpleasant death whereas this one sort of wrapped it up.” Natasha’s reference to a “good” death reveals her acceptance of the natural lifecycle of evolving narrative brands; she prefers that it ends now rather than later, when the narrative has lost some of its edge, which is in line with the life completion ingredient necessary to a “good death” (Steinhauser et al. 2000). Many echo this sentiment across our data. Joseph (Entourage) admits he was “feeling… a bit… I guess tired of how, just how easy ultimately everything was, how the storyline developed.” He reasons that “they made a good move not to decide to have an extra season or an extra 2 seasons…, I think that would have been a mistake.” Similarly, David ( Entourage ) confesses, “I felt like it’s time for them to end it, because there’s just only so many directions you can really go. I mean, [Vince has a] bad movie, come back; drug problem; repeat 6 times. It’s just, you know, eventually they come—like all these

25 series eventually have to come to an end.” Those, like Natasha, Joseph, and David who felt that the narrative was dying found it easier to accept its ending. Interestingly, fans do not all agree on the narratability of a given series. For example, David and Joseph above felt that Entourage had run its course, while others believe it had a lot of evolutionary potential.

In contrast, the ending of those narratives perceived to have remaining narratability trigger anger. Consumers who are unable to affix meaning to the narrative because closure is not reached

(Palmer 1991) refuse to accept its ending. These protests are vocal and social by nature. Some protested within their social network, while others took extraordinary steps to engage and rally community resources and fight the cancellation. The former is exemplified by Alan’s remark about Entourage , “I’m angry… I’m angry it’s over because it’s such a hit. So many 21 and 22 year old guys, even girls enjoy it.” Alan was visibly angry, talking louder and gesturing broadly, discussing the end in light of the series’ continued popularity. Echoing Alan’s sentiment the

Entourage forums have threads entitled, “Gone: What Now?!” and “Damn Shame,” and “F&#k

This,” all expressing anger over the withdrawal. In fact many posts denigrate the entire last season,

“Really? Really?? This is a shitty ending season to a fantastic show. It’s like the hot girl in high school that gains the freshman 15 in college every year - Just not hot any more, Honey!”

(psyched21). For AMC , a large scale anger and protest mobilized fans all over the United States, resulting in the producers agreeing to create and air AMC webisodes on a trial basis through a third party firm, Prospect Park, via Hulu. Prospect Park later suspended these plans indefinitely leaving fans twice devastated and angrier than at the initial cancellation. The fans protested for more than a year. Later the rollercoaster continued as Prospect Park finally launch webisodes in 2013 agreeing to produce and distribute four webisodes a week and then backing off to two.

Those who feel the narrative had potential to evolve draw complex, externally focused, rationales. For example, OF fans note the US interest in producing a version of the show, the

26 actors desire to get more money, and the fear or story line degradation as rationales for the show ending. Focusing on the market-oriented motives serve as a strategy for rationalizing the timing of the cancellation and for appreciating what might have otherwise been a bad death. But those explanations do not sit well with everyone. For The Sopranos’ viewing group, the cancellation is

“sheer laziness. The writers got fat and lazy. Period. Why keep developing these complex characters when you can write inane lines for some reality television host like Ryan Seacrest?”

(Joey 52). Similarly, fellow Sopranos fan Daniel laments:

I can’t believe they would actually end the series now. It is still evolving… It still delivers surprises and entertains. There is still so much to do in the show, so much life left.

Because members of The Sopranos idioculture still felt that the series had narratability, they direct their anger at the writers. The cancellation is cast as a failure to step up to the challenge of writing an intricate plot. Those who cannot find a plausible explanation for cancellation experience it as a bad death and keep hoping that the show would come back, as Adriana expresses here ( OF; 33):

It’s just that I enjoyed it and I wish they’d resurrect it, I wonder why they didn’t keep it going … coz it was quite successful... I’m a bit disappointed and something funny I noticed it’s almost as though the actors were rejecting their characters when you read interviews it’s sort of ‘oh I don’t dress like, I don’t dress like he’. And it’s kind of like as if they want to go on to you know greater things now when to me that was quite a success in itself… I heard or read or something in the news there was some strife over they think they should be paid more and I wondered if that was to do with it ending.

As expected, the cancellation is unbearable for the open-ended narratives that have weak closural force. The cancellation of the seemingly immortal long-running soap AMC caught the fans entirely by surprise. It triggered a surge in forum-enabled social interactions that reveal a community effort to seek explanations and build a consensus around a market justification, not a narrative one with comments like: “I understand that AMC is more expensive to make than a game show… or more expensive to air than a rerun, but there is a different level of quality in story that

27 has spanned 4 decades… how come there is no value given to enduring characters and plots? The bottom line negates art” (Lois AMC fan). Here, Lois offers a market-driven explanation because she can find no narrative rationale, no artistic reason to end the show.

Closure cannot be reached if the live brand is perceived to still have life. Even though Alan had time to get ready for Entourage’s end, which was announced, he still feels that “there’s still so much to tell, which pisses me off.” His only reprieve is the belief, unsubstantiated at the time of the interview that a movie will come. That he is “99% sure chance that there is gonna be a movie” allows him and his friends to delay facing the loss and to ease some of that lingering anger.

Indeed, giving these rumors added credence, Gentlemen’s Quarterly riffed on the inevitable movie reunion’s plot options, one of which was a bathtub time machine and another bachelor party shenanigan movie a la The Hangover franchise (Ueland 2011).

Loss of Characters. For those who grew connected to specific characters, the loss includes that of an attachment figure that they will no longer see evolve. This also triggers grief. As Lana

(45) relays, of the last OF scene: “with Pascale walking out the door and Cheryl standing there and I'm like ‘oh my God’, I've got this big lump in my throat.” Across our data, we find consumers searching for the missing characters, as in the early stages of bereavement (Parkes 2006).

Consumers report switching channels during the show’s old airtime and during completely arbitrary times with no former association to the series. Consumers continue to search long after the show is off the air. The promise of the museum exhibit opening one month after the end of OF gave hope to many of our participants who saw it as a way to “watch the characters again”, something Dalya (24) “had been expecting for so long”. Experiencing the series’ set and the 3-D movie provided “a big sense of relief” but, as we will see later, only temporarily satisfied her search for her favorite series, and delayed her recognition of the irrevocability of the loss. Just like the Entourage fans, many still hope for an eventual movie version.

Losing “live” characters with whom viewers were attached and had parasocial relationship bears resemblance to mourning and grief. Parasocial relationships are especially likely when people lack access to “real” relationships or when their social relations are perceived as deficient or limited in quality or quantity (Chory-Assad and Yanen 2005) because imaginary interaction and vicarious identification with TV characters helps compensate for feeling lonely (Eyal and Cohen

2006). TV characters can seem so real that they become social surrogates who may buffer against social rejection (Gardner and Knowles 2008). Eyal and Cohen (2006) find that lonelier viewers felt “more anxious” when the show Friends ended (516). Lather and Moyer-Gusé (2011) similarly find that temporary halts to a TV series (because of writers’ strike) generated distress, especially amongst those who view television mostly for companionship.

Grief and mourning in response to character losses are visible in our data as well. Within the

Sopranos group Samantha (28), who strongly identified with Adrianna, recalls losing her when she died in the series: “When Adrianna was whacked, I was shaken and couldn’t breathe… It was like they came right after me and I felt betrayed… all my devotion to the show, all Adrianna’s devotion to Christopher, it didn’t matter.” Samantha conflates the loss of the character with a personal assault on her and the betrayal of Adrianna’s love for Christopher with the betrayal of

Samantha’s devotion to Adrianna. The loss is directly and explicitly compared. Over time,

Samantha transferred her favored status to Meadow. While Samantha’s grief is in response to a character dying within the narrative, fans also experience the loss of specific characters due to narrative cessation. Recall Yvonne’s quote at the beginning of this paper, she misses the OF characters she had known and adored for six years and her inability to know what they are doing.

Similarly, an AMC fan, Tracee talks about the loss of the characters she had grown fond of over the years. Her loss is palpable and she continues to seek them where they used to be found

(television station and time), “when the show went off altogether, I felt like I lost my community.

People I had come to know for years. All gone… I’d turn on the set at the usual time only to find some talk show.” Samantha, Yvonne and Tracee all formed parasocial bonds with characters and experienced loss when either the character died within the narrative or was forever suspended due to the series ending. Here, it is not simply narrative closure that they long for, but specific characters whose fates are unknown and whose companionship fans miss.

For some, the easiest way to accommodate to the loss of these parasocial others is to dismiss their realness altogether. Within the Entourage informants, several mention experiencing a distance between themselves and the characters in the last season, citing that the characters had become less real. David explains, “It [Vince’s drug addiction in the final season] woulda fit almost better in like an earlier season. And he’s had all these temptations around him for this long, and now he becomes susceptible to them.” For David, Vince’s struggle with substances came too late in the narrative. It made the character less real and hence easier to say goodbye to. Because the OF museum event allowed fans to interact with actors, writers and production crew, it dispelled the notion that the characters were real, making it easier to detach from them as characters while retaining an appreciation of their talents as professional actors. Yvonne’s explains:

It seemed like it was kind of a good transition from, you know just seeing, you know like Tammy Davis, Munter (his character name), he became Tammy Davis… it was like you got to see the other side of them, and that they were, you know human beings with totally different wardrobes, and different hair... it kind of helped the transition.

Loss of Consumption Sociality. Our participants whose consumption of the series is embedded in sociality mourn the loss of the social links the live brand enabled (Cova, Kozinets and Shankar 2007). In the Sopranos’ idioculture, the series’ ending initiates a liminal phase where members evaluate, sometimes explicitly, the nature and future of their group without the series at its core. Marc’s opening quote indicates that he misses his personal bond to the show as well as the social bonds that formed around the show. His loss is not just the series ending but the co- viewing, collective consumption he had. Nick echoes this experience of grief,

I guess I didn’t realize that the show ending meant that we wouldn’t be getting together as much… not so much at all. We had the funeral for the show, but it was the group I ended up missing more… the re-runs play and I have the DVD set… but I don’t have the friends I watch it with and we don’t have the excitement and the anticipation of what might happen. It happened. I know them all by heart. No one is around to talk to, to wonder with, to unravel plot the mystery with. It isn’t the same. A pale imitation.

Nick’s quote illustrates the lack of reintegration: without the series at its core, the social group lost its bond. The re-consumption opportunities are only a “pale imitation” of the show’s dynamic state. For Joey, coping without The Sopranos and the idioculture was not easy. He has not found a program to get as excited about, or a set of friends with whom to co-view,

I tried to get into The Wire , but it didn’t stick with me. I think it had a lot to do with it being a set social event on my calendar before. We knew it was The Sopranos night. We had a plan. We talked about the show and about other things in our lives. Now, I get home, I maybe turn on The Wire , maybe I don’t. There’s not a real commitment. It is a good show, a great story platform, but… I could take it or leave it now (Joey).

For Joey, The Sopranos offered a collective viewing experience that he found deeper than his attachments to the shows he watches now on his own. Likewise Donald describes the collective viewing of Entourage at his fraternity house,

In my fraternity house, is where we would usually watch it. So there’d be… a big group of guys sitting around watching the TV downstairs. And, it was funny, ‘cause the shows before, not everybody watched... but everyone would come downstairs for Entourage … I lived there for 2 years… every Sunday that there was a new Entourage , that would be what was going on.

The social component fueled his commitment and enhanced the value he received from the live brand. Stan explains, “I’d watch it at a fraternity house, like with some of my fraternity brothers… the whole male bonding thing definitely resonates through the show into I guess who you’re watching it with.” Donald was more pointed, “the social aspect of it won’t be there [in reruns], and that was more, almost why I watched it.” Group viewing of Entourage , like The Sopranos , was integral to the brand experience, with informants saying they look forward to going to the rumored movie with their male friends most of whom watched the show originally together. The program became an anchor of social identity so its loss requires a reconstruction of social identity.

Loss of Identity. When a brand is integral to one’s identity, the end of active production triggers an adjustment as consumers reestablish their identity without the live brand. Identity work prompted by a live brand’s cancellation is a function of the centrality of the brand in one’s identity, the connection of the brand to the self (Escalas and Bettman 2005), and to the consumption sociality that surrounds it. These four TV series were a part of our participants’ lives for many years, sometimes decades, often becoming central to their self-concept. Losing the brand caused “a lessening of self” (Belk 1988, 142) and the need to rebuild an identity without it.

Similarly, the loss of the show provoked an identity change for Annie (46): “When the Sopranos was on, I was way into it and the [viewing] group. I talked in that Jersey accent. My language was sprinkled with thug speak. I was a real guido poseur and now I’m just Annie.” When the show was in active production, Annie took on the persona of a Sopranos character, but when the show ended, she dropped the accent. She still enjoys the show now and then, but her relationship with the show and idioculture and her identity have changed.

Entourage is revealing because the series’ length and narrative theme, centered on gender roles and relationship norms (Zayer et al. 2012), coincide with its core audience’s life stage of coming of age and young adulthood. All the Entourage informants started viewing the series in high school and continued into college. Thus, as Alan and Donald’s quotes in the previous section reveal, the ending of the series epitomizes for many a life transition. For those interviewed, the ending marks a difficult point because it forces them to acknowledge the end of a phase in their own life, as Hans (20) reluctantly acknowledges:

It’ll never be the same... they’ll never create a show like that… I’ll never have another show that like I could probably directly relate to what was going on in my… in terms of the responsibilities being… shouldered, and their reactions to things, like being similar to my reactions of, of things.

Jonah insists that the series resonates with his own experience down to the exact discussions among the characters,

that’s [ Entourage dialog] just guy talk. It’s like what me and my friends talk about. We bust on each other just like they always bust on each other, and, just talk about all our problems and our thoughts, and no one’s scared to say anything, ‘cause we’re all best friends.

Alan echoes the sentiment, “They’re [ Entourage characters] having like the same arguments and… you know, goofing off, but they’re in a Ferrari doing it, and I’m in my apartment.” It’s easy to see how the series is so closely tied to their identity when the life stage changes and the dialog are familiar to them. Donald relates to the show’s premise more directly than simply a male bonding experience, but also to his migration to Arizona. Similarly, Jonah relates to the regional movement, “I kinda see their east coast swag in me.” For Donald and Jonah the characters mirror their trajectory from the east coast of the US to the west.

TV shows can serve a broader function, becoming icons of culture and part of the cultural fabric. This was especially salient with the OF . For many New Zealanders, the show had become an icon of kiwiana and the fans found it especially difficult to see it go because of its cultural resonance. As Nicole (26) explains, “Even though Outrageous Fortune is just a program… it’s still sort of you know New Zealand and sort of like you could identify …where some of the things that were happening.” As Anthony states (31), “In a strange way it makes you proud to be a kiwi.”

The brand connection is strong because of the paucity of iconic, truly kiwi series. Ella (31) lived in the UK during the first seasons of the series, and the series helped her and other expats with whom she watched it to “connect to home.” For several of our participants, the show was a connection to their home culture, while living abroad, and they relied on family or friends to mail them DVDs.

The series’ ending severed a significant anchor of their cultural identity. Away from home, they cling to those DVDs and lament their inability to directly experience the last season and the final episode “live.” They now feel isolated and long to return to New Zealand to be able to visit the exhibit and to work through how the absence of the brand will play out in their cultural identity.

The series’ status as a cultural symbol was a key motivator for the Auckland Museum exhibition

33 to capitalize on its linkages to New Zealanders’ cultural identity’s culture. As such, the exhibit facilitated the identity change process that the series’ cancellation prompted, as we will discuss in the accommodation process section.

In some cases, the loss highlights the significance of the brand to the viewers’ cultural identity that they had not necessarily appreciated or been aware of when the program was active.

Dalya (24; OF ) explains, “And it was quite gutting when it ended, it was really sad watching the last episode because it had become quite a big part of my life.” In contrast, Yvonne is able to come to terms with the loss of OF easily. When she first immigrated to New Zealand, she used the series as a cultural platform, to understand Kiwis and to assert her place in the culture through cultural mastery. The series was a resource for understanding the common social history and helped her assimilate into her adopted country. It was instrumental in shaping her new cultural identity. She even had a OF themed 50 th birthday party. Now, she feels part of the culture and no longer relies on the show’s guidance for acculturation, the loss does not require extensive identity work.

Hence, we find that the loss is based, not on the series itself but what it meant to the person, to the social network that surrounded the consumption experience, and, at a broader level still, the cultural meaning that the active brand represented. The loss of a live brand that was significant to one’s identity triggers the need to revise one’s identity to accommodate to the loss. For instance,

Alan (21) equates the loss of Entourage with college graduation: “Good thing it’s senior year,

‘cause everything else is being taken away. Mise well be Entourage as well.” Similarly, Donald

(22) laments, “I would definitely say I am bummed out… the series that’s been part of like my college career almost, has ended. But, at the same time, it’s almost fitting that I’m graduating this semester and the show’s done.” Both Alan and Donald describe the show ending as a personal loss like the end of their college days; they have lost an anchor of their personal and social identity. For

OF fans, the loss is of an iconic New Zealand series that captured many fans’ cultural identity.

Accommodation Processes Associated with the Loss of a Brand

The loss of a brand involves multiple layers of loss: the loss begins with the narrative inherent to the brand, but it may also affect the sociality that surrounds its consumption, and ultimately the place of the brand in the consumer’s identity. Accommodating to the loss of a diegetic brand requires accepting that it no longer progresses, in the case of TV series that both plot and characters will no longer evolve, adjusting to the impact that the death of the brand has on consumption sociality, and working through one’s identity without the brand. Our data reveal that the brand’s inherent narrative structure and closural force and sociality-based resources interact in affecting these accommodation processes.

Transformation. The transformation process deals primarily with the intrapsychic domain.

We find that the transformation process is much easier when the narrative itself sustains closure: consumers accept its ending more readily and can do so intrapsychically. For instance, Yvonne

(OF; 50) “actually thought that it was exactly what it should have been. Because it was, it was true to them (the family).” Focusing on the ways in which the narrative closed allows her to detach emotionally from the family that she loved but lost and to instead appreciate how the storylines wrapped up. As she concludes, “it would have been wrong to try and wrap it all up and make it pretty and perfect. So, you know it felt like to me at the end it felt like they just went back to the beginning.” The erotetic narrative allows her to come to terms with and appreciate the way it ended: she has gained perspective, found something positive in the loss and, as a result, is less emotionally distressed (Davis, Nolen-Hoeksema, and Hanson 1998).

But, since “even the most complete closure inevitably leaves some excess of narratable material” (Mumford 1994, 72), acceptance of a diegetic brand’s narrative closure requires active transformation exercises. For most informants and visitors, attending the OF exhibit was a

35 significant marker of transformation, as the living room set, deconstructed characters, scripts and props vividly epitomized the ending of the series. People carefully read documents, sit and take in the empty living room set, and absorb the ways the writers and prop masters crafted each episode.

The exhibit prompted reflections about what the show meant to them and the behind the scenes materials enriched their understanding and appreciation. It also enhanced their awareness of OF as a fabrication, thus allowing them to come to terms with the fact that their parasocial attachments were with fictional characters. In contrast, those participants whose motivation for visiting was to extend their relationship with the brand were distressed by the deconstructive nature of the exhibit.

They expressed discomfort at the emptiness of the set and the literary and psychoanalytic treatment of their cherished characters. Not ready to transform their relationship to the characters and series, only the short 3D movie was satisfactory, allowing them to get back to the “live” brand. But overall, the exhibit facilitates transformation. Asked how she may experience the show in the future, Natasha (34) says:

I think it will be different now I’ve seen the exhibit. I think I would have felt more disappointed if there hadn’t been such an exhibition it would have been a bit more of a feeling of loss at the show ending if there was nothing else afterwards. Seeing the exhibit sort of brought that closure I suppose.

Assuming narrative closure can be reached, the consumers can transform their relationship with the live brand into a relationship with a symbol of the brand: collecting paraphernalia, creating mementos provide linking objects that both acknowledge the brand’s death and offer a continuing emotional connection to it (Volkan 1981). The leopard print materials that came to symbolize the OF exhibit became collectable items, and memorabilia from the event itself, invitations, tickets, autographed photos, but also served as transitional objects, offering comfort and helping to wean attachment from the brand (Winnicott 1971). Consumers are also able to detach altogether or to seek out alternate brands to attach to. Interestingly, we find consumers looking to other genres for such alternatives. For example, Amanda, an AMC fan forced herself to

36 get into serial dramas on USA, hoping that switching genre would help her cope. Similarly, the

Entourage group watched football and Larry David (the rest of the Sunday night lineup) to quell anger and loss. Daniel, a Sopranos fan explicitly started The Wire a non-mobster oriented show, to move past sadness and also to try to attach to another social group. Tad similarly expresses that

Entourage was a bracket in television where males could bond and now the bracket closed and the guys must return to mainstream, girlfriend/wife approved programming.

Narrative closure, by virtue of the meaning making process it facilitates, prompts identity work. As consumers revisit the meaning of the now closed brand narrative, they attempt to reestablish a coherent self-narrative (Neimeyer et al. 2010). For instance, the end of Entourage signaled adulthood for many of the viewers. One poster states it this way,

Entourage is like the world according to Maxim and now we’re back to ordinary life and ordinary mainstream television… we all grew up abruptly… forget hanging with the guys and find something you can stomach snuggling with your girl (Tad, forum poster).

The end of Entourage prompts these young males to reflect on the transition in their life and, given the series’ theme, on how they treat their “real” relationships. Some avoid facing the inevitability of having to grow up by sustaining hopes that a movie may come out, hence delaying closure. The Entourage fans hold fast to the idea that an extension is forthcoming.

Transition. Whenever the consumption experience involves high levels of sociality, transitive resources are immediately available in the accommodation process . For instance, the young male fans of Entourage shared their emotions or disappointment within the proximal social network with phrases “I was like damn” often accompanied by hand gestures and head hanging associated with desperation. This social sharing eases the accommodation process by allowing consumers to feel close to others who shared the loss, but also to express their feelings to them

(Smyth 1998), confront the loss, and reach narrative closure collectively. For instance, Adriana

(33) altered what would have been an “abrupt” ending to OF for her psychologically, into a

“phasing out ending, a more graduated ending” by involving other people to “work through the ending.” She began by watching re-runs with her partner and then visited the museum exhibit.

Sharing with others, whether intimately with her partner, or more broadly by attending the museum event with other fans, was beneficial. She explains “I think the whole process, the party, and the exhibit have helped to kind of celebrate it so that you can kind of let it go.” But, needing even greater sociality, she eventually sought social interactions in a broader network, online. Yet, as she relays here, this endeavour did not provide the salutary benefits she had hoped for:

I guess, the other thing that I will admit to doing was looking on the forum, I never posted but I did look what people were saying. And after, like there was heaps of stuff on the forum, when the whole Wayne-Pascale thing first happened. But then, I guess, that whole thing in the forum got to a point where it was just people being, way too obsessed. Like I am a fan but I'm not that obsessed. And so I just thought this is getting a bit ridiculous. Tapping into a broader but unknown group was not, in the end, useful to her transitioning because the reactions she encountered were too extreme, too different from her own, something we will return to when discussing the broader connection process.

Our longitudinal engagement with the Sopranos viewing group provides evocative illustrations of the three main parts of the transition process and the collective rituals involved: separation (i.e., withdrawal from the group), liminal (attempts to redefine the self before re- entering the social group), and reintegration (or lack thereof). The series’ last episode was emotionally discussed prior to the event, during and long after the final episode. The group held a mock funeral for the program. The separation took on a distinct death ritual air; on the airing of the final episode, members of the viewing group dressed in black and when the episode was finished, they each stood up to say a few words about the program and the characters. They had a large photo of the cast with Sopranos logo made on foam board at a copy store and displayed on a tripod at the side of the tv. The fan remarks, foam board image and black attire were purposefully reminiscent of a funeral: eulogy, tribute board and mourning clothing respectively. We find this

38 idioculture turning to familiar tropes of death in their language, imagery and behaviors to mark the narrative closure. The sociality provided by the elaborate mock funeral denotes collective agreement that the plot and characters, essential and consubstantial characteristics of narrative

(Chatman 1989), will no longer evolve, ratifying the narrative’s closure.

There are efforts to continue bonds, both with the series and with fellow members of the idioculture, through media broadcast, movies and impromptu program marathons. In the former, stations ran whole seasons’ episodes back to back for hours. In the latter, fans gathered to play their boxed sets and special recordings. We observed three Sopranos marathon parties. Rick says that his viewing group intended to get together more often,

We were so full of good intentions. We were going to have monthly viewing parties and use the DVDs, but we’ve only have three parties in the last 14 months. This one [party] was my idea because I really need a fix – of the show and of my friends. The Sopranos was the glue that kept us together and now that glue is dry. … It was the friends and the anticipation of what comes next in the plot and how the characters develop. They don’t change now. … It’s like watching memories. It feels good to remember but sad that it isn’t ever coming back.

Rick still feels the loss of the brand and the idioculture. He misses the interaction of the brand and the group. He hosted a DVD viewing which he found bittersweet and unfulfilling. Rick likens re- watching to memories. These post-withdrawal parties are not the same. The brand they experienced as the seasons unfolded is all revealed and they are simply trying (and failing) to relive the dynamic years. It indicates an acceptance but also a need to remember the program and keep those memories active through communal discussion.

For the AMC fans, the transition process also reveals a transmediation (Suhor 1984) of rituals usually found in interpersonal relationships: consumers take understandings from one system and move them into another sign system (Siegel 1995). Where The Sopranos’ fans accepted the loss using the mock funeral as a closure event, the AMC fans played out the trope of the jilted lover who pleads for reconciliation. In this case, the fans mobilized a collective and

39 collaborative effort to bring the show back garnering an estimated 215,000 signatures on one specific petition and half a million or snail-mail pleas to restore the program to the daytime lineup.

This tenacity was temporarily rewarded as the producers agreed to continue production for at least one season as webisodes, or episodes that air exclusively online; the lover returned if only temporarily. Unfortunately, this promised return was withdrawn and the fans were twice jilted.

This active collaboration to aggressively fight the cancellation and eventually win a commitment from the producers exemplifies the use of the forum as a transitive resource to work through the loss. As Delilah’s post, “We brought AMC back from the dead. Rejoice!” The announcement two months later in November 2011 that there would be no webisodes rocked the fan community, “All for Nothing” and “Nobody’s Children” were popular threads chronicling the second time loss of the show. Fans were horrified at the rescinded miracle of “a second life online.” Now, with the

Hulu webisodes the AMC fan communities have actually quieted down. While it is tempting to believe that now that there is new content in the AMC brand fans would be abuzz, they actually weren’t. A spike of activity occurred just before, during and immediately after the series was brought back to life online. The discourse was almost exclusively about the resurrection not the content itself. The first webisodes did not provide considerable fodder for discussion only quelled the protest. Then, when Prospect Park, the new producers, dialed back their commitment from four a week to two a week, there was more rumblings. In essence, the narrative evolution was enough to keep the community quiet. The social activity spurred by the cancellation dispelled as the webisodes came to fruition.

In both The Sopranos fan funeral and the AMC protest, the collective component was activated but they served different purposes because the narratives were different: The Sopranos proximal idioculture used a collective mourning ritual to mark closure, the AMC community, unable to find narrative closure in an open-ended narrative, rallied sociality-based resources to

40 fight or at least delay it.

Unlike The Sopranos or AMC , the ending of OF generally took on a celebratory tone. The mood at the event was festive. Our data suggest that this is because the ending was treated as national event and the program was elevated to a national icon that enabled a positive, beneficial connection process, to which we turn next. The event facilitated the transition process by bringing fans together to commemorate and celebrate a successful show, as well as allowing fans to interact with characters, writers and production crew. Another celebration was Yvonne’s 50 th birthday party, scheduled two months before the series ending and organized along an OF theme, with costumes, drinks, and decor (see Appendix). The party served an anticipatory function, though not one of grief, but one of celebration. Yvonne then bought tickets to the opening event for her partner as an anniversary present along with “leopard skin stuff.”

Connection. The connection process reflects the role of the larger cultural context of consumption loss. Connection takes place beyond the fandom and must account for cultural conditions such as the acceptance and generality of the brand’s meaning even to non-consumers.

For instance, The Sopranos integrated into the American zeitgeist. A “credits tour” was created where fans could follow Tony Soprano’s drive during the opening credits of the show complete with annotated signage. Italian restaurants around the US put on Sopranos’ themed events celebrating Italian heritage and openly accepted the mafia connection and the violent mores the program embraced. Similarly, the Auckland Museum, an institution of high culture, embraced and celebrated OF placing the brand at the center of New Zealand culture. The mainstream media contributed to the creation and maintenance of a collective memory (Connerton 1989), for viewers and non-viewers alike. The museum acted as a public forum where personal experiences of the brand became interlinked with collective experiences (Rowe and Wertsch 2002). The look alike contests specials and documentaries featuring both cast and audience members resonated with the

41 avid fans but also allowed the general population to acknowledge and appreciate the connection of the series with New Zealand’s culture. These highly publicized events served not only transformation and transition roles for the viewers but a connection role as well. In particular, the exhibit’s opening event was a commemorative one that allowed participants to celebrate the life of the series. But this connective role was missed by those OF fans who live overseas and could not attend. Unable to prepare for, attend, and then reflect on the event, they feel disenfranchised.

By observing the ways in which accommodation processes unfolded throughout our data sites, we uncovered that consumers can intrapsychically accommodate to the loss of erotetic narrative brands because closure is easier to reach and accept. However, when brands have remaining narratability, or when brands are strongly tied to consumers’ social and cultural identity, the intrapsychic transformation process is not sufficient. In those cases, successful accommodation requires access to transitive and connective resources. Our discussion elaborates on the implications of these findings.

DISCUSSION

As illustrated in Figure 1, consumers’ adjustment to the loss of a brand depends, first, on characteristics inherent to the brand’s narrative, as the perceived remaining narratability of the brand affects the transformation process, and second, on the ways in which sociality resources, whether readily available or called upon, enable the transition and connection processes. If the narrative is erotetic, it sustains closure and accommodation to its loss may be primarily intrapsychic. But, when the brand has remaining narratability and narrative closure is difficult to reach, accommodation usually requires sociality-based resources, as the anger and protest that ensue from the lack of closure spill over to the primary social network, engages the transition

42 process, or even more to the broader community, and sets in motion the connection process.

Hence, a primary contribution of our research is that the unfolding of accommodation processes differs depending on the sociality resources available, both at the proximal social level and at the broader cultural level. Sociality in the actual consumption immediately engages the transition process upon discontinuation. Even those who consumed the brand individually seek out sociality and its resources when the brand dies but narrative closure is difficult. But consumption sociality may also itself be a victim of the brand loss: if a brand is central to a consuming collective, its death may prompt a complete dissolution of the collective or at least alter it in irremediable ways. The structural centrality (Freeman 1979) of the brand in the network that surrounds is thus key to the consumption collective’s survival when the brand is removed.

–––––––––––––––––––– Insert figure 1 about here ––––––––––––––––––––

Post-Withdrawal Relationship Trajectories

In this final section, we unfold the ways in which consumers progress through the three accommodation processes impact brand relationship trajectories post-withdrawal. Given that little research exists on so-called “post-relational relationships” within the source literature (Parks 2007,

217), unearthing accommodation processes in the context of brand loss has potential to contribute more generally to loss theories. We witnessed three main types of post-withdrawal relationship trajectories: complete decathexis, continuing brand bond, and maladaptation. The consumers interviewed and observed who had successfully progressed through the stages of transformation, transition, and connection were ultimately able to adapt to the new reality of their consuming life without the “live” brand, even though their relationship with the brand and its surrounding social and cultural environment was inevitably transformed. Sometimes this end point was a complete

43 dissolution of the brand bond, but most often, it was a continuing one. Notwithstanding the fact that most consumers show a high level of resilience in their responses to brand withdrawal, however difficult the accommodation processes may have been (Bonanno et al. 2002), those consumers whose accommodation was aborted or incomplete often displayed maladaptive coping symptoms. In particular, the absence of transitive and connective resources forced consumer to rely solely on intrapsychic accommodation processes, which sometimes resulted in continued denial and chronic grief (Lobb et al. 2010).

Complete Decathexis. Some consumers eventually completely detach from the withdrawn brand . Even though, in the interpersonal literature, this breaking bonds hypothesis has recently been rejected as an unhealthy, maladaptive outcome of a loss (Stroebe et al. 1996), it is a definite endpoint option in the loss of diegetic brands in the marketplace, especially those whose narrative is erotetic. With all narratability exhausted, all ties are relinquished (Bowlby 1979; Parkes and

Weiss 1983), and unlike psychoanalytic views of detachment as a defensive process (Freud 1917), in the consumption domain this is an active and adaptive one. These consumers consciously break all ties to the withdrawn brand and the brand is no longer part of their identity. If the brand involves a high degree of consumption sociality and if it was central to the group, its withdrawal may act as a centrifugal force on the social network, with complete decathexis resulting in disbandment of the network. If closure is reached in all domains, the brand may eventually become culturally obsolete. The withdrawal of even a popular brand may lead to this type of historical forgetting. It simply becomes something of the past. Store or restaurant closings that reflect a change in cultural values, such as massive relocation of consumers from city centers to suburbs, exemplify this type of cultural obsolescence (Johnson 2000).

Sometimes complete decathexis is engaged in anticipation of the brand’s withdrawal: the strategy for preparing for loss involves the cessation of emotional and sometimes experiential

44 investment. As in anticipatory grief situations (Fulton 1987), awareness of an impending loss allows people to prepare for it emotionally and to establish narrative closure (Bonanno et al.

2002). Gross’s study of consumers about to lose their homes to foreclosure (2007) provides initial evidence of anticipatory divestment in a consumption domain. When, as was the case for all four brands examined here, a market withdrawal is announced months prior to cancellation, consumers can anticipate and chose to dial back their emotional investment in the brand, working through a plausible narrative closure, either intrapsychically or collectively, and investing effort and emotion in alternate brands prior to the withdrawal.

Continuing Brand Bonds. The death of a brand does not necessarily entail the severance of the consumer-brand relationship . The continuation of the relationship, albeit in an altered form, reflects the growing recognition in the loss literature of people’s inherent capacity for positive experiences after loss and other aversive events (Bonanno, 2004; Mancini and Bonanno, 2006). In the marketplace, consumers may continue to consume the inactive brand by reliving prior experiences and reifying the consumer-brand relationship even though active production has ceased. This may involve re-consuming the brand, by re-experiencing it (Russell and Levy 2012) or by remembering it through a tangible representation of the brand, like a boxed DVD set, or personal mementos such as photos of the loved brand or collecting brand memorabilia (retaining the packaging or even saving unused ones). The withdrawn brand becomes an inner representation based on personal memory, meaning, and emotional connection (Marwit and Klass 1989; Rubin

1993; Volkan 1981).

In parallel, the brand may continue to be part of one’s social identity and consumption sociality is maintained. Just as people remain loyal to groups even long after they are dismantled

(Moreland and McMinn 1999), consumers may reference their devotion to the brand as a social identifier in general social networks, hence continuing the group-brand bond. In the television

45 context, consumers may view broadcasted reruns or recorded programs and recall the sociality the original airings had and occasionally watch pre-recorded and boxed sets with a viewing group.

They may actively refer to themselves as fans of the cancelled programs to signal their social identity to others who share their brand affection. As documented in the Apple Newton community where the group-brand bonds continued long after the firm abandoned the brand, the brand may continue to be centripetal to a group long after a withdrawal (Muñiz and Schau 2005).

Even when a co-consuming group physically dismantles upon the death of a brand, it may remain a meaningful though transformed entity and continuing group bonds may be sustained through shared memory of the lived experiences and an appreciation of the social support the group provided in dealing with the loss of the brand (Greenfield and Rothman 1987).

Continuing brand bonds are especially likely for brands with “wide cultural embrace”

(Meyrowitz 1994, 78) where connective resources are widely available. And as the OF clearly shows in our research, when culturally significant brands are withdrawn, the media play an important role in the accommodation process: holding public vigils or specials retracing the history of the brand ensure that “the relationship is embalmed rather than destroyed” (Meyrowitz

1994, 76) and offer opportunities for re-consumption that sustain the continuation of brand bonds.

Maladaptation . There may be instances when consumers’ accommodation to the loss of a brand is incomplete and even maladaptive. As Rando (1993) identified in responses to interpersonal loss, this trajectory reflects a denial, repression or avoidance of all aspects of the loss and its pain and the holding onto the lost love object, and it is especially likely when the relationship was highly dependent or clinging (Stroebe et al. 1996). Previous research has shown this can occur with the loss of animal companions especially with multiple simultaneous or temporally close losses (Lagoni, Butler and Hetts 1994). We find that chronic grief is particularly likely in the context of brand withdrawal in the case of “bad” deaths when the diegetic brand has

46 remaining narratability for consumers without the sociality element discussed in the previous section. Unable or having failed in their attempt to draw on the transitive or connective resources to make sense of the loss, consumers are not able to neutralize the emotional attachment they had with the withdrawn brand and their transformation process is much longer (Shear and Shair 2005).

Those soap opera fans who suffered multiple losses in a short amount of time continue to suffer from emotional distress even months after its discontinuation. They cling to the brand and refuse to accept its closure. As demonstrated by the Hall and Reid’s (2009) study of the traumatic impact of the death of celebrities on some adolescents, chronic grief is especially likely when the loss occurs at a significant point in one’s life or when the loss is not just of the object but the consumption sociality that surrounds it.

Successful Accommodation. Whenever all three processes of accommodation are accessible, accommodation can be enabled with transitive and connective rituals and public understanding and acceptance of consumers’ loss. The cultural anthropology abounds with evidence that the cultural environment can buffer members from at least some of the disruptive impact and consequences of collective trauma (Durkheim 1912/1973). Celebratory practices fuel this relationship trajectory: consumers celebrate the life of the brand rather than wallow in sadness at its end. Here we have OF, The Sopranos and Entourage consumers who discuss the way each program left on a high note before the storyline became stale. This is more common among consumers experiencing the withdrawal of a brand that is not related to sagging popularity, declining quality, or obsolescence. Because all three accommodation processes are completed, it exemplifies the good death (Steinhauser et al. 2000) and, because it is socially and culturally sanctioned, the dead brand becomes an object of veneration and idolization (Klass 1991). The brand continues to live in consumers’ individual and collective memories, charged with gratitude and admiration, it becomes a consolidated collection of the community’s shared feelings,

47 perceptions and thoughts about the brand (Volkan 1997). There may be a shrine to the brand as a symbol of the continuing connection (Volkan 1981), such as the OF museum exhibit for its fans.

There may be a temporary return of the brand to the “physical” world in an effort to continue to reminisce individually or collectively (Klass 1991). The cultural milieu sometimes fuels beliefs that the brand will come back. Because the brand is no longer a personal resource but a communal one, consumers rejoice in imagining its possible return. In New Zealand, restaurant chain Georgie

Pie, which closed in 1998, remains a cultural institution and, to this day, Kiwis fantasize about its comeback (Hembry 2009). Across these manifestations, worship brand trajectories are marked by idealization: memories of any negative aspects of the lost brand vanish and instead a collective, idealized reconstructed memory of the brand emerges.

Limitations and Future Research Agenda

The model of consumption loss accommodation can serve as an agenda for future research on how consumers cope with brand relationship stressors. This research has focused on the little studied ‘sudden death’ of the brand relationship partner (Duck 1982) to unpack the ways in which consumers individually and collectively deal with this imposed brand loss. Further research is needed to delve into the intrapsychic, psychosocial and communal domains that surround other critical junctures in brand relationships and to identify other moderators of the transformation, transition, and connection processes.

The accommodation processes uncovered here may also help guide research on other types of stressors such as brand transgressions, stockouts, the relocation of a store, or a change in corporate ownership (Aaker et al. 2004). Whether and how forgiveness ensues and what the attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of the transgression may be can all be affected by the ways in which accommodation processes unfold. Accommodation to relationship stressors should be

48 investigated in other consumption domains. While the diegetic brand context offers telling insights into the processes of loss accommodation, there may be other factors that accentuate or reduce the similarities with interpersonal loss. Service brands, for instance, bear greater similarities to interpersonal relationships than tangible goods but tangible objects can be saved and re-consumed potentially indefinitely (Russell and Levy 2012). So the framework should be tested more broadly.

The sociality-based moderators of accommodation to loss uncovered in this research deserve further inquiry. Sociality appears to act as a buffer and as a central driver of post-withdrawal trajectories of consumer-brand relationships. Our research provides only limited insights into the organization of collective action to combat managerially-imposed decisions; it may be interesting to investigate, longitudinally, the evolution of collective action (Schneider and Kozinets 2012).

The role of social media in helping consumers access or build sociality resources unavailable in their proximal social networks also deserves further attention. Social media and online community forums enable bereavement practices by enabling reciprocal self-disclosure (Moon 2000) and sustaining or creating communities of fans who can grieve and mourn together. As Sanderson and

Cheong documented in the case of Michael Jackson’s death (2010), accessing sociality via social media enables consumers to create tributes and share them with receptive and sympathetic others.

Future research should continue to explore the ways in which social media facilitate transitive and connective processes across a broader range of critical junctures.

Finally, the view that narrative evolution sustains a brand’s life should motivate further research on brand narratology and on consumers’ responses to brand narrative and its many facets and phases. With regards to diegetic brands, more research is warranted to investigate how consumers respond to forward (narrative progression) or backward (revealing of brand back stories) extensions of the brand narrative (Narsey and Russell 2013). But this research can also inform future research about brand narratives and consumer-brand relationships more generally.

Indeed, issues such as what is a healthy lifespan for a brand, how can firms breathe new life into a dying brand, and when to bring back a dead brand, have long interested brand managers (Kumar

2003) but have yielded surprisingly little research on consumers’ experience of critical junctures in their brand relationships and how the structure of the brand narrative affects consumer-brand relationship trajectories. Because diegesis sustains consumer engagement with and consumption sociality around the brand, it appears to be a crucial element to energize the life of brands, as noted in Diamond et al. (2009). New narrative materials in the brand’s marketing communications may help keep consumers engaged at critical junctures in their relationships with brands. Narrative materials designed specifically to trigger or revive consumption sociality could be useful to bolster consumers’ brand experiences by integrating sociality-based resources in their practices.

CONCLUSION

We contribute to marketing and consumer research by unpacking consumers’ experience of a critical juncture in their relationships with brands: the unilaterally imposed termination.

Researchers in the area of human bereavement have long called for coping models that are

“stressor-specific” (Stroebe and Schut 1999, 199). This research’s focus on the losses consumers experience upon the ending of a narrative brand uncovers new dynamics in the study of accommodation processes. We find that the ways in which these processes unfold and the post- withdrawal relationship trajectories are affected by characteristics inherent to the narrative brand and by the availability of sociality–based resources. Unlike erotetic brands whose narrative closure is reached more readily and more intrapsychically, brands with weak closural force require transitive and connective resources to confront their loss and establish closure.

This research also finds that consumers respond to the death of a brand by translating the cultural conventions from other semiotic and cultural fields: mourning or abandonment. They

50 consistently use language and metaphors commonly encountered in interpersonal domains but adapt and modify them to describe their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experiences of consumption loss. They themselves make these transmediations of familiar bereavement and mourning rituals to describe how they cope with brand withdrawal.

More broadly, this paper offers several novel contributions to consumer-brand relationship research. First, we show the importance of narrative structure and evolution in sustaining consumer-brand relationships. Second, we document the previously unexplored terminal stages of consumer-brand relationships and the ways in which accommodation to “managerially imposed stressors” such as a unilaterally imposed brand withdrawal parallel the processes documented in the interpersonal literature regarding loss due to life transitions, break-ups/divorce, migration and even death. Third, we highlight the social context of brand consumption as a key, and as of yet under-theorized, element of the consumer-brand relationship that is particularly informative when assessing responses to critical junctures in the relationships such as brand cancellations.

Data Collection

The first author supervised the collection of the Outrageous Fortune interviews and observations with research assistants at the University of Auckland in 2010-11. The second author conducted the ethnography of The Sopranos group from 1999 to 2007. Both authors jointly managed the collection of the Entourage forum and interview data and All My Children forum data. The first and second authors jointly analyzed all the data reported in the paper.

REFERENCES

Aaker, Jennifer, Susan Fournier, and S. Adam Brasel (2004), “When Good Brands Do Bad,”

Journal of Consumer Research , 31(1), 1-16.

Alexander, Lily (2007), “Storytelling in Time and Space: Studies in the Chronotope and Narrative

Logic on Screen,” Journal of Narrative Theory, 37(1), 27-65.

Allen, Robert C. (1985), Speaking of Soap Operas , Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina

Press.

______(1989), "Bursting Bubbles: 'Soap Opera,’ Audiences, and the Limits of Genre," in Remote

Control: Television, Audiences, and Cultural Power, Ellen Seiter, Hans Borchers, Gabriele

Kreutzner, and Eva-Maria Warth (ed.), London: Routledge, 44-55.

Baker, Stacey Menzel, David M. Hunt and Terri L. Rittenberg (2007), “Consumer Vulnerability as

a Shared Experience: Tornado Recovery Process in Wright, Wyoming,” Journal of Public

Policy and Marketing , 26(1), 6-19.

Baltes, Paul B. (1987), “Theoretical Propositions of Life-Span Developmental Psychology: On

The Dynamics Between Growth And Decline,” Developmental Psychology , 23 (5), 611-26.

Belk, Russell (1988), “Possessions and the Extended Self,” Journal of Consumer Research , 15(2),

139-68.

Bonanno, George A. (2004), “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the

Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psychologist,

59(1), 20-8.

Bonsu, Samuel K. and Russell W. Belk (2003), “Do Not Go Cheaply into That Good Night: Death

Ritual Consumption in Asante, Ghana,” Journal of Consumer Research , 30(1), 41-55.

Bowlby, John (1979), The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds , London: Tavistock.

Bradford, Tonya Williams (2009), “Intergenerationally Gifted Asset Disposition,” Journal of

Consumer Research, 36(1), 93-111.

Brown, Stephen, Robert V. Kozinets, and John F. Sherry Jr. (2003), “Teaching Old Brands New

Tricks: Retro Branding and the Revival of Brand Meaning,” Journal of Marketing , 67 (July),

19–33.

Bruner, Jerome (1994), “The “Remembered” Self,” in The Remembering Self: Construction and

Accuracy in the Self Narrative , ed. Ulric Neisser and Robyn Fiurish, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 41-54.

Carroll, Noël (2007), "Narrative Closure,” Philosophical Studies, 1–15.

Castelló, Enric (2007), “The Production of Television Fiction and Nation Building. The Catalan

Case,” European Journal of Communication, 22(1), 49-68.

Chatman, Seymour (1989), Story and Discourse, Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film , Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University Press.

Chory-Assad, Rebecca and Ashley Yanen (2005), "Hopelessness and Loneliness as Predictors of

Older Adults Involvement with Favorite Television Performers," Journal of Broadcasting &

Electronic Media, 49(2), 182-201.

Cohen, Jonathan (2004), “Parasocial Break-Up from Favorite Television Characters: The Role of

Attachment Styles and Relationship Intensity,” Journal of Social and Personal

Relationships, 21(2), 187-202.

Connerton, Paul (1989), How Societies Remember, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Coulter, Robin. A. and Mark Ligas (2000), “The Long Good-Bye: The Dissolution of Customer-

Service Provider Relationships,” Psychology & Marketing , 17(8), 669-95.

Cova, Bernard, Robert V. Kozinets, and Avi Shankar (2007), “Tribes Inc.: The New World of

Tribalism,” in Consumer Tribes , ed. Bernard Cova, Robert V. Kozinets, and Avi Shankar,

Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 3-26.

Davis, Christopher G., Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, and Judith Hanson (1998), “Making Sense of

Loss and Benefiting From the Experience: Two Construals of Meaning,” Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology , 75(2), 561-74.

Davis, Murray S. (1973), Intimate Relations , New York, NY: The Free Press.

Deits, Bob (1988), Life After Loss: A Personal Guide Dealing with Death, Divorce, Job Change

and Relocation , Tucson, AZ: Fisher Books.

Del Valle, Robert (2008), The One Hour Drama Series: Producing Episodic Television , Silman-

James Press.

Delorme, Denise E., George M. Zinkhan, and Scott C. Hagen (2004), “The Process of Consumer

Reactions to Possession Threats and Losses in Natural Disaster,” Marketing Letters , 15(4),

185-99.

Diamond, Nina, John F. Sherry Jr., Albert M. Muñiz Jr, , Mary Ann McGrath, Robert V. Kozinets,

and Stefania Borghini (2009), “American Girl and the Brand Gestalt: Closing the Loop on

Sociocultural Branding Research,” Journal of Marketing, 73(3), 118-34.

Duck, Steve W. (1982), Personal Relationships 4: Dissolving Personal Relationships , New York,

NY: Academic Press.

Durkheim, Emile (1912/1973), “Forms of the Religious Life,” in Durkheim, on Morality and

Society, ed. Robert Bellah, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 269-97.

Dwyer, Robert F., Paul H. Schurr, and Sejo Oh (1987), “Developing Buyer-Seller Relationships,”

Journal of Marketing , 5(1), l-27.

Escalas, Jennifer Edson and James R. Bettman (2005), “Self-Construal, Reference Groups, and

Brand Meaning,” Journal of Consumer Research , 32 (3), 378-89.

______(2004), “Narrative Processing: Building Consumer Connections to Brands,” Journal of

Consumer Psychology , 14 (1&2), 168-80.

Eyal, Keren and Jonathan Cohen (2006), “When Good Friends Say Goodbye: A Parasocial

Breakup Study,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(3), 502-23.

Fajer, Mary T. and John W. Schouten (1995), “Breakdown and Dissolution of Person-Brand

Relationships,” in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 22, ed. Frank R. Kardes and Mita

Sujan, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 663-67.

Feuer, Jane (1984), "Melodrama, Serial Form and Television Today," Screen, 25 (1), 4-17.

Fine, Gary Alan (1979), “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League

Baseball Teams,” American Sociological Review , 44(5), 733-45.

Fiske, John (1992), Television Culture , London, UK: Methuen.

Fournier, Susan (1998), “Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in

Consumer Research,” Journal of Consumer Research, 24 (4), 343-73.

Fowlkes, Martha R. (1990), “The Social Regulation of Grief,” Sociological Forum , 5 (4), 635-52.

Freud, Sigmund (1917), “Mourning and Melancholia,” in Standard Edition of the Complete

Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , Vol. 14, ed. J. Strachey, London: Hogarth Press,

237-60.

Freeman, Linton C. (1979), “Centrality in Social Networks: Conceptual Clarification,” Social

Networks , 1(3), 215-39.

Fried, Marc (1966), “Grieving for a Lost Home, Psychological Costs of Relocation,” in Urban

Renewal: The Record and the Controversy , ed. J. Q. Wilson, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,

357-79.

Fulton, Robert (1987), “The Many Faces of Grief,” Death Studies , 11(4), 243-56.

Gardner, Wendi L. and Megan L. Knowles (2008), “Love Makes You Real: Favorite Television

Characters Are Perceived as “Real” in a Social Facilitation Paradigm,” Social Cognition ,

26(2), 156-68.

Gillies, James and Robert A. Neimeyer (2006), “Loss, Grief and the Search for Significance:

Toward a Model of Meaning Reconstruction in Bereavement,” Journal of Constructivist

Psychology , 19(1), 31–65.

Glaser, Barney G. and Anselm Strauss (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for

Qualitative Research , Hawthorne, NY: Aldine Transaction.

Greenfield, Wilma L. and Beulah Rothman, (1987), “Termination or Transformation? Evolving

Beyond Termination in Groups,” in ed. Joseph Lassner, Kathleen Powell and Elaine

Finnegan, Social Group Work: Competence and Values in Practice , New York, NY: The

Haworth Press, 51-66.

Gross, Barbara (2007), "The Experience of Home Foreclosure: Coping With Involuntary Loss of

Home and Transition of Identity,” in European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 8, ed.

Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN: Association for

Consumer Research, 87-93.

Guttmann, Joseph (1993), Divorce in Psychosocial Perspective: Theory and Research , Hillsdale,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Hall, Christopher W. and Robin A. Reid (2009), “Adolescent Bereavement Over the Deaths of

Celebrities,” in Adolescent Encounters with Death, Bereavement and Coping, ed. David E.

Balk and Charles A. Corr, New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, 237-52.

Hembry, Owen (2009), “Can Georgie Pie Make a Comeback?” New Zealand Herald, March 23,

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10562982

Herman, Sonya J. (1974), “Divorce a Grief Process,” Perspectives and Psychiatric Care , 12(3),

108-12.

Hill, Ronald Paul and Mark Stamey (1990), “The Homeless in America: An Examination of

Possessions and Consumption Behaviors,” Journal of Consumer Research , 17(3), 303-21.

Hill, Ronald Paul (1991), “Homeless Women, Special Possessions, and the Meaning of ‘Home’:

An Ethnographic Case Study,” Journal of Consumer Research , 18(3), 298-310.

Holt, Douglas B. (2004), How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding ,

Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

Horton, Donald and Richard R. Wohl (1956), “Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction,”

Psychiatry , 19(1), 215–29.

Jenkins, Henry (2013), Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture , Updated

Twentieth Anniversary Edition, New York, NY: Routledge.

Johnson, Mark S. (2000), “Causes and Consequences of U.S. Chain Store Closings: Attributions

in the Media,” Psychology & Marketing, 17(8), 721-43.

Kamerman, Jack (1993), “Latent Functions of Enfranchising the Disenfranchised Griever,” Death

Studies , 17(3), 281-87.

Kellner, Douglas (1995), Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity, and Politics between the

Modern and the Post-modern . London: Routledge.

King, Gillian, Tamzin Cathers, Elizabeth Brown, Jacqueline A. Specht, Colleen Willoughby,

Janice Miller Polgar, Elizabeth Mackinnon, Linda K. Smith and Lisa Havens (2003),

“Turning Points and Protective Processes in the Lives of People With Chronic Disabilities,

Qualitative Health Research, 13 (2), 184-206.

Klass, Dennis (1991), “Religious Aspects in the Resolution of Parental Grief: Solace and Social

Support,” Prevention in Human Services , 10(1), 187–209.

Klinger, Eric (1977). Meaning and Void: Inner Experience and Incentives in People’s Lives,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kozinets, Robert V. (2001), “Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek’s Culture

of Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research , 28(3), 67–88.

Kumar, Nirmalya (2003), “Kill A Brand, Keep a Customer,” Harvard Business Review , 81(12),

86-95.

Lagoni, Laurel, Carolyn S. Butler, and Suzanne Hetts (1994), The Human-Animal Bond and Grief ,

Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders.

Lastovicka, John L. and Karen V. Fernandez (2005), “Three Paths to Disposition: The Movement

of Meaningful Possessions to Strangers,” Journal of Consumer Research , 31(4), 813-24.

Lather, Julie and Emily Moyer-Gusé (2011), "How Do We React When Our Favorite Characters

Are Taken Away? An Examination of a Temporary Parasocial Breakup," Mass

Communication & Society, 14(2), 196-215.

Leick, Nini and Marianne Davidson-Nielsen (1991), Healing Pain: Attachment, Loss and Grief

Therapy , New York, NY: Routledge.

Levy, Sidney (1962), Living with Television , Chicago, IL: Aldine Press.

Lobb, Elizabeth A., Linda J. Kristjanson, Samar M. Aoun, Leanne Monterosso, Georgia K. B.

Halkett and Anna Davies (2010), “Predictors of Complicated Grief: A Systematic Review of

Empirical Studies,” Death Studies , 34(8), 673–98.

Lull, James (1980), “Social Uses of Television,” Human Communication Research , 6(3), 197-209.

Maltby, John, Liza Day, Lynn E. McCutcheon, Raphael Gillett (2004), “Personality and Coping:

A Context for Examining Celebrity Worship and Mental Health,” British Journal of

Psychology, 95(4), 411-28.

Mancini, Anthony D. and George A. Bonanno (2006), “Resilience in the Face of Potential

Trauma: Clinical Practices and Illustrations,” Journal of Clinical Psychology , 62(8), 971-85

Marwit, Samuel J. and Dennis Klass (1989), “Toward a Model of Parental Grief,” Omega:

Journal of Death and Dying , 19(1), 31-50.

May, Ruben A. Buford (1999), “Tavern Culture and Television Viewing: The Influence of Local

Viewing Culture on Patrons' Reception of Television Programs,” Journal of Contemporary

Ethnography , 28(1), 69-99.

McCutcheon, Lynn E., Diane D. Ashe, James Houran, and John Maltby, (2003), “A Cognitive

Profile of Individuals Who Tend to Worship Celebrities,” The Journal of

Psychology, 137(4), 309-22.

Meyrowitz, Joshua (1994), “The Life and Death of Media Friends: New Genres of Intimacy and

Mourning,” in American Heroes in a Media Age , ed. Susan J. Drucker and Robert S.

Cathcart, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 62-81.

Mick, David Glen and Claus Buhl (1992), “A Meaning-based Model of Advertising Experience,”

Journal of Consumer Research , 19(3), 317-38.

Miles, Matthew B. and A. Michael Huberman (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis , Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage.

Miller, Daniel (2002), “Problems of Closure in the Traditional Novel,” in Narrative Dynamics:

Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frames , ed. Brian Richardson, Columbus: The Ohio

State University, 272-81.

Mittell, Jason (2006), “Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television,” Velvet Light

Trap, (58), 29-40.

Moon, Youngme (2000), “Intimate Exchanges: Using Computers to Elicit Self !Disclosure from

Consumers,” Journal of Consumer Research , 26(4), 323-39.

Moreland, Richard L. and Jamie G. McMinn (1999), “Gone But Not Forgotten: Loyalty and

Betrayal Among Ex-Members of Small Groups,” Personality & Social Psychology

Bulletin, 25(12), 1476.

Mumford, Laura Stempel (1994), “How Things End: The Problem of Closure on Daytime Soap

Operas,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video , 15(2), 57-74.

Muñiz, Albert M. Jr. and Hope Jensen Schau (2005), “Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple

Newton Brand Community,” Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), 737-47.

Muñiz, Albert M. Jr., and Thomas C. O'Guinn (2001), "Brand Community," Journal of Consumer

Research , 27 (March), 412-32.

Narsey, Vanisha and Cristel A. Russell (2013), “Behind the Revealed Brand: Exploring the Brand

Backstory Experience,” in Russell W. Belk, Lisa Peñaloza and Linda Price (ed.) Research in

Consumer Behavior , Emerald Group Publishing.

Neimeyer, Robert A., Laurie A. Burke, Michael M. Mackay, and Jessica G. van Dyke Stringer

(2010), “Grief Therapy and the Reconstruction of Meaning: From Principles to

Practice,” Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 40(2), 73-83.

O’Donohoe, Stephanie and Darach Turley (2005), “Till Death Do Us Part? Consumption and the

Negotiation of Relationships Following a Bereavement,” in Advances in Consumer

Research , Vol. 32, ed. Geeta Menon and Akshay R. Rao, Duluth, MN: Association for

Consumer Research, 625-26.

Orbuch, Terri L. (1992), Close Relationship Loss: Theoretical Approaches , New York, NY:

Springer-Verlag.

Otnes, Cele, Jenny Yang, Behice Ece Ilhan and Nicole Tami (2008), “Consumer Mourning and

Coping with the Loss of Strategic Rituals: The Case of Marshall Field & Co.” in Advances in

Consumer Research , Vol. 36, ed. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN:

Association for Consumer Research.

Palmer, Jerry (1991), Potboilers: Methods, Concepts and Case Studies in Popular Fiction,

London: Routledge.

Parkes, Colin Murray (1987), “Models of Bereavement Care”, Death Studies , 11(4), 257–61.

______(2006), Love and Loss: The Roots of Grief and its Complications , New York, NY:

Routledge.

Parkes, Collin Murray and Robert Weiss (1983), Recovery from Bereavement , New York, NY:

Basic Books.

Parks, Malcolm (2007), Personal Relationships and Personal Networks , Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates.

Piccirillo, M. S., "On the Authenticity of Televisual Experience: A Critical Exploration of Para-

Social Closure," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3, no. 3 (September 1986): 337-

55.

Porter, Michael J. (1998), “The Structure of Television Narratives," in Critical Approaches to

Television , ed. Leah R. Vande Berg, Lawrence A. Wenner, and Bruce E. Gronbeck,. Boston,

MA: Houghton Mifflin, 140-57.

Price, Linda L., Eric J. Arnould, and Carolyn F. Curasi (2000), “Older Consumers' Disposition of

Special Possessions,” Journal of Consumer Research , 27(2), 179-201.

Radway, Janice (1981), “Interpretive Communities and Variable Literacies: The Functions

of Romance Reading,” in Rethinking Popular Culture, ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael

Schudson, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 465-86.

Rando, Therese A. (1988), Grieving: How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies ,

Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

______(1993), Treatment of Complicated Mourning , Champaign, IL: Research Press.

Raphael, Beverley (1983), The Anatomy of Bereavement , New York, NY: Basic Books.

Richardson, Brian (2000), “Recent Concepts of Narrative and the Narratives of Narrative

Theory,” Style, 34 (2), 168-75.

Ritson, Mark and Elliott, Richard (1999), "The Social Uses of Advertising: An Ethnographic Study

of Adolescent Advertising Audiences," Journal of Consumer Research , 26(3), 260-77.

Roberts, Scott D. (1991), “Consumption Responses to Involuntary Job Loss,” in Advances in

Consumer Research , Vol. 18, ed. Rebecca H. Holman and Michael R. Solomon, Provo, UT:

Association for Consumer Research, 40-2.

Rose, Randall L. and Stacey L. Wood (2005), “Paradox and the Consumption of Authenticity

through Reality Television,” Journal of Consumer Research, 32(2), 284-96.

Rosenblatt, Paul C., R. Patricia Walsh, and Douglas A. Jackson (1976), Grief and Mourning in

Cross-Cultural Perspective , New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area File Press.

Rowe, Shawn M. and James V. Werstch (2002), “Linking Little Narratives to Big Ones: Narrative

and Public Memory in History Museums,” Culture & Psychology , 8(1), 96-112.

Rubin, Simon (1993), “The Death of a Child is Forever: The Life Course Impact of Child Loss,”

in Handbook of Bereavement , ed. Margaret S. Stroebe, Robert O. Hansson, Wolfgang

Stroebe, and Henk Schut, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 285–99.

Russell, Cristel A., Andrew T. Norman, and Susan E. Heckler (2004), “The Consumption of

Television Programming: Development and Validation of the Connectedness Scale,” Journal

of Consumer Research , 31(1), 150-61.

Russell, Cristel A. and Sidney J. Levy (2012), “The Temporal and Focal Dynamics of Volitional

Re-consumption: A Phenomenological Investigation of Repeated Hedonic Experiences,”

Journal of Consumer Research , 39(2), 341-59.

Russell, Cristel A., Hope Jensen Schau, and David Crockett (2013), “Cultural Diversity in

Television Narratives: Homophilization, Appropriation and Implications for Media

Advocacy,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 32(1), 119-30 .

Rutter, Michael (1996), “Transitions and Turning Points in Developmental Psychopathology: As

Applied to the Age Span Between Childhood and Mid-Adulthood,” International Journal of

Behavioral Developmen t, 19, 603-36.

Sanderson, James (2009), “You are All Loved So Much: Exploring Relational Maintenance within

the Context of Parasocial Relationships,” Journal of Media Psychology, 21(4), 171-82.

Sanderson, James and P.H. Cheong (2010), “Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief over

Michael Jackson Online,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(5), 328-40.

Schau, Hope Jensen, Mary C. Gilly, and Mary F. Wolfinbarger (2009a), “Consumer Identity

Renaissance: The Resurgence of Identity-inspired Consumption in Retirement,” Journal of

Consumer Research , 36(2), 255-76.

Schau, Hope Jensen, Albert M. Muñiz Jr., and Eric J. Arnould (2009b), “How Brand Community

Practices Create Value,” Journal of Marketing , 73(5), 30-51.

Schickel, Richard (1985), Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity in America , Garden City,

NY: Doubleday.

Schneider, Leah Carter and Robert V. Kozinets (2012), “Beyond Enemy Lines: Sociality in

Consumer Activism,” in Advances in Consumer Research , Vol. 39, ed. Rohini Ahluwalia,

Tanya L. Chartrand, and Rebecca K. Ratner, St. Louis, MO: Association for Consumer

Research, 398-403.

Settersten Jr., Richard A, and Karl Ulrich Mayer, (1997), “The Measurement of Age, Age

Structuring and the Life Course,” Annual Reviews of Sociology , 23, 233-61.

Sewell, Phillip w. (2010), “From Discourse to Discord: Quality and Dramedy at the End of the

Classic Network System,” Television New Media , 11(4), 235-59.

Shear, Katherine and Harold Shair (2005), “Attachment, Loss, and Complicated Grief,”

Developmental Psychobiology , 47(3), 253-67.

Siegel, Marjorie (1995), “More Than Words: The Generative Power of Transmediation for

Learning,” Canadian Journal of Education , 20(4), 455-75.

Silverman, Phyllis R. and Dennis Klass (1996), “What Is the Problem,” in Continuing Bonds: New

Understandings of Grief , ed. Dennis Klass, Phyllis R. Silverman, and Steven L. Nickman,

Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, 3-30.

Smyth, Joshua M. (1998), “Written Emotional Expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types, and

Moderating Variables,” Psychological Bulletin, 66(1) , 174–84.

Spiggle, Susan (1994), “Analysis and Interpretation of Qualitative Data in Consumer Research,”

Journal of Consumer Research , 21(3), 194-203.

Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach (2008), “Fanning the Flames of Fandom: Celebrity

Worship, Parasocial Interaction, and Stalking,” in Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking

Public Figures: A Psychological and Behavioral Analysis, ed. J. Reid Meloy, Lorraine

Sheridan, and Jens Hoffmann , New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 287-321.

Steinhauser, Karen E., Elizabeth C. Clipp, Maya McNeilly, Nicholas A. Christakis, Lauren

McIntyre, and James A. Tulsky (2000), “In Search of a Good Death: Observations of

Patients, Families, and Providers,” Annals of Internal Medicine , 132(10), 825-32.

Stephens, Debra Lynn and Ronald Paul Hill (1996), “The Loss of Animal Companions: A

Humanistic and Consumption Perspective,” Society and Animals , 4(2), 189-210.

Stroebe, Margaret S. (1992), “Coping With Bereavement: A Review of the Grief Work

Hypothesis,” Omega: The Journal of Death and Dying , 26(1), 19-42.

Stroebe, Margaret S. and Henk Schut (1999), “The Dual Process Model of Coping with

Bereavement: Rationale and Description,” Death Studies , 23(3), 197-224.

Stroebe, Wolfgang, Margaret Stroebe, Georgios Abakoumkin, and Henk Schut (1996), “The Role

of Loneliness and Social Support in Adjustment to Loss: A Test of Attachment Versus Stress

Theory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 70(6), 1241–249.

Suhor, Charles (1984), “Towards a Semiotics-based Curriculum,” Journal of Curriculum Studie s,

16(3), 247-57.

Sweeney, Susan E. (1990), “Locked Rooms: Detective Fiction, Narrative Theory, and Self-

Reflexivity,” in The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contemporary

Literary Theory , ed. Ronald Walker and June M. Frazer, Macomb: Western Illinois

University Press, 1–14.

Tahtinen, Jaana and Aino Halinen (2002), “Research on Ending Exchange Relationships: A

Categorization, Assessment and Outlook,” Marketing Theory , 2(2), 165-88.

Thibaut, John W. and Harold H. Kelley (1959), The Social Psychology of Groups , New York: NY:

Wiley.

Thompson, Craig J., William B. Locander, and Howard R. Pollio (1990), “The Lived Meaning of

Free Choice: An Existential-Phenomenological Description of Everyday Consumer Experiences

of Contemporary Married Women,” Journal of Consumer Research , 17(3), 346-61.

Thomson, Matthew (2006), “Human Brands: Investigating Antecedents to Consumers’ Strong

Attachments to Celebrities,” Journal of Marketing , 70 (July), 104-19.

Thornham, Sue and Tony Purvis (2005), Television Drama: Theories and Identities, New York,

NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ueland, John (2011), “’Entourage’: The Sadly Inevitable Movie Reunion,” Gentlemen’s

Quarterly , (July), 42.

Varman, Rohit and Russell Belk (2008), “Weaving a Web: Subaltern Consumers, Rising

Consumer Culture, and Television,” Marketing Theory , 8(3), 227-52.

Volkan, Vamik D. (1981), Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena: A Study of the Forms,

Symptoms, Metapsychology, and Therapy of Complicated Mourning , New York, NY:

International Universities Press.

______(1997), Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism , Boulder, CO:

Westview Press.

Wallendorf, Melanie and Russell W. Belk (1989), “Assessing the Trustworthiness in Naturalistic

Consumer Research,” in Interpretive Consumer Research , ed. Elizabeth C. Hirschman,

Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 69-84.

Wallendorf, Melanie and Michael D. Reilly (1983), “Ethnic Migration, Assimilation, and

Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research, 10(3), 292-302.

Weber, Ann L. (1998), “Losing, Leaving, and Letting Go: Coping with Nonmarital Breakups,” in

The Dark Side of Close Relationships , ed. Brian H. Spitzberg and William R. Cupach,

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 267-306.

Wheaton, Blair and Ian Gotlib (1997), “Trajectories and Turning Points over the Life Course:

Concepts and Themes,” in Stress and Adversity over the Life Course : Trajectories

and Turning Points, ed. Ian Gotlib and Blair Wheaton, Boston: Cambridge University Press,

1-25.

Winnicott, Donald W. (1971), Playing and Reality , London, UK: Routledge.

Worden, J. William (1991), Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental

Health Practitioner , New York, NY: Springer.

Zayer, Linda Tuncay, Katherine Sredl, Marie-Agnes Parmentier and Catherine Coleman (2012),

“Consumption and Gender Identity in Popular Media: Discourses of Domesticity, Sexuality

and Authenticity,” Consumption, Markets, and Culture , 15(4), 333-57.

Appendix: Photos of the Outrageous Fortune Museum Exhibit at the Auckland War Memorial Museum

The living room set, centerpiece of the Exhibit

Shop selling paraphernalia

Visitors in costume, visiting the themed photo booth in Museum Atrium One of our interviewees, in OF attire, posing with OF stars at the Museum opening event

Rustyty Nail Bar List Name of drink contents Picture virgin version

The Coke only Rum and Coke (gorgeous and uncompromising) I am fuckin locked up! Yvonne’s themed party Cheryl NO RUM IN PRISON Creme Soda invitation and party drink list Loretta + Creme Soda Vanilla Vodka Season 1 Loretta The Smart Snake (don’t worry there is still a snake) (with a snake of course) Raspberry Yeah Right!! Pascalle + NO VIRGIN VERSION Vodka POSSIBLE pretty but simple with something pretty in it Ngaire Bubbles Dead Rita Classy but evil of course (sparkling Juice) Can Yeah, nah Van get a drink from (of beer) the tap mate

Joint, Doobie, ganja, May be quietly available, weed, pot, mary jane, Munter who knows ask around skunk, boom, ganster,

Grampa Go away ya Whiskey Shots aka; Ted Bloody Poofter Kasey Tequila Shots Preggo Juice w/ Beer chaser (Hoochie Mama) aka OJ (when she’s not preggo) 67

Table 1: Overview of Research Program

Focal Brand Life Type of Closural Research Approach Research Timing Brand History Ending Force Participant observation 6-year long weekly within a small viewing 7-year span; Sopranos drama series; Announced, group (N =11) Moderate During and following (HBO) New Jersey, US; Expected Longitudinal the series’ life. suburban setting Netnography (N=2 forums) Retrospective in-depth 6-year long weekly interviews (N = 24); Outrageous drama series; 6-month span; Announced, Participant observation Fortune Auckland, New Moderate Following the end of Expected at museum opening (TVNZ) Zealand; suburban the series. event and 6-month setting long exhibit.

4-year span;

41-year long daily Before and after the soap opera; All My Longitudinal announcement of the Announced, Children Low netnography (N = 3 cancellation of the Philadelphia, Unexpected (ABC) forums) series and agreement Pennsylvania, US; to continue the suburban setting program in webisodes.

8-year long weekly Retrospective depth 6-month span; comedy series; interviews (N=11) Entourage Announced, High At and following the Los Angeles, CA, Unexpected Longitudinal (HBO) cancellation of the US; suburban netnography (N=2 series. setting forums)

Table 2: Informants Research Pseudonym Age Sex Occupation Ethnicity Component Daniel 38 M Clinical Psychologist White Rick 44 M Lawyer Latino Lori 48 F Professor Black/White Joey 52 M Management, Packaged Goods White Participant Observation Samantha 28 F Sales, Pharmaceutical White Dino 54 M Management, Packaged Foods White (Italian) (Sopranos ) Karen 34 F Management, Clothing White Marc 45 M Sales, Book White Annie 46 F Sales, Pharmaceutical White Nick 29 M Artist Black Sarah 32 F Retailer, Jewelry Korean American Selena 45 F Management, Government Organization NZ European Linette 17 F University student NZ European Mason 17 M High school student NZ European Dalya 24 F Assistant, Film production company NZ European Adam 23 M University student NZ European Yvonne 50 F Nurse White American Radine 20 F University student NZ European Ella 31 F Account manager, Graphic design NZ European Lana 45 F Accounts clerk, Children’s clothing NZ European Davida 37 F Manager, Banking NZ European Retrospective In-depth Cyrilla 57 F Consultant, ICT White American Interviews Tabatha 38 F Part time crane driver/care giver Maori Dana 46 F Elementary school teacher NZ European Lisa 20 F Elementary school teacher NZ European (Outrageous Fortune ) Tyana 29 F Administration, Transportation company NZ European Estelle 57 F Manager, ICT German / NZ European Netta 48 F Nurse NZ European Nathalie 34 F Clinical psychologist NZ European Valeria 68 F Retired pensioner NZ European Natasha 34 F Care giver NZ European Anthony 33 M Manager, Building company NZ European Adriana 33 F Care giver Maori Nicole 44 F Sports development manager NZ European Yvette 62 F High school teacher NZ European Alan 21 M University student White Retrospective In-depth Donald 22 M University student White Emma 21 F University student White Interviews Joseph 23 M University student White (Swiss) (Entourage ) Jonah 22 M University student Latino Micah 22 M University student Latino Derek 24 M University student White Kreg 23 M University student White Hans 18 M University student White Stan 23 M University student White Hannah 21 F University student White

Figure 1: The Interplay of Narrative Closural Force and Sociality on Loss Accommodation

Headings

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

Relational Trajectories

Narratives

Accommodation to Loss

Process Models of Loss Accommodation

Dimensions of Loss Accommodation

The Role of Sociality in Accommodation to Loss

Impact of Social Forces in Loss

Impact of the Cultural Context

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

METHODOLOGY

Research Objectives

Data Sites: Four Television Series

Extended Participant Observation

The Sopranos

In-depth Fan Interviews

Longitudinal Netnography

FINDINGS

What Is Lost?

Loss of Narrative Evolution.

Loss of Characters.

Loss of Consumption Sociality

Loss of Identity

Accommodation Processes Associated with the Loss of a Brand

Transformation

Transition

Connection

DISCUSSION

Post-Withdrawal Relationship Trajectories

Complete Decathexis

Continuing Brand Bonds

Maladaptation

Successful Accommodation

Limitations and Future Research Agenda

CONCLUSION

Data Collection