Paolo Franco, PhD | Consumer Culture Researcher & Marketing Academic

Paolo Franco

Consumer Culture Researcher
& 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. My PhD dissertation, “The Storied (Not) Relationships of Tech-Products: Consumer Experiences of Technology Adoption” was awarded the Australian & New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) 2020 Layton Dissertation of the Year Award.

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, and Academy of Marketing Science Review.

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 fandom, sneaker collecting, and videogaming. More details on my current research projects are below.

(back to top)

SELECTED PROJECTS

Older Consumer Experiences with Everyday Technology Products
In this project, I explore how everyday tech like smartphones and laptops impact upon the lived experiences of older people. Particular areas of focus are family member tech-help, feelings of independence, and age-related tech stereotypes. Informing this project is 18-months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted at a retirement village in Melbourne, Australia as a ‘tech-help’ volunteer.

Papers from this project are available in AMS Review (2023), Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal (2021) and the book volume Measuring, Understanding and Improving Wellbeing Among Older People (2020) (edited by S.A. Churchill, L. Farrell & S. Appau; Palgrave MacMillan).

Extending the Meaningful Uses of Everyday Technology Products
I team up with Prof. Robin Canniford (University of Bath), A/Prof. Marcus Phipps (The University of Melbourne), and A/Prof. Amber Epp (University of Madison-Wisconsin) in this project to investigate how consumers go about extending the uses and lifespans of their technologies. We take the perspective that understanding how tech-products can fall into meaningful uses for longer periods of time is key to issues pertaining to product upgrades and replacements, consumer repair and maintenance activities, and more sustainable consumption outcomes.

A paper from this project is now available at Journal of Marketing (2024).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Consumer Imaginary
Dr. Guangyu Qiao-Franco (Radboud University, AutoNorms) and I examine consumer experiences with everyday AI (e.g., recommendation algorithms, smarthome devices) and portrayals of AI in pop-culture (e.g., videogaming). Our interest in these experiences is to better understand how these contexts have potentials to shape public opinion on the uses of AI in military and other wider societal contexts and consumers’ fears about the ‘dark sides’ of new and emerging technologies.

A paper from this project is now available in Security Dialogue (2024), as well as an essay published as part of the AutoNorms Project.

Collecting in Sneakerhead Consumer Culture
I team up withDr. Ai Ming Chow (The University of Melbourne) and Dr. Rohan Venkatraman (Deakin University) to investigate sneaker collections in ‘sneakerhead’ consumer culture. Through this project we aim to explore sneaker collecting through lenses of consumer wellbeing, identity, social relationships, and technological disruption.

A paper from this project is now available at European Journal of Marketing (2025), as well as a contributor article published with the Footwear Research Network.

Professional Wrestling Fandom Experiences
Dr. Nicole Yang (University of Western Australia), Prof. Robin Canniford (University of Bath), and I explore the fandom experiences of pro-wrestling fans and communities. Professional wrestling captures our interest as a consumption context that is a unique blend of athletic performance, theatre, stunt acrobatics, and rock show.

Materializing Localness in Food Consumption at Home and Work
Alongside A/Prof. Paul Driessen, Dr. Marleen Hermans, and Dr. Csilla Horvath (Radboud University), we investigate not only what “localness” means to consumers, but how this quality is materialized in home and work food consumption contexts. This project is a collaboration with Oregional, a Dutch agricultural cooperative, and is supported by European Commission funding (Europees Landbouwfonds voor Plattelandsontwikkeling).

(back to top)

PUBLICATIONS

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

Franco, P., Chow, A., & Venkatraman R. (2025). Assembling Rotations: How Consumers Put Objects They Collect to Use. European Journal of Marketing, 59(13), 571-596. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-12-2023-0885 (open access)

Schneider-Kamp, A., Franco, P., Bajde, D., & Nøjgaard, M. (2024). (Dis)Entangling Actor-Network Theory and Assemblage Theory in Consumer and Marketing Scholarship: A Review and Future Directions. Journal of Marketing Management, 40(17-18), 1634-1665. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2024.2426191 (open access)

Franco, P., Canniford, R., Phipps, M., & Epp, A.M. (2024). Continued Use Trajectories: How Entropy Work Sustains Technology Assemblages. Journal of Marketing, 88(6), 43-63. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241255306 (open access)

Qiao-Franco, G., & Franco, P. (2024). Insurmountable Enemies or Easy Targets? Military-Themed Videogame “Translations” of Weaponized Artificial Intelligence. Security Dialogue, 55(1), 81-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106231218829 (open access)

Franco, P., (2023). Older Consumers and Technology: A Critical Systematic Literature Review. AMS Review, 13(1-2), 92-121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-023-00256-4 (open access)

Franco, P., Canniford, R., & Phipps, M. (2022). Object-Oriented Marketing Theory. Marketing Theory, 22(3), 401-420. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931221079407 (open access)

Franco, P. (2022) – The Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) Research Tradition and Digital Marketing. In A. Hanlon & T. Tuten (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing (pp. 118-135). London: Sage Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/ 9781529782509

Franco, P., & Yang, Y. (2021). Exiting Fieldwork ‘with Grace’: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Participant Observation and Researcher-Participant Relationships. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 24(3), 358-374. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-07-2020-0094

Franco, P. (2020). Empowering the Independence of Older People with Everyday Technologies. In S.A. Churchill, L. Farrell & S. Appau (Eds.), Measuring, Understanding and Improving Wellbeing Among Older People (pp. 15-39). Singapore: Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2353-3_2

Venkatraman, R., Chow, A., & Franco, P. (2019). Together/Apart. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 18(4), 301-310. https://doi.org/10.1362/147539219X 15774563471874

(back to top)

TALKS & PRESENTATIONS

SELECTED RECENT

Franco, P., Slobodzian, A., Epp, A.M., & Thomas, T. (2025), “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.

Phipps, M., & Franco, P. (2025), “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.

van Laer, T., & Franco, P. (2025), “Generational Story Wars: A Cultural Discourse Analysis of Narrative Identity Work in Participatory Culture,” Working Paper – Consumer Culture Theory Conference, London, June 2025.

Franco, P., Driessen, P., Hermans, M., & Horváth, C. (2024). “The (De)Romanticized Multiplicity of Local Food,” Competitive Paper – Consumer Culture Theory Conference, San Diego, United States, July 2024.

Franco, P., Hoorani, B.H., & Chow, A. (2024). “Context and Conversation: A Typology of Research Interviews,” Competitive Paper – Consumer Culture Theory Conference, San Diego, United States, July 2024.

Franco, P., Chow, A., & Venkatraman, R. (2024). “Rotating Songs and Sneakers: How Consumers Assemble In-Use Collections,” Special Session: Cultures of Object Interaction: Examining How Consumers Learn From and Through Negotiations with Materiality, Consumer Culture Theory Conference, San Diego, United States, July 2024.

Sidaoui, K., Franco, P., Blasco-Arcas, L., Patricio, L., & Fisk, R. (2024), “AI-Enabled Service Lifecycle for Social Impact,” 13th SERVSIG Conference, Bordeaux, France, June 2024.

Venkatraman, R., Chow, A., van Hout, I., & Franco, P. (2023). “Out with the Old, In with the New: The Gentrification of Sneaker Culture,” Competitive Paper – Consumer Culture Theory Conference, Lund, Sweden, July 2023.