ABSTRACT
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to respond to the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing special issue call for discussions that can assist advertising and marketing history researchers locate primary sources of interest to their research by describing the resources available through the online family history websites Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.com. Design/methodology/approach: Brief histories of Ancestry and FindMyPast are presented, based on publicly available records and secondary sources. This paper explains the types of data researchers can access via Ancestry.com and FindMypast.com, the costs of access and then provides some examples of how these resources have been used in past research by marketing and advertising historians. Findings: Family history websites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast can provide researchers with access to a wide variety of data sources, such as census and voting records;immigration records;city directories;birth, marriage and death records;military records;and almanacs and gazetteers, but at a cost. In some cases, paying for digital access to records is more convenient, timely and can cost less than travelling to access these same documents in physical form. Depending on the researcher’s geographical location and the country from which records are sought, this can add up to quite a cost savings. When using these sources, it is wise to determine which database contains more of the records you are searching for;Ancestry tends to have better US and Canadian resources, while FindMyPast covers the UK better. Originality/value: Researchers interested in conducting advertising and marketing history research need access to primary data sources. Given restricted travel budgets and, indeed, restricted travel under COVID-19 conditions, gaining access to primary sources in digital form can allow researchers to continue their work. At any time, gaining access to digital records without having to travel can speed up the research process. Researchers new to the field, and those with many years of experience, can benefit from learning more about family history databases as primary data sources. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
ABSTRACT
Retaillance is surveillance in a brick-and-mortar retail setting. In today’s world, brick-and-mortar retailers are threatened by competition from online retailers and the need to compete with sellers not just in the same city or country, but from all over the world. Retailers have, therefore, moved beyond the routine surveillance of consumers for security reasons, and begun to compete for consumers’ personal and shopping data, in an effort to gain competitive advantage. Surprisingly, published academic research relevant to surveillance in a retail setting is quite limited. To address this apparent gap, this interdisciplinary literature review will first provide both a new definition and conceptual model of what surveillance in physical retail entails, before reviewing how retailers view retaillance, how retaillance impacts consumers and their relationships with retailers, along with associated moral and ethical dilemmas. Most importantly, we utilize our review as an opportunity to highlight a variety of directions for future research that can contribute to our understanding of the impact of retaillance and add to the vitality of the fields of retailing and marketing by opening new and unexplored areas of study. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.