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Paolo Franco (PhD)

Consumer Culture Researcher and Marketing Academic

About Pao

I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Radboud University, the Netherlands. I received my PhD in Marketing from The University of Melbourne, Australia in 2020.

Most of my research focuses on how technology products like smartphones, laptops, Wi-Fi routers, smart-assistants, and wearables shape our everyday activities and experiences. In particular, I am trying to better understand: how we can put our tech-products to meaningful uses for longer; how tech-products can shape our relationships with our families; and how tech-products impact upon the lived experiences and wellbeing of older people. My research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, and Academy of Marketing Science Review, among other outlets.

Theory-wise, I draw from consumer culture perspectives to understand technology adoption and consumption. I often work with theories of assemblage, Actor-Network Theory, and Object-Oriented Ontology – lenses that help us see the influences of nonhuman entities like technologies, everyday objects, and spaces on consumers, consumption, and markets.

In my current projects, I harness consumer culture lenses to investigate unique behaviours, practices, and social interactions in consumption contexts as diverse as professional wrestling branding, sneaker collecting, and videogaming.

Pao

Assistant Professor
of Marketing
Radboud University
🇳🇱 The Netherlands

PhD in Marketing
The University of
Melbourne
🇦🇺 Australia

Social Links

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Publications

If you are unable to access any of the publications below and would like a copy, please email me!
I note which have been published open access.
These are free to download without a university or library account.

Wilson-Nash, Schneider-Kamp
and Franco (2026)

From Old to New:
Re-Thinking and Reconstructing Ageing Consumers

Franco, Chow and
Venkatraman (2025)

Assembling Rotations:
How Consumers Put Objects They Collect to Use

Franco, Canniford, Phipps
and Epp (2024)

Continued Use Trajectories:
How Entropy Work Sustains Technology Assemblages

Qiao-Franco and Franco (2024)

Insurmountable Enemies or Easy Targets? Military-Themed Videogame “Translations” of Weaponized Artificial Intelligence

Schneider-Kamp, Franco, Bajde
and Nøjgaard (2024)

(Dis)Entangling Actor-Network Theory and Assemblage Theory in Consumer and Marketing Scholarship:
A Review and Future Directions

Franco (2023)

Older Consumers and Technology:
A Critical Systematic Literature Review

Franco, Canniford
and Phipps (2022)

Object-Oriented Marketing Theory

Franco (2022)

The Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) Research Tradition and Digital Marketing

Franco and Yang (2021)

Exiting Fieldwork ‘with Grace’: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Participant Observation and Researcher-Participant Relationships

Franco (2020)

Empowering the Independence of Older People with Everyday Technologies

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Talks

Upcoming

Focused Forum Panel
“Charting the Past, Present, and Futures of Epistemic (In)Justice in CCT”
Chairs: Ai Ming Chow, Paolo Franco, and Bareerah Hafeez Hoorani
Discussants: Roua Alhanouti, Samuelson Appau, Tonya Williams Bradford, Angela Cruz, Yannick Gibson, Andrew Lindridge, Marian Makkar, Yuko Minowa, Ateeq Abdul Rauf, Pilar Rojas Gaviria
Consumer Culture Theory Conference
🇯🇵 Kyoto, Japan, July 2026

Selected Recent

Paolo Franco, Adam Slobodzian, Amber Epp, and Tandy Thomas
“Shhhh!-arenting Practices: How Parents Manage Online Sharing Tensions”
Special Session: Reimagining Family Practices: Navigating Tensions, Expectations, and Market Chaos
Consumer Culture Theory Conference
🇬🇧 London, United Kingdom, June 2025

Marcus Phipps and Paolo Franco
“Same but Different: The Legitimacy Paradox of Affordable Housing”
Special Session: Navigating the Precarious Access and Stability of Affordable Housing
Consumer Culture Theory Conference
🇬🇧 London, United Kingdom, June 2025

Tom van Laer and Paolo Franco
“Generational Story Wars: A Cultural Discourse Analysis of Narrative Identity Work in Participatory Culture”
Working Paper
Consumer Culture Theory Conference
🇬🇧 London, United Kingdom, June 2025

Paolo Franco, Paul Driessen, Marleen Hermans, and Csilla Horváth
“The (De)Romanticized Multiplicity of Local Food”
Competitive Paper
Consumer Culture Theory Conference
🇺🇸 San Diego, United States, July 2024

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Other Media

"What Can Your Shoe Rotation
Do For You?"

Footwear Research Network Contributor Article
with Ai Ming Chow and Rohan Venkatraman
(December 20, 2025)

"What Can the Public Learn About AI Weapons by Playing Videogames?"

Autonorms Project Research Essay
with Guangyu Qiao-Franco
(November 19, 2024)

Layton Award Interview

Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC)
(June 30, 2021)

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Copyright © 2020-2026 Paolo Franco.
All rights reserved.