Nadège Ianni, marketing for less and better consumption

How does a researcher choose a research topic?

Have you ever wondered how a researcher chooses a research topic? The path that led Nadège Ianni to the world of research is a perfect illustration of the influence that personal life can have on a subject of study.

After the liquidation of the family business she worked for, Nadège bounced back by taking a training course in digital marketing, which enabled her to set up her own business in the summer of 2019. Her freelance activities were completed by teaching marketing at the Grenoble apprentice training centers. On the strength of this experience, she then decided to fulfill one of her dreams: to go back to school by enrolling for a Master's degree.

Ethical marketing

On her arrival at university, she immediately noticed the gap between her private and professional spheres. Among other things, this dissonance between her consumption habits and her job in digital marketing became apparent when she started making her own cosmetics. However, while the world of digital marketing is accelerating and tends to be ever more productive and polluting, Nadège chose to reduce her consumption. Especially since her return to university gave her the opportunity to reflect on the possibility of doing "ethical" marketing, in order to be more in line with her personal values.

Ostentation and responsible consumption

Convinced of this idea, she decided to study it during her master's degree and proposed her first dissertation topic around eco-ostentation. This enabled her to mobilize the main authors around the future concepts of her thesis: ostentation and responsible consumption. Ostentatious consumption usually refers to luxury and the act of voluntarily consuming in front of others, to highlight its importance. This initial research showed that ostentation not only has an ecological component, but also a social one. Nadège extended this concept to include socially responsible conspicuous consumption as part of her thesis. 

After completing a DESU to qualify for a doctorate after a professional master's degree, she went on to audition for a doctoral contract with her subject that had already been completed, with a literature review and two completed studies. Her unusual profile divided the assembly, but her hard work and perseverance won out in the end.

Defining behavior

Nadège is currently working on her dissertation at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille, studying ostentatious behavior, its antecedents and effects in the context of "responsible" consumption. In other words, what leads some people to behave in this way? According to her qualitative interviews, there are certain subjects on which consumers will be more ostentatious than others: buying local, for example. Gradually, these interviews enabled her to refine the behavior by identifying examples of responsible consumption fields where ostentation might occur. These discoveries are helping to establish profiles of people with this behavior, for targeted managerial applications.

Sharing research

For Nadège, thesis research is not confined to the laboratory: it's a shared experience. With this in mind, she has taken the opportunity on several occasions to train in public speaking, so as to be able to tell the story of her work as effectively as possible. After taking part in the French My three minute thesis science popularization competition in 2023, her new challenge was to take part in the OTECI Région Sud 2024 video pitch competition. The aim was to create a video CV in the form of a 120-second pitch. A successful gamble, as she came third in the end! Congratulations to her!