ABSTRACT
In this chapter presents a model of how lifestyle imagery is generated and modified by the 'channel intermediaries' whose function is to analyze, instantiate, and transmit lifestyle imagery to consumers. Typically, marketers construct lifestyle categories on the basis of an analysis of patterns of purchase behavior of consumers. The chapter argues that marketers and advertisers also need to consider lifestyles as social constructions in the minds of consumers. It reviews a body of research bearing on the complex relationships between marketers' analyses of actual market behavior and the process where by this information is filtered through the hands of diverse media gatekeepers. This research also touches on the nature of consumers' cognitive representations of lifestyle-relevant consumption patterns and how these representations relate to actual market behaviors. The chapter also highlights the both theoretical and applied ramifications of the divergence between marketer and consumer construals of lifestyle content and meaning.
