Agile Marketing Strategies: New

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Rajagopal

Agile Marketing
Strategies
New Approaches to
Engaging Consumer
Behavior
Agile Marketing Strategies
 Rajagopal

Agile Marketing
Strategies
New Approaches to Engaging Consumer Behavior
Rajagopal
Tecnologico de Monterrey
EGADE Business School
Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico

ISBN 978-3-031-04211-9 ISBN 978-3-031-04212-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04212-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
…to my wife Arati
 Acknowledgments

The pandemic and business shutdown since early 2020 have set the new
normal to maintain business continuum and survive the social, economic,
and business challenges. Agility in business, inclusivity in business, and
customer reorientation has become significant to stay competitive in the
market. This book is an outgrowth of research analysis and steering of
new concepts to meet the emerging challenges. As institutional resources
were confined during these critical times, the crowd dynamics was
found remotely active. I have been teaching collective intelligence in
MBA program as a practice course at EGADE Business School in the
past couple of years. The emerging storyboards on the agile marketing
modeling practices at the niche and macro-economic levels have given
many insights to me, which stayed central this book. I have also bene-
fitted from the discussions of my colleagues within and outside the
EGADE Business School and Boston University. I am thankful to Dr. Lou
Chitkushev, Associate Dean, and Dr. John Sullivan, Chair of Administra-
tive Sciences Department, Metropolitan College of Boston University for
giving me teaching assignments, which enabled me to apply the research
output on sustainability-based business modeling in the classes. I am also
benefitted by the thematic interactions of students and faculty of India
campus of the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. I would like to
acknowledge the support of Dr. Osmar Zavaleta, Interim Dean, EGADE
Business School, and Dr. Claudia Quintanilla, Director, Marketing and
Business Intelligence Department of EGADE Business School, who have

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

always encouraged me to take up new challenges in teaching graduate

courses, develop new insights, and contribute to the existing literature
prolifically. I also enjoyed discussions with the corporate managers on the
subject, which helped in enriching the contents of this book.
I am thankful to various anonymous referees of our previous research
works on globalization, consumer behavior, and marketing strategy that
helped in looking deeper into the conceptual gaps and improving the
quality with their valuable comments. Finally, I express my deep gratitude
to Arati Rajagopal who has been instrumental in completing this book. I
acknowledge her help in copy editing the first draft of the manuscript and
for staying in touch until the final proofs were crosschecked and index was
developed.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

Part I The Convergence

2 Consumer Dynamics 25
3 Social Media and Markets 55
4 Relationship Strategy 87

Part II The Shift

5 Neurobehavioral Perspectives 121
6 Rethinking Marketing 155
7 The Agile Mind-Set 189

Part III Window to the Future

8 Epilogue: The Extent of Agility 227

Index 247

ix
 About the Author

Rajagopal is Professor of Marketing at EGADE Business School of

Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM),
Mexico City Campus and Life Fellow of the Royal Society for Encourage-
ment of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, London. He is also Fellow of
the Chartered Management Institute, and Fellow of Institute of Opera-
tions Management, United Kingdom. Dr. Rajagopal is serving as Visiting
Professor at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts since 2013 and is
also engaged in teaching courses at the UFV India Global Education of
the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada.
He has been listed with biography in various international direc-
tories. He offers courses on Competitor Analysis, Marketing Strategy,
Advance Selling Systems, International Marketing, Services Marketing,
New Product Development, and other subjects of contemporary interest
to the students of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. He
has imparted training to senior executives and has conducted over 65
management and faculty development programs. Dr. Rajagopal holds
post-graduate and doctoral degrees in Economics and Marketing, respec-
tively, from Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University in India. His specializa-
tion is in the fields of Marketing Management, Rural Economic Linkages,
and Development Economics.
He has to his credit 68 books on marketing management and rural
development themes and over 400 research contributions that include

xi
xii ABOUT THE AUTHOR

published research papers in national and international refereed jour-

nals. He is Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Leisure and
Tourism Marketing and International Journal of Business Competition. Dr.
Rajagopal served as Regional Editor of Emerald Emerging Markets Case
Studies (2012–19), published by Emerald Publishers, United Kingdom.
He is on the editorial board of various journals of international repute.
Currently Dr. Rajagopal holds the honor of the highest level of National
Researcher-SNI Level-III. He has been awarded UK-Mexico Visiting
Chair 2016–17 for collaborative research on ‘Global-Local Innovation
Convergence’ with University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, instituted
by the Consortium of Higher Education Institutes of Mexico and the
United Kingdom.
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Discussion map and thematic relationship across chapters 18

Fig. 2.1 Ecosystem of consumer behavior 35
Fig. 2.2 Elements affecting consumer cognition and emotions 43
Fig. 2.3 Attributes of neurological behavior of consumers 51
Fig. 3.1 Social media marketing: Design and diffusion 64
Fig. 3.2 Attributes of relationship marketing 74
Fig. 4.1 Attributes of Relationship Foundations in Business 93
Fig. 4.2 Convergence and effects of corporate behavior
and relationship marketing 100
Fig. 5.1 Human brain and neurobehavioral attributes 125
Fig. 6.1 Relationship and effects of cognition and critical thinking
on neurobehavioral attributes 162
Fig. 6.2 Competitive and aggressive marketing strategies 179
Fig. 7.1 Agile marketing process and indicators 195
Fig. 7.2 Social learning and behavioral flexibility 204

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The Concept
The trends in business modeling have been shifting rapidly since
the mid-twentieth century from supply-led (manufacture oriented) to
demand-driven (customer-centric) to crowd-based business modeling.
Such change has been a global phenomenon, which has seeded the
concept of agile modeling in doing business in competitive marketplace.
Companies face various organizational and operational challenges while
transitioning to the agile business model. Among many complexities,
identifying and driving business units to adapt to the agile business culture
by engineering multifunctional teams and developing new management
practices that are compatible cause major concern to the companies to
sustain the agile business practices.1 Despite above fundamental concerns,
the agile business model has been adopted by many companies and
received increased attention in academic research. There are various
dimensions of business agility that affect the performance of firms. The
agility in businesses include workplace culture, decision-making, opera-
tions, technology, innovation, and customer behavior at the bottom-line
comprising people, profit, and sustainability. Understanding people is

1 Chen, R., Ravichandar, R., & Proctor, D. (2016). Managing the transition to the
new agile business and product development model: Lessons from Cisco Systems. Business
Horizons, 59 (6), 635–644.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
Rajagopal, Agile Marketing Strategies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04212-6_1
2 RAJAGOPAL

connected to the personality, social values, and ethnicity. Advances in

digital technologies have increased the possibilities of developing agile
business models by outsourcing business activities to crowds comprising
contributors.
Leading business with customers today has adapted to customer-
centric business model, which is an outgrowth of crowdsourcing and
understanding customer perceptions, emotions. Working with such busi-
ness models encourage customer engagements with brands. Sharing
customer emotions and experience on brands contribute to the collective
intelligence, which is used by the firms in developing customer-centric
strategies. The inherent satisfaction of co-creation with crowds, guides
companies to develop customer-centric marketing strategies and lead
to novel and superior value propositions. LEGO is a case in point.
The company has grown over the philosophy of low-cost alternative
to creative wooden building blocks to technology-driven mechanical
building blocks giant. The growth of the company relied on customer
inputs and analysis of their personality and behavior in transforming its
business. The company has built effective systems to engage and use the
crowd-contents to review and update its product portfolios constantly.2
Similarly, at Netflix, executives are committed to share information with
people who are engaged in creative work and ensure that the information
flows to everyone who needs it. Such strategy supports business agility,
and customer-centric management processes that need to be designed
implemented in need-based planning.3
The crowd’s value to the firm is represented as the concept of crowd
capital, which embeds customer perceptions and emotions. The crowd
capital has been defined as organizational resources acquired through
crowdsourcing in the form of collective intelligence4 Most compa-
nies have experimented radical shifts in business strategies over the
conventional wisdom to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Some of

2 Robertson, D., & Hjuler, P. (2009). Innovating a turnaround at LEGO. Harvard

Business Review, 87 (9), 20–21.
3 Worley, C. G., Williams, T., & Lawler, E. (2016). Creating management processes
built for change. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58 (1), 77–82.
4 Prpić, J., Shukla, P. P., Kietzmann, J. H., & McCarthy, I. P. (2015). How to work
a crowd: Developing crowd capital through crowdsourcing. Business Horizons, 58 (1),
77–85.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

these strategies are people-centric and crowd-based, which have encour-

aged customer engagement in today’s heterogeneous and hypercom-
petitive global business environment. Consequently, empowering people
in various geo-demographic segments (communities, entrepreneurs,
women, and leaders) gained dynamic capabilities such as sensing local
opportunities, enacting global complementarities, and appropriating busi-
ness with local values. Nestlé (Latin America), Unilever (India), and
IKEA (Europe) are good examples of companies engaged in people-based
business. These companies can operate successfully across emerging and
established markets. The strategic agility, therefore, is a meta-capability of
companies that enables them to create customer and stakeholder values
and deploy dynamic competitive strategies in a balance over time.5
Companies of twentieth century have long used teams to solve prob-
lems, take decisions, and develop business models. Market research
organizations heavily focused on investigating groups to explore customer
needs, and conducted consumer surveys to understand the market, while
managers kept themselves busy in attending business meetings to listen
to shareholders in the past. But the words that need more comprehen-
sion such as solve, explore, understand, and listen have now taken on a
whole new meaning through the technology platforms to acquire and
analyze collective (crowdsourced) opinions on a larger scale. Indeed, the
increasing use of information markets, free encyclopedias, crowdsourcing
tools, the wisdom of crowd concepts, social networks, collaborative soft-
ware, and other Web-based tools push a paradigm shift for compa-
nies in making customer-centric decisions.6 Crowdsourcing has emerged
as a creative tool for companies today to expand their outreach to
customers, map their perceptions, and understand behavioral implications
of customers in business. Thus, this tool has led to deliver collective intel-
ligence, which helps the companies in building the business design cube
by integrating the concepts of design-to-market, design-to-society, and
design-to-value in business modeling process. Co-creation allows compa-
nies to continually tap the skills and insights of stakeholders and develop
new ways of building value chain. Crowdsourcing platforms (physical

5 Fourne, S. P. L., Jansen, J. J. P., & Mom T. J. M. (2014). Strategic agility in MNEs:
Managing tensions to capture opportunities across emerging and established markets.
California Management Review, 56 (3), 13–38.
6 Bonabeau, E. (2008). Decisions 2.0: The power of collective intelligence. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 50 (2), 45–52.
4 RAJAGOPAL

and digital forums) are largely interactive for exploring new experiences
and connections. The crowd-based collective intelligence process grows
organically over time in the organization as a system.7
Emerging companies grow with the fundamental resources as its
people, teams, technologies, social assets, brands, suppliers, employees,
and business leaders, which help in deciding the growth strategies in
competitive markets. As the firms become tensile against the business
uncertainties and predicable risks, their abilities stem out of collective
intelligence8 and customer engagement in categorical business processes
of product development, manufacturing, marketing, advertising, and
customer communication. In the largest companies, customer values are
largely determined by the shared customer perceptions, experience, and
potential business ideas. The analysis of collective intelligence not only
opens a new range of business opportunities for companies, but also
helps in exploring reverse innovations (evolved in niche or remote desti-
nations) that have the potential for commercialization. Commercializing
a reverse innovation is a disruptive leap to hit a commercially established
product in the target market. Reverse innovations demand to develop
organizational insights into how a new product could drive an impact
in emerging markets.9 The customer engagement in the emerging firms
today is instrumental to value-based business modeling and exploring
customer-centric business opportunities. Consequently, customers, stake-
holders, and leaders hold the power to respond to major market shifts
and let firms grow with the collective intelligence and necessary social
interventions.10
Agility and agile transformation are the two facets of business, and
both are correlated to business performance. Besides design-driven, and
technology-oriented marketing strategies, the market competition of
twenty-first century is largely driven by the social stimuli, behavioral shifts

7 Gouillart, F., & Billings, D. (2013). Community-powered problem solving. Harvard

Business Review, 91 (4), 70–77.
8 Boder, A. (2006). Collective intelligence: A keystone in knowledge management.
Journal of Knowledge Management, 10 (1), 81–93.
9 Rajagopal. (2016). Innovative business projects: Breaking complexities, building perfor-
mance (Vol. 2)—Financials, new insights, and project sustainability, New York: Business
Expert Press.
10 Christensen, C. M., & Overdorf, M. (2000). Meeting the challenge of disruptive
change. Harvard Business Review, 78 (2), 65–76.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

in consumption, and crowd intervention. Therefore, the cutting-edge of

marketing strategies across the geo-demographic segments is widely influ-
enced by the individual and group behavior, collective intelligence, and
neurobehavioral emotions. People (crowd) tend to disseminate persua-
sive messages, which aim to alter the attitude of consumers and overall
consumption behavior. Besides many operational elements, agility in busi-
ness is primarily linked to the social and economic postulates of the
consumer behavior. The change of mind among consumers is induced
by self- and social concepts that governs the business strategies, technolo-
gies, and end-user values to leverage market competition. In addition to
customer satisfaction, majority of business operating models are mainly
driven by corporate values by putting the people first and agility to adopt
the revised norms quickly.11
Evaluating human behavioral traits is getting complex today. Society,
people, leaders of both social and business forums, and political personal-
ities constitute the external ecosystem of the consumers, which influence
the personality and behavioral traits. The social phenotype (William’s
Syndrome) is related to the personality, social attention, and hyper-
sociability of individuals, which manifests crowd-led influences, dynamic
shifts, perceptual inconsistency, and social autism.12 The social phenotype
behavior of consumers triggers incongruency among corporate assump-
tions and predictions affecting the consumer personality. Such mismatch
leads to the failure of predetermined customer-centric strategies. The
social phenotype can be explained as functional behavior of people,
which integrates with the neurological functions and alters neurobe-
havioral traits of people. Consequently, consumers tend to build their
consumption behavior on sensitive social moves and neuro-physiologically
integrated endpoints. Social phenotypes are sensitive to consumption
behavior, choices, and loyalty, which can be conceptualized as social intu-
itive behavior. Firms need to analyze such behavior through psychometric

11 Nath, U. K., Jagadev, A. K., & Pattnaik, P. K. (2021). Agile transformation for
better business values using orchestration model. Materials Today: Proceedings (in press).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.02.177.
12 Thurman, A. J., & Fisher, M. H. (2015). The Williams syndrome social phenotype:
Disentangling the contributions of social interest and social difficulties. In R. M. Hodapp
and D. J. Fidler (Eds.), International review of research in developmental disabilities,
Amsterdam: Academic Press, 191–227.
6 RAJAGOPAL

tools to understand consumer perceptions and develop customer-centric

strategies.13
The manifold growth of interactive virtual communities has led the
social attention and hyper-sociability of individuals, which inculcates social
phenotype personality traits. The social networks encourage sharing of
consumers experiences over temporal and spatial dimensions that drives
an integrated effect on geo-demographic consumer behavior. The social
phenotype effects drive neurophysical changes among consumers, stim-
ulating preferences for the products, sensory impulses (touch, feel, and
pick), and need for peer or social validation on their buying decisions.
Consumers on social media channels are influenced by the social-affective
language, peer narrations or perspective, including attributive emotions
or motivations to communication, using intensifiers (really, very, so) and
sound effects, direct quotes, character speech, and verbal anchors for
‘hooking’ the listener’s attention.14
Customer-centric companies explore possibilities of seeking new ideas
from the stakeholders and coevolve business models over time in the
competitive marketplace. Advances in digital technologies have given
enormous boost to the outsourcing business activities on public domain
comprising several independent contributors. Neuromarketing is the
part of neuroscience research that targets contemplating the purchaser
conduct through the cerebrum’s instinctual procedures and reactions.
It is an emerging field that focuses on deriving the marketing implica-
tions by understanding the cognitive and emotional interactions in human
behavior through neuroscientific methods. Large multinational compa-
nies are using the neuromarketing approach in developing customer-
focused products, advertisements, and promotional strategies.15

13 Tylka, T. L. (2006). Development and psychometric evaluation of a measure of

intuitive eating. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 53, 226–240.
14 Järvinen, A., Korenberg, J. R., & Bellugi, U. (2013). The social phenotype of
Williams syndrome. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23 (3), 414–422.
15 Lim, W. M. (2018). Demystifying neuromarketing. Journal of Business Research, 91
(2), 205–220.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Thematic Discussions
The Quadruple Bottom-Line in Business
The bottom-line in business is shifting rapidly since the mid-twentieth
century with the advancement of information technology and changing
business philosophy.16 The bottom-line of business has moved over
time from aggressive manufacturing to market competition, to supply-
led business models, and to customer-centric business focus. With the
extensive usage of social media by the firms and people, companies
have learned to follow a new pace in business led by the voice of
crowd and collective intelligence.17 Consequently, the bottom-line of the
business today is shifted to a functional combination of People, Account-
ability, Control, and Transformation (PACT), which has constituted the
quadruple bottom-line in business. PACT has induced people (crowd
comprising potential consumers, technocrats, creative business thinkers,
stakeholders, potential investors, market operations players, and existing
customers) to actively participate in the business processes. People tend
to suggest transforming the existing businesses to profitable ventures
through co-creation and coevolution.18
People’s involvement in business has proved effective in social insti-
tutions, which attained commercial significance over time. For example,
Gramin Bank (Rural bank) in Bangladesh has emerged as a social insti-
tution, which is built by the people as a self-help group and attained the
status of a national commercial bank over time. Similarly, dairy farmers
cooperatives in the state of Gujarat in India have evolved in the mid-
twentieth century as people’s organization for mutual benefits and grown
as a largest commercial organization with the corporate brand AMUL
(Anand Milk Union Limited). In these, organization the stakeholders
(members of the institution) have exercised social control and reverse
accountability to manage the business with commitment. In view of the
above and several such example, it is evident that the PACT philosophy is

16 Guillet de Monthoux, P. (2015). Art, philosophy, and business: Turns to speculative

realism in European management scholarship. European Management Journal, 33 (3),
161–167.
17 Dong, W. X. (2016). Crowd intelligence: Analyzing online product reviews for
preference measurement. Information & Management, 53, 169–182.
18 Rajagopal. (2019). Contemporary marketing strategy: Analyzing consumer behavior to
drive managerial decision making, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
8 RAJAGOPAL

embedded in the customer-centric and social business organizations. This

book discusses the attributes of PACT philosophy in business and criti-
cally examines its role in enhancing the business performance from the
crowd perspective.19
Philosophically, the crowd dynamics can be explained as collective
intelligence, which reveals that no one knows everything while everyone
knows something.20 Contemporary marketing has evolved alongside the
customer-centric perspectives as a cognitive science and has spanned
across advanced marketing mix comprising twenty-seven elements.21
Therefore, customer value has become central to business modeling. Most
companies develop marketing strategies (a principal constituent of busi-
ness model) on assumptions of customer values, which might be a misfit
while implementing a business model. Collective intelligence provides the
real perceptions of customers and the rationale for new products and
services.22

Behavioral Analysis
Consumerism is evolved in a society and businesses are built within
the society. Convergence of such relationship between the society and
business constructs the consumer behavior. Consequently, collectivisms
influence the consumerism and consumer groups (including individuals),
which tend to share consumer experiences on innovations, products,
values, and the market developments to generate awareness among the
society. The collective opinions influence purchasers and the society for
meeting their needs. Knowledge of consumers’ conditions, factors, and

19 Prpić, J., Shukla, P. P., Kietzmann, J. H., & McCarthy, I. P. (2015). How to work
a crowd: Developing crowd capital through crowdsourcing. Business Horizons, 58 (1),
77–85.
20 Lévy, P. (1997). Collective intelligence: Mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. New
York: Plenum Trade.
21 The advanced marketing mix consists of 11 Ps as core elements and 16 Ps as periph-
eral elements. The 11 Ps include product, price, place, promotion, packaging, pace, people,
performance, psychodynamics, posture, and proliferations. The peripheral elements have
been discussed in the text referred to this footnote. The attributes of advanced marketing
mix are discussed comprehensively in the following footnote (Rajagopal, 2019).
22 Rajagopal. (2019). Contemporary marketing strategy: Analyzing consumer behavior
to drive managerial decision making, Chapter 5, pp 121–149. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

behavioral reasons ensure competitiveness in businesses.23 Companies

tend to get closer to the customers by engaging them in co-creating new
products and carrying out incremental innovations, improving packaging,
developing attractive promotions, and competitive business strategies.
Firms aim at attracting emotional customers, so that the bonds with
the firms grow deeper. Over time firms can share emotional experiences
with potential customers and motivate their engagement.24 Consumer
behavior is a set of socio-psychological indicators that cultivate a cognitive
process in the human beings. It refers to the range of personality attributes
exhibited by people, which are influenced by societal values, culture,
attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, power, relationships, and persuasion.
Behavior in humans is grown as learned, acquired, or shared process
over the spatial and temporal factors. Consumer-centric companies peri-
odically map behavioral patterns of consumers by understanding major
perceptional and attitudinal patterns and interpret them to develop appro-
priate marketing strategies. However, consumer behavior is sensitive to
the social dominance, self-esteem and self-actualization, hedonic values,
and vogue in the marketplace.25
The book discusses the analysis of consumer behavior as a funda-
mental tool to build agility in business models and strategies. Companies
often undermine the behavioral changes in consumers and suffer from
market setbacks. The neurobehavioral dimensions affect the consumer
perceptions and consumption patterns. The cognitive processing styles,
motivational interests and concerns, prioritization of personal values,
and neurological structures and physiological functions of consumers
broadly determine their cognitive process in developing perception on
the products and services.26 Exploring the recent scientific developments
in the neurobehavioral areas, this book argues that stimulus–response

23 Sirgy, M. J. (2018). Self-congruity theory in consumer behavior: A little history.

Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 28 (2), 197–207.
24 Das, G., Agarwal, J., Malhotra, N. K., & Varshneya, G. (2019). Does brand expe-
rience translate into brand commitment? A mediated-moderation model of brand passion
and perceived brand ethicality. Journal of Business Research, 95, 479–490.
25 Carter, T. J., & Gilovich, T. (2010). The relative relativity of experiential and material
purchases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (1), 146–159.
26 Jost, J. (2017). The marketplace of ideology: “Elective affinities” in political
psychology and their implications for consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology,
27 (4), 502–520.
10 RAJAGOPAL

is a psychophysiological process, and meticulously affect the neuromar-

keting strategies. Consequently, the marketing strategies developed on the
neurobehavioral foundations develop emotional appeals in marketing.27
In the decade of 2020s, several groundbreaking studies linking neuro-
science and consumer behavior have demonstrated their potential to
create value for marketers. However, most studies relied on measuring
the physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’
motivations, preferences, and decisions as a neuromarketing goal in the
marketing research.28 This book discusses beyond the basics of neuromar-
keting and argues that neurobehavioral impact on business makes grater
appeal to managers engaged in exploring the agile consumer-centric busi-
ness strategies. Managers today struggle hard to uncover factors driving
customers’ attitudes and behavior to develop customer-centric strategies
and take a competitive lead. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom to
attract customers has largely unchanged since their introduction. Conse-
quently, there is growing interest in brain-based approaches, motivating
managers to directly probe customers’ underlying thoughts, feelings, and
intentions.29 This book focuses on converging the neural effects on
consumer behavior and their implications in infusing agility in marketing
approaches.

Social Media and Markets

Various social media channels contribute to disseminate new ideas and
serve as a pool of collective intelligence. However, the review of previous
literature suggests that the overall effect of crowdsourcing on business
modeling has not been thoroughly investigated. This book fills this gap
by integrating the customer ideation in developing behavioral business
models to achieve performance with purpose. Drawing on the resource-
based view, the book argues that how crowdsourced information can be

27 Hannah, S. T., & Waldman, D. A. (2015). Neuroscience of moral cognition and

conation in organizations. In D. A. Waldman and P. A. Balthazard (Eds.), Organizational
neuroscience (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Volume 7), 233–255. London:
Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
28 Harrell, E. (2019). Neuromarketing: What you need to know. Harvard Business
Review Digital Article, Boston: Harvard Business School Publication.
29 Hsu, M. (2017). Neuromarketing: Inside the mind of the consumer. California
Management Review, 59 (4), 5–22.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

an important resource for the firm to develop value chain, deliver it to

stakeholders, and stay competitive in the marketplace.30 Socialization of
business is a process where people build trust through interpersonal inter-
action, learn market trends, co-create products and services, and inculcate
value-based organizational culture. The collective intelligence has evolved
over time through the experiential interactions on social media channels.
Socialization of businesses encourages people from different segments,
socio-cultural backgrounds, and ethnicity to co-create innovative business
ideas. The socialization process of business helps firms to grow agile and
customer-centric.31
With the advancement of technology and convenience-led marketing,
elderly consumers are feeling out of place in the market today as they
are unable to cope with the technology-driven marketing approaches,
applications, and self-service platforms. Consequently, reverse socializa-
tion is gearing-up in the families as elderly consumers are being influ-
enced by the young consumers. Reverse socialization is a process, which
allows adolescents’ influence on their parents’ knowledge, skills, and
attitudes related to consumption. Such behavior is driven by emotions,
changing perceptions on products and services, and restructured cogni-
tive ergonomics.32 This book discusses the need for agility in business
in the context of reverse sociology, socio-neurological behavior, and
social self-concept. Individual’s cognition on social consumption and rela-
tive changes, contributes to the social self-concept, which determines
the buying decisions and the relative degree of influence.33 Research
studies converging behavioral and neural mechanisms in social media
use (SMU) and self-concept indicate that the cognitive weights between
self-judgments and derived-peer-judgments are often narrow and highly
correlated. Social media enables to get frequent crowd-based feedback as
compared to interpersonal interactions and conventional meetings with

30 Rajagopal. (2021). Crowd-based business models-using collective intelligence for market

competitiveness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
31 Fayard, A. L., Weeks, J., & Khan, M. (2021). Designing the hybrid office. Harvard
Business Review Digital Article, Boston: Harvard Business School Publication.
32 Gentina, E., & Muratore, I. (2012). Environmentalism at home: The process of
ecological resocialization by teenagers. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11 (2), 162–169.
33 Singh, P., Sahadev, S., Oates, C. J., & Alevizou, P. (2020). Pro-environmental
behavior in families: A reverse socialization perspective. Journal of Business Research, 115,
110–121.
12 RAJAGOPAL

peers. Consequently, the social media drives peer emotions in socialization

of business among young consumers.34
In addition, this book also discusses the impact of social phenotype
on business planning, agility, and developing customer-centric strategies.
The William’s Syndrome of social phenotype is associated with a strong
drive to approach strangers, sociable personalities, social commitments,
and developing social engagements. These attributes affect neurobehav-
ioral status of people and instill positive or negative emotions with the
firms, brands, and product portfolios in general. The growing research on
the social phenotype and neurobiological evidence indicate alterations in
structure, function, and connectivity of the social brain. The social pheno-
type attributes to empathic, friendly, and emotional personality among
consumers, which affects the neurobehavioral outcomes.35

Agility in Marketing Strategies

Relationship marketing is widely based on the personality, emotions,
and trust between customers and marketing firms. The customer rela-
tions in business organizations are significantly influenced by the peer
interactions on various social networks beside the self-reference indica-
tors set by the customers. As companies tend to develop diverse ways
to better understand and respond to their customers’ needs, the rela-
tionship marketing has become central to the marketing community.36
The rising prominence of social media in manifesting voice of consumers
has become the guiding phenomenon for the firms in building and rein-
forcing customer relations. Social media provides a powerful relationship
management tool to companies that enable them to interact, engage, and
provide customized value to consumers.37 Such a trend in developing

34 Valkenburg, P. M. (2017). Understanding self-effects in social media. Human

Communication Research, 43, 477–490.
35 Järvinen-Pasley, A., Bellugi, U., Reilly, J., Mills, D. L., Galaburda, A., Reiss, A. L., &
Korenberg, J. R. (2008). Defining the social phenotype if Williams syndrome: A model
of linking gene, the brain, and cognition. Development and Psychopathology, 20 (1), 1–35.
36 Melancon, J. P., & Dalakas, V. (2018). Consumer social voice in the age of social
media: Segmentation profiles and relationship marketing strategies. Business Horizons, 61
(1), 157–167.
37 Clark, M., & Melancon, J. P. (2013). The influence of social media investment
on relational outcomes: A relationship marketing perspective. Journal of International
Marketing Studies, 5 (4), 132–142.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

customer relations today has warned firms to be prepared for behavioral

contingencies and focus on developing agile marketing strategies.
This book argues that customer-centric firms make efforts to
develop meaningful relationship with their customers through the loyalty
programs embedding various sensitive touch points, offering comprehen-
sive customer services to co-create values, and empower customers and
stakeholders to participate in innovation and business processes. Recog-
nizing customers’ needs and market gaps, it is possible for marketers
to find new customers and market spaces and gain valuable insight into
the competitive marketplace. Consequently, it is critical for the firms to
establish the congruence between the consumer’s own identity and the
business goals of the firm to develop a meaningful relationship by recog-
nizing mutual benefit portfolios that will continually evolve.38 Critically
examining the technology-led customer relationship management prac-
tices, this book redefines the customer relationship processes through
database creation and analysis of relationship portfolios, customer selec-
tion and targeting, relationship marketing models, privacy issues, and
suggests new metrics necessary to evaluate the efficacy of customer
relations.39
Contextual marketing helps firms to stay agile in the market by devel-
oping marketing strategies congruent with the customer personality, social
values and lifestyle, social equity in consumption, and social motiva-
tions. Most customer-centric firms lack in delivering enough value to
induce customers to encourage repeat buying behavior and grow prof-
itable. These factors significantly affect the neurobehavioral dimensions
of customers and instill social and crowd consciousness. Previous studies
have identified consumer attitudes as constructs, which analyze how
consumers think about (cognition), feel about (affect), and act toward
(conation) developing consumption and buying preferences.40 Neurobe-
havioral changes among consumers are dynamic and largely influenced by
the social and crowd behavior. This book argues that connecting with the
real time, analyzing neurobehavioral experiences in visual merchandising,

38 Biswas, D. (2019). Sensory aspects of retailing: Theoretical and practical implications.

Journal of Retailing, 95 (4), 111–115.
39 Winer, R. S. (2001). Framework for customer relationship management. California
Management Review, 43 (4), 89–105.
40 Vakratsas, D., & Ambler, T. (1999). How advertising works: What do we really
know? Journal of Marketing, 63 (1), 26–43.
14 RAJAGOPAL

shopping, and consumption, and understanding cognitive synchroniza-

tion with emotions such as eye movements, gestures, verbal manifestation,
and encoding behavioral behavior among consumers require a great deal
of attention to develop agile marketing strategies. This book discusses
possible approaches to measure neuro-responses during a consumer’s
walk through a store or virtual shopping corridor on the Internet. Such
approaches would help firms to understand real-time neurobehavioral
effects and improve the marketing capabilities of the firm accordingly.41
In the digital marketplace today, consumers invest enormous time
and effort in information analytics to support their decision toward
the purchase of a product or service. Consumers collect the decision
support information from the corporate communications, advertisements,
customer-generated contents, and referrals. However, fuzzy consumer
decision often leads to an irrational focus of firms on implementing
marketing strategies causing low satisfaction and customer value.42 The
quality of referrals plays a major role in driving the right buying deci-
sion among consumers. Often low complexity of referred information
increases the likelihood of positive referred decision among consumers
and provides significant satisfaction. Contrary to the positive referrals,
consumers tend to explore chain effects of negative referrals affecting their
perceived values.43 This book discusses the need for firms to invest in
referral marketing programs to drive positive neurobehavioral effects on
consumers and their consumption practices.
Putting the customers first in a reverse business pyramid is a growing
concern among the firms observing the agile philosophy. In the prevailing
competitive marketing scenario, it is necessary for the firms to rethink
marketing strategies in the context of understanding behavioral shifts in
consumers, managing cost-value-technology transfers to social businesses,
and developing defensing marketing strategies against impulsive crowd
behavior and myopic moves. This book deliberates upon new concepts
in marketing like neurobehavioral effects on marketing, crowd-based

41 Niedziela, M. M., & Ambroze, K. (2020). The future of consumer neuroscience in

food research. Food Quality and Preference, Article # 104124, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.foodqual.2020.104124.
42 Lala, V., & Chakraborty, G. (2015), Impact of consumers’ effort investments on
buying decisions. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 32 (2), 61–70.
43 Barrot, C., Becker, J. U., & Meyners, J. (2013). Impact of service pricing on referral
behavior. European Journal of Marketing, 47 (7), 1052–1066.
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

business modeling, and sustainable marketing. It is argued in the book

that firms need to improve their marketing capabilities by understanding
the neurobehavioral dynamics and understand the factors that influ-
ence consumer choice behavior.44 Further arguments raised in the book
state that to compete in an aggressively interactive environment, compa-
nies must shift their focus from transactional strategies to maximizing
customer lifetime value. Such a shift in the corporate ideology delin-
eates that products and brands must be made subservient to customer
relationships.45
Most companies become aware of the risks of social media manip-
ulations and political advantage in business today. However, ignoring
such risks may damage the stakeholders’ value and corporate image in
the long term. Comprehensive understanding of the influence of various
groups, their agendas, and their level of activism play vital to a company
to choose the right partners for involving socio-political networks in
developing appropriate business strategies. Companies should aggregate
such information to identify the high-risk areas in practicing business
agility and need to develop actions areas to respond to the contin-
gencies. It is also necessary to map potential future scenarios that can
take into account the reaction of competitors and shifts in consumer
behavior. Increased success on corporate and customers’ fronts has laid
the foundation for the co-creating business models, which has encour-
aged alliances between companies and social networks, and improve their
capabilities to deliver value.46 Convergence of technology with customer
value provides higher competitive advantage and interacts frequently with
the complex market players and customers in streamlining the business
activities. The convergence of marketing is woven around the Five Cs
comprising customization, community, channels, competitive value, and
choice that drive the ‘fusion’ in the corporate marketing strategies.47

44 Kaleka, A., & Morgan, N. A. (2019). How marketing capabilities and current
performance drive strategic intentions in international markets. Industrial Marketing
Management, 78 (1), 108–121.
45 Rust, R. T., Moorman, C., & Bhalla, G. (2010). Rethinking marketing. Harvard
Business Review, 88 (1), 94–101.
46 Burgmann, J., & Prahalad, C. K. (2007). Co-creating business’s new social compact.
Harvard Business Review, 85 (2), 80–90.
47 Wind, Y., & Mahajan, V. (2001), Convergence marketing: Strategies for reaching the
new hybrid consumer. New York: Free Press.
16 RAJAGOPAL

In view of the above schematic discussions, this book distinc-

tively presents six thematic chapters comprising consumer behavior
dynamics, social media and markets, relationship marketing, neurobehav-
ioral marketing, rethinking marketing, and changing marketing-mind set.
Discussions in the chapters are supported with real examples of small and
large companies across the geographic destinations. Customer engage-
ment in marketing has wide implications in social innovation, which are
coevolved with 4As perspectives48 comprising awareness (need, knowl-
edge, and value), attributes (constituents of innovations, applications,
and lifecycle), affordability (end-user price, perceived value, ‘me-too’
feeling), and adaptability (ease of use, repeatability, social endorsement).
Most value-based businesses contribute effectively to the manufacturing
process (engagement of farmer-members of agribusiness and dairy coop-
eratives in India, Japan, Israel, and other countries in production and
business operations) and stimulate agile business prospects through open
innovation, neurobehavioral analysis, and learning from social interven-
tions. The social utility of trust considers that firms selling ‘fair trade’,
‘organic’, or other socially beneficial products must be congruent to
the neurobehavior of consumers based on the social stimuli. The coop-
erative and network marketing practices have witnessed such effects of
social motivation on the neurobehavior of consumers.49 Refurbishing
business with collective intelligence, social values, and neurobehavioral
analytics helps companies to increase their business performance by intro-
ducing strategic engagement of stakeholders with the manufacturing and
operational processes.50
Consumers develop attitude and behavior in due course of time.
The theory of human behavior analyzes the causes and effects of busi-
ness ecosystems on consumer behavior. Consumer behavior is a complex
process, which is developed as a chain of cognitive stages including
perception and attitude leading to formation of behavior at the end.

48 Rajagopal. (2020). Barriers and benefits towards sustainability driven business models.
In S. Hashmi and I. A. Choudhury (Eds.), Encyclopedia of renewable and sustainable
materials, pp. 318–327, Amsterdam: Elsevier.
49 Lee, N., Broderick, A. J., & Chamberlain, L. (2007). What is ‘neuromarketing’? A
discussion and agenda for future research. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 63
(2), 199–204.
50 Hawkins, G. (2001). Plastic bags: Living with rubbish. International Journal of
Cultural Studies, 4 (1), 5–23.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

Disruptive forces like e-commerce, low-cost technology products, and

tactical marketing strategies have driven behavioral uncertainties and rapid
shifts in the consumer experiences in the twenty-first century. Conse-
quently, this book delivers a thematic discussion on consumer behavior
and psychodynamics, with the support of behavioral epistemologies.51

Thematic Convergence
This book needs a thematic convergence as it addresses multi-layered
themes between the broad domains of consumer behavior and marketing
strategies with focus on agility as a business driver. Agility in business
has evolved as a built-in concept among the customer-centric compa-
nies, which tend to better understand consumer behavior including
neurobehavior perspectives (in-store and online shopping practices) to
develop approaches to stay customized, applied, and transformative in
the market.52 The interrelationship between the topical discussion across
chapters is illustrated in Fig. 1.1 which reveals that agility, marketing
strategies, and behavioral analytics of consumers are aligned linearly.
Chapter 2 discusses the fundamental attributes of consumer behavior
and neuromarketing experiments followed by the large companies. This
chapter thematically complements the discussion in Chapter 5 which
focuses on neurobehavioral effects such as arousal, merriment, emotions,
and anthropomorphism during shopping either in the brick-and-mortar
stores or in the virtual store on the e-commerce platform. Both chap-
ters argue that agility in the business is necessary for the companies to
accommodate shifts in consumer behavior, changes in perceived values
due to competitive disruptions, and social transformation in the consump-
tion patterns. The need for agility in business is also driven by the crowd
behavior, collective intelligence, and increasing interactivities on the social
media.
Chapter 3, focusing on the contributions of social media, social pheno-
type, and customer affairs logically bridges the conversation between the
discussion on instinctive attributes of consumer behavior (Chapter 2) and
innovative marketing strategies with inclusive focus (PACT philosophy)

51 Rajagopal. (2019). Contemporary marketing strategy: Analyzing consumer behavior to

drive managerial decision making, Chapter 1, pp 3–33. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
52 Morgan, R. E., & Page, K. (2008). Managing business transformation to deliver
strategic agility. Strategic Change, 17, 155–168.
 18

• Agile marketing
• Psychodynamics
• Real-time marketing
• Belief-led marketing
Psychophysical dynamics • New school of thoughts Agility as consumer base
Customization Marketing strategy with people
Social adaptability to marketing strategies The Agile Core-creation and coevolution
RAJAGOPAL

Convergence of discussions among Chapters 1, 4, & 6 Connectivity between Chapter 5 & 6

Mindset
Chapter 6
• Neurobehavioral attributes • Customer relationship
• Personality • Lead thinking
• Behavioral attributes • Market-evolution grid
• Social-behavioral traits Neurobehavioral • Loyalty programs Rethinking
• Agility in business • PACT philosophy
Perspectives • Customer engagement Marketing • Aggressive strategies
• Behavioral marketing • Empowerment
Chapter 4 Chapter 5 • Defensive strategies
• Competitive touchpoints • Crowd-based business models
Relationship
Fundamental attribute of consumer behavior Strategies Inclusive business strategy
Arguments on behavior transformation Customer-to-Customer pull
Arousal, merriment, emotions, and anthropomorphism
Chapter 3
Social media and empowerment
Complementarity in discussions between Chapter 1 & 4. An applied connect between Chapter 2 & 5

Behavioral Social Media

Dynamics and Markets
• Consumer behavior Innate behavior • Social media
• Cognition and emotions
Chapter 1 Social push Chapter 2 • Customer relationship
• External influences Crowd cognition • Marketing strategies
Bridge between Chapter 1 & 2 • Social phenotype
• Buying preferences
• Neuromarketing • Impulsive behavior

Fig. 1.1 Discussion map and thematic relationship across chapters (Source Author)
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

involving people (Chapter 6). Such convergence of consumer behavior

elements and innovative-inclusive marketing strategies motivates agility in
business (Chapter 7), which is focused on real-time marketing, social and
personal beliefs, and psychodynamics (customer-to-customer marketing
leading to pull-effect).
The concept of agility at the grassroots of business is founded on the
transformative consumer behavior, psychodynamics driving customer-to-
customer interactions and creating pull-effect, and real-time needs for
products and services across the geo-demographic segments (Chapter 7).
Such dynamics in consumer behavior stimulate companies to develop
agile marketing strategies working with customers (associateship). Conse-
quently, the conventional strategy in marketing needs a critical rethinking
in the context of agile leverages and focus on inclusive and crowd-based
business modeling as discussed in Chapter 6. This chapter also focuses on
lead thinking by putting the customer first in developing marketing strate-
gies with agility as against the niche thinking of companies earlier which
was profit oriented by driving market competitiveness. Thus, discussions
in both the chapters (Chapters 6 and 7) are intertwined and argue
conjointly that agility in marketing strategy and consumer behavior are
indivisible in business.
Neurobehavioral attributes of consumers are widely driven by the
macro and micro psychosocial elements, which are often inconsistent and
demand agility in marketing strategy. Such agility is explained as market
scope strategy that encompasses influences of personality, society, and
perceived values in consumer decision-making (Chapter 7). Chapter 5
argues that agility in marketing strategies is not only about customiza-
tion, but also related to the adaptability of marketing policies within the
society. Discussions in Chapter 5 and Chapter 7 also link the neuromar-
keting practices presented in Chapter 2 and reinforce the arguments for
the need of agile marketing strategies to serve consumers holistically.
The relationship strategy (Chapter 4) discusses customer relationship
to understand the behavioral attributes and empower them to co-create
customer-centric strategies with companies. The customer engagement
inculcates emotional attachment as a principal element of neurobehavioral
dimension (Chapter 5) of customers, which allows companies to coevolve
with them (Chapter 6). It is argued that the loyalty programs created to
support the social and behavioral traits of the customers help companies
in reaching out to the competitive touchpoints effectively. Consequently,
20 RAJAGOPAL

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are linearly aligned in delivering interconnected

concepts linking neurobehavioral traits and marketing strategy.
This book categorically reviews the theories on business agility,
consumer behavior, social intervention, collective intelligence, decision-
making, and stakeholder values. It also examines previous researches
and analyzes the strategic and tactical stewardship of firms in managing
neurobehavioral responses of consumer and designing agile business
models. The book discusses new strategies suitable to co-create agile busi-
ness models in association with the market players and consumers for the
companies in emerging markets. The book argues the rationale of inclu-
sivity in business and marketing agility to increase customer-centric focus
in business organization and co-create flexible marketing strategies to stay
competitive. It focuses on design-to-society as the pivot of marketing and
argues that the commitments of customers and stakeholders on advo-
cating the agile marketing approaches. The book argues that firms can
make high impact on competitive leadership if the firms meticulously
explore problems, needs, and solutions (PNS factors) to drive social and
emotional impact on consumers. The book discusses new strategies suit-
able for the companies to develop agile marketing model suitable for the
emerging markets and addresses as how to co-create strategies in associ-
ation with the market players, society, stakeholders, and customers. This
book significantly contributes to the existing literature and serves as a
learning post and a think tank for students, researchers, and business
managers.
Some of my research papers on business modeling and customer-
centric marketing in the emerging markets have been published in the
international refereed journals that had driven new insights on the subject.
Accordingly, filtered and refined concepts and management practices
have been presented in the book that are endorsed with applied illus-
trations and updated review of literature on managing business in the
overseas destinations. The principal audience of this book are working
managers, and students of undergraduate and graduate management
studies, research scholars, and academics in different business-related
disciplines. This book has been developed also to serve as principal text
to the undergraduate and graduate students who are pursuing studies in
managing people, agile marketing, brand socialization, corporate gover-
nance, and new generation marketing studies. Besides serving as principal
reading in undergraduate and graduate programs, this book would
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

also inspire working managers, market analysts, and business consul-

tants to explore various solutions on international business management.
This book fits into the courses of Business Management, International
Marketing, Business in Emerging Markets, Managing people in Busi-
ness, Social Business Modeling, and New Product Management in various
universities and business schools.
I hope this book will contribute to the existing literature and deliver
new concepts to the students and researchers to pursue the subject
further. By reading this book, working managers may also realize how to
converge agile marketing practices with corporate strategies in managing
business at the destination markets while students would learn the new
dimensions of marketing strategies.
Rajagopal
Mexico City
February 01, 2022
 PART I

The Convergence
 CHAPTER 2

Consumer Dynamics

Consumer behavior is evolving continuously1 through adaptation (fitting

consumption to manufacturing and marketing ecosystems), divergence
(changing preferences, technology advancement, and market trends), and
noise (crowd behavior, social stimuli, and personality). The taxonomy
of consumer behavior includes individual and group behavior, and
social consumption behavior. Consumer emotions contribute significantly
to the neurobehavioral dynamics, which reflects in consumer percep-
tions, attitude, and actions.2 Emotions, personality, self-concepts, self-
image congruence, and anthropomorphism significantly affect the buying
decision-making and consumption practices. In addition, external factors
(social behavior, market trends, and technology) and shifts in preferences
(personal, health, organic, and sustainability) influence consumer behavior
over the long term. Neuromarketing has emerged as a new stream of brain
research, which has broadly benefitted the advertising and communication
in the firms. Neuromarketing is the part of neuroscience research that
targets at contemplating the purchaser conduct through the cerebrum’s

1 Durante, K. M., & Griskevicius, V. (2016). Evolution and consumer behavior. Current
Opinion in Psychology, 10 (1), 27–32.
2 Xu, Q., Gregor, S., Shen, Q., Ma, Q., Zhang, W., & Riaz, A. (2020). The power
of emotions in online decision making: A study of seller reputation using fMRI. Decision
Support System, 131, 1–11.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 25

Switzerland AG 2022
Rajagopal, Agile Marketing Strategies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04212-6_2
26 RAJAGOPAL

instinctual procedures and reactions.3 This chapter discusses evolution of

consumer behavior and analyzes the behavioral ecosystem in the context
of cognition and emotions that contributes to neurobehavioral attributes.
In addition, this chapter also examines the causes and effects of changing
consumer preferences under the transforming marketing practices.

Evolution of Consumer Behavior

Human behavior evolves around the externalities (crowd, society, and
market), emotions (perceptions, attitude, and influences), experience
(observations, self-learning, impacts), and environment (family, peers, and
community) through a cognitive continuum. The endogenous and exoge-
nous factors constitute the behavioral ecosystem, which influences human
cognition and emotions. Broadly, human behavior has evolved with the
two principal endogenous stages comprising perceptions and attitudes.
These stages of evolution of human behavior have combined effects,
which are moderated by the exogenous factors such as social (macro) and
family and peers (micro) behavior. These factors significantly contribute
to the behavioral development. Consumer perceptions are considered as
instant feelings on any subject, action, observations, or intangible inci-
dence occurred in a given time and space. Perceptions are developed
through sensory signals transmitted from the tangible and intangible
elements, which is fundamentally a neurobehavioral interpretation of
endogenous and exogenous information within the given environment.
Consequently, human behavior has several sub-sets of a broader behav-
ioral ecosystem. The socio-psychological indicators and personality traits
enable mapping the cognitive process and behavioral frame of people by
social, knowledge base, innate and pedigree elements, and external deter-
minants that influence over time. Behaviors involve learned, acquired, or
shared process over the spatial and temporal vectors. However, consumer
behavior is heterogeneous unless it has a strong social influence targeting
common interest. For example, pro-vaccine behavior in people was driven
by the community emotions on saving the humanity, though there remain
some outliers. The individual behavior is generally motivated by social
psychology and self-reference criteria, while the collective intelligence
drives the social behavior significantly. The personality attributes and

3 Harris, J. M., Ciorciari, J., & Gountas, J. (2018). Consumer neuroscience for
marketing researchers. Journal of Consumer Behavior, 17 (3), 239–252.
 2 CONSUMER DYNAMICS 27

perceived values in consumption develop the consumer behavior over

time across geo-demographics segment and markets. Consumerism has
both emotional and materialistic attributes, which influence consump-
tion decisions. These attributes are volatile, which causes inconsistency
in consumption behavior and indecisiveness in buying behavior. In this
context, companies need a fact-based analysis of consumer behavior to
monitor their perceptions and consumption experience.
Family environment, peer perceptions and practices, referrals, and
society play a significant role in developing consumer behavior. In addi-
tion, roles as user, payer, and buyer also affect the behavioral traits
of consumers. In addition, the market behavior constituted by disrup-
tive trends, fashion, and crowd motivation also helps consumers in
developing behavioral attributes on buying, consumption, and decision-
making. Participation in social media channels within and outside the
social networks encourage consumers to get associated or otherwise with
the products and brands. The quality, value, and perception of consumers
on products and services demonstrate how customers respond to the
products, brands, and firms.4 The rapid shifts in the consumer behavior
have also become evident as marketing and shopping technologies in
developed markets are outpacing consumption behavior and inducing
a new trend of consumption in the emerging markets. In addition,
digital disruption has created new dimensions in consumer marketing
by encouraging consumers to go online shopping and delivering prod-
ucts at convenience combined with promotions. Such crowd behavior has
driven compulsive buying behavior among premium consumers and those
belonging to the big-middle consumer segment. With the advancement
of information technology, the digitalization of business operations has
significantly supported the platform economy, which has shown a huge
shift in expanding outreach to end-users and creation of value among
consumers.
The platform economy is based on economic and social activities
facilitated by digital platforms such as various social media channels.
Companies using digital platforms are typically engaged in online sales or
services. Such transaction platforms are also identified as digital match-
makers integrating the roles of manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and

4 Fu, H., Manogaran, G., Wu, K., Cao, M., Jiang, S., & Yang, A. (2020). Intelligent
decision making of online shopping behavior based on internet of things. International
Journal of Information Management, 50, 515–525.
28 RAJAGOPAL

consumers. Digital platforms are widely used by the customer-centric

companies to crowdsource ideas, learn consumer preferences, and witness
the current fashion awareness in the society. These companies explore the
consumer needs and preferences through digital platforms and develop
marketing strategies by analyzing the collective intelligence. Experience
sharing over the digital platforms significantly influences the consumer
behavior. The conventional consumerism is changing in the society due
to shifts in demographic attributes, external influences, and intrinsic moti-
vations. The changing dimensions of the big-middle consumer segment
caused by rapid urbanization and increase in the millennial and aging
consumers across geo-demographic segments are altering consumer pref-
erences and overall consumption behavior. Direct-to-customer marketing
strategies, shopping conveniences, and social media-driven marketing
approaches of companies have significantly influenced the consumer
behavior.
With the advancement of retailing technology, the shopping experi-
ence of consumers has been influenced by more sensory inputs than the
conventional commerce practices. The sensory elements associated with
shopping influence consumers on deep, non-conscious levels. The neuro-
marketing experiments have encouraged companies to develop marketing
strategies based on the cognitive and perceptual maps related to various
dimensions of consumer behavior. Companies have addressed the sensi-
tivity in consumers through various product campaigns. In a highly
successful campaign in Korea, an atomizer released a coffee aroma in
public buses whenever the company jingle was played, increasing visits
and sales in nearby stores, whereas BMW has sensitized consumers with
engine sounds through a car’s audio system to enhance the sport-like feel.
Sensitive marketing approaches based on the customer touchpoints help
companies in creating and intensifying brand personalities. The use of arti-
ficial intelligence (AI) in marketing has significantly sensitized consumer
behavior. The increasing use of AI assistants like Alexa, Siri, and other
localized AI agents has become the main channel of communication
with consumers. Robotic services experience in business has catalyzed
consumers to adapt to modern standards led by technology, through
which the dissemination and outreach to product and market information
has become easy and trustworthy. In emerging markets, consumers are
observing a radical change in the behavior as most services including self-
checkouts and automatic dispensing of products have become the new
normal.
 2 CONSUMER DYNAMICS 29

Consumer philosophy today is woven around the practice of touch,

feel, and pick of products and services, wherein the perceptual process
among consumers is observed in four stages beginning with sensitive
feeling, attention, review, and cognitive affirmation. Perceptions linked to
emotions are commonly impulsive and temporary, which do not make a
dent on cognitive process continuity and help in decision-making. The
higher perceived value of consumers not only justifies the quality of
the perceptual process among consumers, but also determines the social
leadership. The shared economy has changed the consumer behavior of
individual ownership of products and services to authorized usage (on
rent or lease), which leads to collective consumption. Sharing of prod-
ucts and services such as Kindle books (Amazon), housing (time sharing),
transport (Uber), entertainment (subscriber sharing of Netflix), laundry
services, and the like have significant contribution to the paradigm shift
in consumer behavior. Sharing is recognized as a sustainable consumption
pattern, as it reduces the cost, risk, and environmental load of products.5
Buying decisions of the individuals are contextual to their purchasing
power. Accordingly, the higher levels of consumption satisfaction have
positive and significant effects on happiness.6

Behavioral Ecosystem
The cognitive processing styles, motivational interests and concerns;
prioritization of personal values; and neurological structures and physio-
logical functions of consumers broadly determine their cognitive process
in developing perception on the products and services. Companies need
to analyze the perceptual maps of consumers to measure the intensity of
their persuasion by developing appropriate strategies for advertising and
communication. To analyze the consumers’ perceptions and judgment to
support their decision-making process, consumer-centric companies offer

5 Moon, D., Amasawa, E., & Hirao, M. (2021). Transition pathway of consumer
perception toward a sharing economy: Analysis of consumption value for behavioral
transition to laundromats. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 28, 1708–1723.
6 Graham, C., & Pettinato, S. (2001). Happiness, markets, and democracy: Latin
America in comparative perspective. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2, 237–268.
30 RAJAGOPAL

an array of consumer choice and product performance reviews over the

social media.7
The consistency in the perceptions leads to develop an attitude among
consumers. Attitude can be positive or negative, or can simply appear as a
social trend or personal feeling about the product, services or brands with
a strong emotional commitment. Consumer attitude is largely affected
by the incidence of socialization and market trends besides individual
perceptions and self-reference criteria. The social media critically alters
the consumer perceptions, emotions, and cognitions on use of brands
and consumption patterns. Most marketers have strategic goals of altering
consumer perceptions through social media influencers to gain a long-
term advantage in establishing the new consumption trends suitable
to the customer-centric companies. Such pervasive strategy using social
media is progressively becoming critical for shaping consumer brand atti-
tudes toward the offering of the firms and developing congruence with
the market or industry trends. Such attitudinal transformation is also
endorsed by the socialization theory and market signaling theory, which
argue that consumer attitudes can be altered toward the brand through
developing trustworthy perceptions and partially mediating the rela-
tionship with competitive advantages. Consequently, shaping consumer
attitudes toward a brand is a multi-level functional strategy that inte-
grates emotions, beliefs, trust, desire to experimentation, and change
proneness to adapt to new consumption patterns. Several social media
platforms like Facebook and Instagram induce verbal and visual impacts
endorsed by collective intelligence on transforming consumer attitudes
over the conventional wisdom. Social media communication empowers
the influencers to generate social conversations, drive customer engage-
ments with emotions, and transform consumer attitudes toward new
trends. These factors influence community and help firms to develop
socially conscious consumerism and coevolve with the collective consump-
tion attitudes. It has been experienced that YouTube influencers can give

7 Jost, J. (2017). The marketplace of ideology: “Elective affinities” in political

psychology and their implications for consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology,
27 (4), 502–520.
 2 CONSUMER DYNAMICS 31

a brand much higher lift as compared to a celebrity endorsement or a

socially collaborative event.8
A sustainable buying attitude among consumers would lead to culti-
vating a behavior in due course of time. The buying attitude of consumers
toward products stays sustainable, as the perceptions of consumers are
governed by the popularity and image through celebrity endorsements
and peer expressions in the marketplace. Accordingly, the attitudes of
consumers are driven by the social and personal perceptions on product
attributes, price, and the perceived use value. As consumers acquire
comprehensive knowledge on the products and services, the perceived
value generated during the initial cognition phase spreads over a long
time to form an attitude among consumers. The self-perception, prop-
agation of views on the products and services over the social media,
celebrity endorsements, and brand promotions support the consumer
attitude and drive emotional bonding. Such cognitive state of mind stim-
ulates emotions, and consumers tend to get associated with the products
and services by buying them repeatedly. The repeat buying phenomenon
generates loyalty by upholding the emotions among consumers, which
helps in inculcating the consumption behavior. Attitudes are enduring,
but may change over time. The consumer attitudes are learned from
the experience and perceptions drawn on using the brands, products, or
services, and lead to driving the behavior. Attitudes reflect the predis-
positions of a consumer toward other products and services. Generally,
perceptions take long time to develop into an attitude unless there are
any rapid changes in business situations like technology or healthcare
breakthroughs. Impulsive attitudes emerge out of consumer psychody-
namics and peer pressure due to some obsessive attributes of the brands,
products, or services like low prices and sales promotion offers. There
is a strong relationship between stimulus and response in the cognitive
process. Such cognitive interrelationship can be explained as an approach
to develop attitude and behavior that relies on the cognitive ability of
consumers to deliver comprehensive knowledge on the product or service
(stimulus).
Consumer perceptions, attitude, physiological needs, endogenous
elements, and exogenous factors associated with the companies and

8 Hughes, C., Swaminathan, V., & Brooks, G. (2019). Driving brand engagement
through online social influencers: An empirical investigation of sponsored blogging
campaigns. Journal of Marketing, 83 (5), 78–96.
32 RAJAGOPAL

markets constitute the consumer behavior over a long time. However,

consumer behavior is sensitive to social dominance, self-esteem and self-
actualization, hedonic values, and vogue in the marketplace. Therefore, it
can be argued that personality is a highly relevant factor in determining
consumer behavior on choices and buying decisions. The distinctiveness
of cultural features like social media reviews are profoundly associated
with emotional expressions that play a significant role in developing the
buying behavior among consumers. The consumer behavior of young
consumers is found homogeneous through the different ethnic consumer
segments across the markets. However, there exists generation gap in
the consumer behavior due to technology, social media interactions,
and differential experience on consumption.9 Consumer behavior toward
the brands in the premium and regular markets are generally driven
by push factors including brand equity, brand personality, and brand
endorsements. On the other hand, brand strength is determined by the
consumer pull factors like price advantage, social status, and perceived
use value in the various geo-demographic market segments.10 Consump-
tion of organic food products has set a new trend in the developed
societies, which tends to percolate down to the big middle comprising
upper, regular, and lower mass consumer segments. However, the diffu-
sion of organic food in developing societies remains obscure and slow.
Consequently, growth of organic food consumption among consumers is
sluggish, which is attributed to non-adaptable perceptions and discrete
trends in the consumption culture. Against this backdrop, the social
media is playing a persuasive role in encouraging consumers toward
adapting to organic food consumption culture and driving the market
force within the proximity of customer expectations. The transforming
trends in consumption of organic food are associated with embedded
social status, innovations, and health benefits. Referring to such trans-
formational tendency, the perception and attitude of consumers toward
purchase and use of organic products have been radically moved from
the personal preferences to a social system, which primarily addresses

9 Rajagopal & Castano, R. (2015). Understanding consumer behaviour and consumption

experience. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
10 Rajagopal. (2009). Cognitive factors affecting buying decision of young consumers:
Role of arousal and merriment. International Journal of Economics and Business Research,
1 (4), 454–466.
 2 CONSUMER DYNAMICS 33

the benefit-based buying behavior besides the social status and indirect
personality relationships.11
There are three types of behavioral dimensions comprising proactive,
reactive, and interactive attributes, observed among consumers in general.
The proactive consumers are largely induced by the markets through
lifestyle interventions and cross-cultural fusion. Reactive consumers are
critical to new products, strategies, and corporate initiatives, and prefer
the conventional culture that has grown over the period in the society.
The reactive consumers are aggressive in sharing their experience and are
often critical about the products and services of the company. Proactive
behavior of consumers involves acting congruently with the market trends
in advance instead of reacting to the changed consumption patterns due
to collective enforcement. Such behavior refers to acting upon a situa-
tion leading to the change in consumption pattern prior to any business
or societal controversies. Consequently, the consumers with proactive
behavior tend to compromise with the situation than combating against
the change process. Being proactive, consumers engage in defining new
problems, finding new solutions, and providing active leadership consid-
ering the prospective changes in the consumption ecosystem and market
trends. These consumers have high ambitions, breakthrough thinking,
and adjusting attitudes toward the changing environment. For example,
during the business shutdown in the pandemic caused by COVID-19,
the proactive consumers adapted to online shopping practices against the
conventional behavior of shopping in physical stores despite the problems
associated with technology awareness and availability of technology infras-
tructure.12 Interactive consumers express their views logically and analyze
the products and services of a company rationally and comparatively. Inac-
tive consumers are passive and non-responsive. Consumers in the acquired
culture are prone to behavioral changes, adapt to modern values, and
are interactive in the market. These attributes of acquired culture drive
multinational companies to develop dynamic marketing strategies, build

11 Li, L., Wang, Z., Li, Y., & Liao, A. (2021). Consumer innovativeness and organic
food adoption: The mediation effects of consumer knowledge and attitudes. Sustainable
Production and Consumption, 28, 1465–1474.
12 Shin, Y., & Kim, M. J. (2015). Antecedents and mediating mechanisms of proac-
tive behavior: Application of the theory of planned behavior. Asia Pacific Journal of
Management, 32, 289–310.
34 RAJAGOPAL

their brand, and augment market share.13 In addition, income levels,

occupation, education and learning skills, finances, digital activities, self-
congruity and desires, social relationships, and expectations and fears,
determine their consumption behaviors and spending patterns.
The ethnocentrism endorses the consumer behavior wherein
consumers judge the consumption culture of other societies negatively
because they have different cultural beliefs. Ethnocentric consumers
judge other social groups relative to their own ethnic group or culture,
especially with concern for language, behavior, customs, and religion.
Consumers in the continuously changing market culture and lifestyles
often feel chaotic in streamlining their perceptions toward the brands,
companies, and decision leverages. Such cultural dynamics in the global
markets also pose recurrent marketing challenges to companies toward
developing sustained preferences of consumers across the proliferation
of product categories and brands. The cultural values spread across geo-
demographic segments provide the differentiation platform for various
consumer brands.14 Consumers are largely influenced by product attrac-
tiveness and show higher store loyalty irrespective of higher prices. When
choosing food products and stores, consumers evaluate both the fixed
and variable utilities of shopping; the fixed utility does not vary from trip
to trip whereas the variable utility depends on the size and composition
of the shopping list.15 Preferences and perceptions of consumers on
new food products also depend on the social and cultural values. New
products introduced in the emerging market are generally expensive, and
price is considered to be a major factor influencing consumption. The
ecosystem of consumer behavior is illustrated in Fig. 2.1.
The ecosystem of consumer behavior can be broadly classified into
four domains comprising individual behavior, group behavior, market
drivers, and social meta factors, as exhibited in Fig. 2.1. The learned and
acquired behavior are the integrated constituents of individual behavior,
which drive perceptions and attitudes over time. The learned behavior
evolves around individual ecosystem built within family and peers, while

13 Rajagopal. (2016). Sustainable growth in global markets: Strategic choices and

managerial implications. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
14 Kumar, S. R., Guruvayurappan, N., & Banerjee, M. (2011). Ethnic consumers
consulting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
15 Rajagopal. (2006). Brand excellence: Measuring impact of advertising and brand
personality on buying decisions. Measuring Business Excellence, 10 (3), 55–65.
 Group Behavior
• Crowd Behavior
• Collective intelligence
• Social stimulus
• Peers
• Family
• Community
• Cultural phylogenies
• Diffusion and adaptation
• Consumption trends Market Drivers
• Use value and perceptions • Innovation
• Knowledge • Technology
• Need analysis • Communication
• Social cognition • Product attributes
• Social learning • Pricing
• Psychodynamics
• Social media Dynamic
Ecosystem of • Networking Behavioral Effects
• Experiential marketing • Cognitive continuum
Behavioral
Individual Behavior • Co-creating value • Situational emotions
Consumer Transition
•Learned and acquired behavior • Judgmental drives
•Personality and awareness Behavior
• Behavioral leadership
•PNS cognitive relationship
•Perceptions • Behavioral Evolution
•Attitude Social Meta-factors • Shifts in preferences
•3Es Behavioral drivers • Psychographic attributes
• Experimentation • Gender
2

• Experience • Personality
• Extraversion • Value and lifestyle
• Psychosocial determinants • Ethnicity
• Supremacy • Sustainability
• Anthropomorphism • Equity and equality
• Individualism • Social status
• Collectivism • Materialism
• competitiveness • Utilitarianism
• Hedonism
• Social adaptability
CONSUMER DYNAMICS

Fig. 2.1 Ecosystem of consumer behavior (Source Author)

35
36 RAJAGOPAL

the acquired behavior consists of external influence of society, family,

peers, and crowd behavior that affects the personality and cognitive
dimensions. The external influence is acquired by individuals across geo-
demographic segments and market behavior. The principal behavioral
drivers include the intention toward experimenting innovative products,
sharing experience, and exhibiting neurotic attitude. These factors lead
to various psychological determinants such as self-actualization (leading
to supremacy), anthropomorphism, individualism driven by introvert
tendencies, and collectivism. The individual behavior is also driven by peer
comparison of common perceptions, practices, and pragmatic thinking,
which leads to inculcating competitiveness within individual behavior. The
cognitive relationship between the existing problems, needs, and desired
solutions develops perceptions and attitudes toward innovative products
and stimulates experimentation behavior, which encourages entrepreneurs
to develop disruptive products and market them through social chan-
nels. Individualism among consumers also affects behavioral perspectives.
Consumers often correlate with the personal values that they hold while
making consumption decisions.16
The second domain of ecosystem of consumer behavior is about group
perceptions and decision-making toward buying and consumption. There
are various behavioral variants according to the size of the group which
affect the thinking process in terms of linear and discrete cognition.
Besides individual behavior, the group dynamics drive acquiring infor-
mation about products and services, experiencing value propositions,
and influencing decision-making. The group behavior is supported by
the agreeableness, one of the five personality traits, which drives the
collective decision-making. The contemporary view of group behavior
is observed in the collective intelligence practiced through social media
channels. In addition, the social stimulus gained through peers, family,
and community nurtures the group behavior and collective decision-
making process toward buying and consumption of products and services.
However, the group dynamics and cooperative behavior often generate
social dilemma, which affects individual’s personality traits and attributes

16 Brown, K. W., Kasser, T., Ryan, R. M., & Konow, J. (2016). Materialism, spending,
and affect: An event-sampling study of marketplace behavior and its affective costs. Journal
of Happiness Studies, 17 (6), 2277–2292.
Another random document with
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could have died with shame; her sensitive soul was deeply wounded.
That she had been kept on out of charity, a foundling; it was awful.
“And so you see, my dear,” the Mother continued, “we must look
out for something for you. We have places where we train girls, and I
think we can get you into one of those.”
“And I am to leave here?” Carlotta gasped.
“I am afraid so, my dear child, the rules will not allow you to stay
after you are seventeen, and that will be in a few months.”
She went on talking quietly, but Carlotta heard nothing. It was as
though she were sinking in deep waters, and a faint sound of a voice
far away was speaking.
She did not cry, but her face was white and pinched.
“You understand?” asked the Mother and kissed her.
“Yes, Mother, I will do what you want.”
“That’s a good child, run along now. I will have another talk when I
have heard from the training college.”
For once her judgment was at fault; she thought Carlotta had
taken it very well, and would be reconciled to her new life.
No sleep came to Carlotta that night. She tossed on her bed, and
a dry fever tormented her.
“Oh, Holy Mother!” she prayed “take this shame from me, what
can I do?”
When dawn came she was calm; she had made up her mind once
and for all. She was Italian, and had not the calculating mind of the
northerner; she would go to him, yes, this very evening, and her
courage rose high at the thought.
Desmond was waiting by the wall; the Curse had driven him back.
He must see her, if only to say good-bye. How often has the Devil
tried this game with success.
She came to the wall, which on the garden side was low, and leant
on the parapet. He noticed with a start that she was holding a little
hand-bag, so small and dainty that even at the moment he wondered
what on earth she could get into it.
“I am coming with you, if you will take me,” she said quite calmly.
“My God!” he said, staggering back, “do you mean it?”
“Of course. You asked me last week, and said you would come for
me.”
 He was at a loss. This dainty little girl was talking like some
practiced woman of the world, or was it sheer innocence?
Then he was swept away, and all moderation left him. He gathered
her from the wall and seized her roughly in his arms.
“Daphne, my darling, come. We will fly together, over the blue
seas, and love each other dearly, and no one shall come between
us. It will be all Heaven, and you shall be my angel, my Love! My
Queen!”
The hours sped by in the soft velvet night, and he took her by the
hand, and led her to the town. His senses came to him, and his quick
mind saw the danger. She would be missed, and a search made. He
went to his hotel, but not to the front door. He had brought a young
fellow from his estate to look after him, Southgate, son of a publican,
who had some training as a valet. He had taken him with him before
and knew his loyalty and discretion.
He roused him up from the servants’ quarters.
“Go to the King’s Head down the street, and hire a trap. Mention
no name except a false one, and say it is an urgent case—an
accident. Here is money. You can return the trap tomorrow evening.
Bring it to the Cross by the London Road. Hurry, mind, and don’t
arouse any suspicion.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the valet, who was used to his master’s
vagaries.
Desmond led Carlotta down the silent street, and waited at the
Cross. She was quiet, and filled with pure happiness and trust. She
had yielded herself to this man absolutely, and for ever. The die was
cast, and she was content.
They drove off into the night, and he held her in his arms where
she slept like a tired child.
Mile after mile was covered, and dawn was breaking when she
woke to find herself at the door of an old inn. Southgate jumped
down, and held the steaming horses, while Desmond lifted her down,
and carried her to the house. The door was opened by an old
woman, who curtseyed to Desmond.
He said something to her in a low voice, and passed on up the
stairs to a door, which the woman opened, holding a candle for them.
Very gently Desmond laid her on the bed, and kissed her.
 “This good woman will see to you,” he said. “You will be quite safe
here.”
She was so weary that she could scarcely touch the hot soup
which the woman brought her, and soon was lost in happy dreams.
 Chapter III.
The Marriage
“When are we going to Italy?” asked Carlotta. She was sitting
happily on Hugh’s knee, and the sunlight came through the window
of the old Inn.
“I have got the tickets, and booked our passages. The boat sails
on Saturday from Dover, and we go through France by train.”
She clapped her hands with pleasure.
He looked at her with delight, what a perfect little girl she was!
“And I’ve got lots of clothes for you. You must come and see them.
Mrs. Southgate has laid them all out in your bedroom.”
“You are a dear,” she said, and kissed him.
His method had been simple. He had written to London, explaining
that he required a complete outfit, and giving a description of the
lady. It was not the first time, and the articles had arrived by return.
He had a wealth of faults, but always paid his debts; it was a
peculiarity of the family.
Carlotta was delighted; what a child she was. She had worn the
school costume, sombre and uninteresting, so long that the sight of
all these lovely things made her joyous.
Desmond sat and watched her with a glow of pleasure.
Nothing would satisfy her but to try them on, and she came to him
to do up fastenings or hooks.
It was all joy and happiness, then quite suddenly she came and
put her arms round his neck, and said:
“Where are we going to get married, here or in Italy?”
The question staggered him. There was nothing coaxing or
challenging in the voice, and the question was asked so simply, as
though she was asking where they were going to dine.
 Her great dark innocent eyes looked at him, and a wave of pity,
and something as near remorse as he was capable of, touched him.
“Why, damme,” he said with a laugh, and with one of those
strange resolutions which madness dictated. “I had not thought of
that, little Daphne, so you would really like to marry me?” He
watched her narrowly. If there had been tears or reproach he would
have stiffened, but she merely said “Yes please, if you would like to,”
and he was disarmed. He gave a great laugh and held her to him.
“Caught! By Jove. Very well, sweetheart, we will get married. Why
not, after all? Married women have a pretty good time, so why not
men?” She looked at him with grave eyes.
“Fancy being your wife. It will be lovely.”
They had no time to spare, as although the Southgates were loyal
and true, the search for the girl might find them at any moment. He
obtained a special license, and they set out by road for Dover with
gaiety in their hearts, and in his case an unusual sense of virtue. If
she wondered that she had not met his family or friends, she put it
down to the fact that they must escape pursuit. He told her they
would come back when all the bother was over and he would show
her London.
At a little village church, where a friend of Desmond’s was parish
priest, and keener on hunting than his work, they were made man
and wife. She was a Catholic, and did not understand the ceremony,
which was witnessed by young Southgate and the verger, but when
he placed the ring on her finger, whispering “It was my Mother’s,”
she thought it all very beautiful.
The parson entertained them to a gargantuan meal, and both the
men were soon happily and noisily drunk, but Carlotta noticed
nothing.
“Reckavile, you ruffian, this is the last straw,” said the parson.
Carlotta had never heard the name before, but in after years she
remembered.
“You married! Oh Lord! I thought your line would at last end with
you—at any rate on the right side. You dog!”
Drunk as he was Reckavile turned grey. “I had sworn the Curse
should die with me. The Devil has a hand in most things. Pass the
bottle.”
 Southgate and the parson’s man helped him into the chaise, and
the parson kissed the bride.
“God bless you, my dear,” he said unsteadily. “Come and see me
again.”
But it was not to be. A stroke took the worthy man off the next
night with consequences which none of them could have foreseen.
The weeks that followed were one dream of delight to Carlotta.
They journeyed from town to town, discovering fresh beauties
everywhere. He was charmed with his young bride, and for a
moment the horrible craving for something new was stayed.
She thought he was showing her Italy, but the restless craze drove
him on, only now he was happy at last, and satisfied with her
sweetness.
At Ancona, where they stayed for several days, he got his letters.
He was utterly careless in these matters, but his butler sent him a
batch now and then.
They had been watching the Bay from the battlements, with the
sun flashing on the Adriatic waters, when he took a bulky packet
from his pocket, and opened it carelessly.
There were some bills, some letters from his Club, and statement
from his butler. Nothing to worry about. Then his eye caught a
familiar writing, and with a quick catch in his breath, and a dull
presentiment of evil he broke the seal.
It was from Winnie, as he had known by the writing, and he read it
through twice. The large scrawly handwriting was clear enough, but
the news was startling.

My Darling Hugh,
Where have you hidden yourself all this time? I have enquired
everywhere, but no one knows anything about you. I am in such
dreadful trouble, I must see you at once. It is too awful. My
husband knows all about us. When he came back from
Germany the servants told him I had been away, and he found
that we had been stopping at that hotel. He put a lawyer on the
track, and discovered everything. Oh! What are we to do! You
must come and advise me, and you will stand by me won’t you?
You know how much I love you, and you know you made me
 unfaithful to my husband. You will not leave me now? He is
getting a divorce and what am I to do? I am staying with my
mother, as he will not have me. Do come to me.
Your broken-hearted
Winnie

There were tear stains, and corrections, and crosses at the end.
The letter was unfair and gross, and as Hugh looked up from reading
it, he contrasted in his mind the fair young girl, now throwing little
stones over the hedge to see them drop far below, and the
flamboyant beauty of the other, to whom now he must go, for so the
twisted honour of his race would have it.
“Come, Daphne, let us go back. It is getting late,” he said, but
there was a solemn note in his voice, which made her ask. “Have
you had bad news?”
“Oh no, just the ordinary worries, but it will probably mean I shall
have to go to England. Business affairs you know, but don’t trouble,
little girl, I shall not be away from you for long.”
A shadow crossed her lovely face. It was the first separation.
“Can’t I come too? I would love to see England properly, London
and the big cities.”
“I am afraid not this time, and besides you would hate the winter. I
must get a villa for you, and you can make everything ready for me
when I come back. It will be quite exciting for you, furnishing.”
And so it was arranged. Everything had to be done in a hurry, but
then he was used to that. He bought a charming little Villa at
Murano, and obtained servants for her, while she was to stay in
Venice till she had furnished it. On the last night she was sad.
“Come back soon,” she said “I shall be so lonely without you, and
…” she stopped.
He was tender with her, but there was a hunted look in his eyes.
He could see only one way out of the mess, and that he could not tell
her.
She faced the parting bravely, and he was proud of her. There was
no scene such as he had been accustomed to with others; she
smiled at him, and waved as the train moved out. Only when she got
home to the hotel, she went to her room and burst into a passionate
flood of tears.
Reckavile found all London talking about the case. The worthy
draper had filed his petition, and only awaited his turn to come to the
courts. Winnie he would not see, and rumour gathered round the
action Reckavile would take. Betting was about even on his marrying
the woman or killing the draper.
Those who knew him were certain he would face the music.
He paid two visits, one to his family lawyer to enter a defence, and
one to an intimate friend, Captain Wynter. He found the latter at the
Club, and with his usual abruptness opened at once.
“You’ve heard of this silly business about the man Wheatland,
eh?” Wynter nodded.
“Well, I want you to take a challenge to him. Tell him I’ll fight him
for the lady.”
“My dear fellow,” said the other, dropping his eyeglass in his
astonishment, “are you joking? That sort of thing is quite out of date,
unfortunately, otherwise one would not have to put up with the insults
one meets with nowadays.”
“I mean it quite seriously, I am in a devil of a mess, and if he can
plug me, all the better. It will end the line, and everyone will be
satisfied.”
Wynter looked at him, and realised he was serious, and in a
dangerous mood. It would be best to pacify him, and rather a joke to
frighten the draper; perhaps even it might stay proceedings.
He drew up the challenge with all the formality of a century ago,
and showed it to Reckavile, who gravely agreed, without apparently
seeing any humour in the situation.
Wynter dressed himself in his best, and hailing a hansom cab,
drove to Wheatland Emporium in Highbury.
He found him, an anxious worried little man, pompous and vain,
with horrible mutton chop whiskers.
He had risen by energy and hard work through the stages of
assistant to shop-walker and manager, until he had obtained a shop
of his own, and his middle aged affection had been lavished on his
cashier Winnie, then a beautiful young girl, and ambitious.
 She had married him for his money, hoping to twist him round her
fingers, and found him vain and jealous, and exacting in his ideas
both of marital duty and spending limits.
Wynter he greeted with the artificial smile of the business man
expecting custom, and the latter bowed politely; he was enjoying his
part. “Mr. Wheatland, I believe?” he said.
“The same, sir, at your service,” answered the other.
“May I have a word with you, sir?” said the soldier.
“Certainly, come to my office.”
Seated in Wheatland’s private room, Wynter felt a sudden distaste
at his mission. After all, this poor man had been treated badly, and
he had his rights like anyone else.
“I am afraid I have come on an unpleasant errand,” he said “I
represent Lord Reckavile.”
The draper stiffened. “I do not wish to hear anything from that
man, my lawyer has the matter in hand.”
Wynter waved his hand. “This is not a lawyer’s business, but a
personal one—my friend Reckavile feels that you have a distinct
grievance, in fact that you have the right to demand satisfaction. He
is willing to waive his rank, and will meet you, if you will nominate a
second with whom I may arrange details.”
“A second, I don’t understand,” said the bewildered Wheatland.
“Exactly, a friend who will act for you. You can then fight for the
lady. He feels that as the aggrieved party you have the right to
challenge, but you might feel diffident on account of the disparity in
rank.” He produced his Cartel and spread it out.
The little man’s eyes fairly bulged in his head.
“Either you are playing a very discreditable practical joke, or your
friend is mad. Fight, sir, I never heard such rubbish. Are we back in
the Middle Ages? The Law, sir, will give me protection, and I shall
immediately communicate with my solicitor to stop this murderous
ruffian.”
Then his manner changed, and in a whining tone he said, “Is it not
enough that he has seduced my wife, whom I loved with all my heart,
but he must seek my life as well.”
Wynter felt uncomfortable, and cursed himself for coming.
 He rose to his feet, and buttoned up his coat, thrusting his famous
challenge into his pocket.
“Then I may take it, Mr. Wheatland, that you will not fight,” he said.
“Certainly not, sir, I never heard anything so preposterous in my
life,” said the other.
“Very good, but on one point you are wrong. Reckavile is a strange
creature, and he does not wish to kill you; in fact he was hoping you
would kill him.”
Wheatland gazed at him open-mouthed.
“Kill him, sir, and how much better off should I be if I were hanged
for murder, than if I were murdered myself. And what would become
of my business; I should look ridiculous.”
Wynter felt he had better terminate the interview.
“Good-day, Mr. Wheatland,” he said bowing slightly.
Wheatland laid a hand on his arm.
“He will marry her, won’t he sir, when I have my divorce; I should
not like to think he would desert her.”
There was something in the tone which went to Wynter’s heart.
This stubborn man, who would not forgive, and who was willing to
face publicity for the sake of his personal honour, yet hoped that the
woman would find happiness or at any rate safety by marrying the
man.
“I’ll tell him,” said Wynter hurriedly, and went out.
Reckavile was waiting for him in the Club. He had occupied his
time in tossing a friend for sovereigns, and had liberally attended to
his needs for liquid refreshment.
He listened in scornful silence to Wynter’s recital.
“And so the merchant won’t fight,” he said.
“Not likely,” said Wynter with a loud laugh “and the best of the joke
is he wants you to marry the woman.”
Reckavile sat up straight and Wynter eyed him narrowly.
“Of course, that’s your affair, old man, but it certainly looks as
though you are caught at last,” and he slapped the other on the
back. “We all know about the Reckavile honour. You are all
blackguards of the worst type, but men of honour of a sort—a
curious sort.”
There were several in the group, and they laughed boisterously.
 “Damn you, you need not remind me of that,” said Reckavile, his
thoughts were with a little lady with great eyes in Italy, watching for
his coming with a lovelit face, whom this same sense of honour has
compelled him to marry. He shook himself.
“You’ll all dine with me,” he said “and we’ll have a flutter
afterwards, but I’m sorry the merchant would not fight.”
 Chapter IV.
The Divorce and After
Wheatland got his divorce. There was no defence, for when
Reckavile considered the matter with his family lawyer, he decided
not to have certain letters read in court, and all the details published
in the papers.
He wandered restlessly between London and his castle at
Portham, not able to leave for Italy till the case was over. He wrote
Carlotta, passionate love letters, but gave no address, for to her he
was Hugh Desmond, and no other.
In spite of all the appeals made to him by Winnie in tearful and
illiterate letters, he made no answer, nor would he see her. He told
his lawyer to look to it that she wanted for nothing, and there the
matter rested.
It was the day after the decree nisi had been pronounced when
Reckavile went to his lawyer, Mr. Curtis, head of Curtis, Figgis and
Brice, for a final interview as he was leaving for Italy the next day.
The thought thrilled him, as he pictured her whose whole longing
was bound up in him, with no aspiration after title, or social position,
and trust—absolute trust—that was the very devil.
Curtis was speaking.
“Of course, I don’t know what you propose to do, Lord Reckavile,
when the decree is made absolute—it is hardly my affair, except—
ahem—as the old family lawyer who knew your father, perhaps …”
he stopped confused.
“Well?”
“What I meant to convey was, that if you made the lady an
allowance as you are doing, it would appear sufficient. In your
position I do not think an alliance would be desirable or even
necessary.”
 Reckavile’s face hardened.
“You mean as I have compromised the lady, I should now desert
her—of course, with an allowance,” he added bitingly.
Curtis was uneasy, for he knew the Reckaviles; but the marriage
must be stopped. He tried once more.
“It would never do. You know that the estate is heavily mortgaged,
and you are well—rather careless in money matters. I had hoped
that you would marry some desirable lady of your class, with
sufficient funds to put the family in a satisfactory position. I think that
is very necessary.”
He paused at the look on Reckavile’s face. His eyes were dull
black, like a snake’s, and his mouth was twisted in a fiendish smile.
Curtis knew that look only too well.
“Thank you, Curtis,” he said “I was undecided, and thought of
tossing for it, but you have made up my mind for me. I shall certainly
marry the woman—or at least give her my name for what it is worth,
and that should be sufficient punishment for anyone.”
“But, my Lord …”
Reckavile held up his hand. “There is no need for further
discussion.”
A knock sounded at the door, and the clerk came in.
“A lady wishes to see Lord Reckavile,” he said to Curtis “she
would not wait, sir, and seemed very impatient.”
He was brushed aside, and Winnie swept into the office. Her
colour was high, and she certainly looked a beauty at that moment.
The worry of the last few months instead of marring her looks, had
softened the lines of her face, and her fine eyes were appealing. She
came straight to Reckavile, ignoring the lawyer altogether, but
something in the sternness of his face made her pause.
“Oh Hugh!” she said, not venturing to go to him, “why have you
treated me like this? You have taken no notice of my letters, and
refused to see me. Are you going to desert me after you have ruined
me?” Her voice broke, and there were signs of coming tears.
“You need have no apprehension on that score,” he answered
coldly. “I have already discussed the matter with Mr. Curtis here.
When the time comes, you shall become Lady Reckavile, and have
my honoured name. You have a witness here,” and he smiled like
Satan at Curtis.
“But Hugh, you are so hard, so cold. It is your love I want as well
as to be your wife,” she added hastily.
He was unmoved.
“I have said, Winnie, that you shall become my wife. Anything else
I do not care to discuss, especially before another.” Curtis had
remained in the hope that he could dissuade Reckavile from his
purpose, but he now hastily made to go, when the other stopped
him.
“No, Curtis, don’t go. There is nothing to add. I am leaving
England, and you know where to find me. This lady can
communicate with you, and you will continue her allowance. When
my presence is necessary I will come. You can arrange the details at
a registry office, as quietly as possible. No fuss, please, and above
all keep it out of the papers.”
Winnie turned red with anger and shame. How brutal he was and
callous, it was worse than anything that had gone before. Before she
could collect her thoughts Reckavile had turned on his heel, and
strode from the room.
She would have tried tears, or a passionate appeal, but what was
the good of that with a dry old lawyer, whose face was impassive.
“What a way to treat me after all I have been through for him,” she
blazed out, but Curtis remained silent.
“He said he loved me, and that he would remain true to me,” she
went on.
“I am afraid Lord Reckavile has said that to many,” said Curtis
dryly, drawing a paper towards him, “and as for standing by you, you
are the first who has had the honour of becoming Lady Reckavile.”
His tone was final, and she felt the futility of talking to a parchment
faced lawyer, whose sympathies were obviously with Lord Reckavile,
and who considered she was getting out of it very well. With a toss of
her head she went, vowing she would never enter the place again.
And Reckavile paced the deck of the Channel boat, deep in
thought. His mind ran on suicide, which was the common weakness
in his family, and generally the solution of impossible positions.
 Then another thought came to him, and the more he turned it over,
the better he liked it. Why not end the Line without violent means. He
would give Winnie his name and the Estate for what it was worth. As
Lord Reckavile he would cease to exist, but in sunny Italy, Hugh
Desmond would bury himself with his little wife, and he would earn a
living by his painting, for he was no mean artist.
The idea pleased him. Flowers and kisses, and lying in the sun,
with not too much work, and perhaps a minor war or so to chase
away boredom. By the time he had reached Italy he had made up his
mind. There was only one more hurdle, the ceremony in London,
and then happiness awaited him. The bigamy did not worry him in
the least, such trifles were nothing to a Reckavile.
At Venice he waited all day, and a strange feeling of apprehension
came to him. Suppose something had happened to Carlotta in his
absence; he had left her, a mere girl—alone, with only servants of
whom he knew nothing. Suppose she were ill, or even dead. A
nervousness never felt before beset him. Impatiently he drove out to
Murano, and came to the Villa San Rocco. Night was falling as he
passed through the lovely garden, and approached the windows
from which a soft light shone. She was sitting inside, a piece of work
had dropped from her hands to the floor, and her great eyes were
gazing at nothing. How sweet she looked and how dainty, but so
sad. He had never seen her thus, and pity filled his heart, and
reproach.
He entered through the open window, and with a great cry she
came to him, holding out both arms. He took her to himself in a
passionate embrace, and with a feeling deeper than the old stirring
of desire. She raised her radiant face to his in perfect happiness.
“Oh, Hugh, I am so happy. You’ve come back to me.”
There was no word of reproach, no shadow of fretfulness at his
long absence.
The past and future were gone, and for the moment the pure bliss
of being together absorbed their beings.
She roused herself with a happy laugh, and kissed him, her face
rosy with delight.
“I must tell the servants about dinner, and you will want to dress
won’t you?”
 She looked older, more self assured, but more beautiful than ever,
he thought.
He had left his bag in the carriage, and went for it, and to pay the
driver.
When he returned, she was waiting for him, and led him shyly to
their room, fragrant with flowers, and the odours of the night.
She showed him everything with childish pleasure, all arranged for
his return, and his dressing room on which she had lavished such
care, overlooking the rose garden.
Dinner was laid in the loggia, and he seated himself with a sigh of
contentment. The spotless linen and sparkling glass and silver
added to his sense of happiness. She rose and filled his glass, and
he made her sip from it first, the scent of her hair and the nearness
of her warm body intoxicating him. He would have taken her into his
arms, but that the servants were hovering near.
She was dressed in a soft evening gown, which showed the
perfect lines of her young body, and he wondered at her beauty.
Never once did she ask him where he had been, or what he had
been doing, but listened as he told her of England, and then
recounted the little trifles of her life, so pathetically filled with the
sorrow at his absence though she did not speak of it.
They sat over their coffee while he smoked a cigar from his Club,
which had never seemed so fragrant before.
At last he rose.
“It is getting chilly, darling,” he said in a voice he tried to steady.
“Let’s go to bed.”
A deep blush dyed her neck and face, as she rose and took his
hand.
 Chapter V.
The Second Marriage
The summons had come, and Hugh braced himself to meet the
call. Would to God he could have refused to go; to pretend that he
was dead, anything to get out of it. But the perverted honour of the
Curse drove him to play the last scene to the end.
“I shall only be away for a week, Darling,” he told her. “There is a
certain property of mine I must look after.” That was true.
“When I come back this time, I shall not leave you again.”
She smiled at him; the wrench was not so bad this time, and she
had other things to think of. When he came back she would tell him,
and she hid her secret close, nursing the thought in her breast.
She came with him to Venice, careful that he had everything for
the journey, papers and cigars. He watched her with a dull sense of
pain; the deception hurt him as nothing had done before.
He had converted a shed into a studio, and she had posed for him,
as he had said at their first meeting. Already one picture was
finished, and he would have sold it, but could not bear to part with it.
Another was half done, which he would finish when he came back,
he told himself.
In London, summer was at its height, but he had no pleasure in it.
The Club nauseated him, and the old companions found him
changed, dull and uninteresting. He was out of touch with things.
Only Wynter and a few intimates who knew, surmised that the
prospect of marriage had caused the change, and behind his back
betted how long he would retain faithful to his marriage vows.
Winnie he met only at the lawyer’s the day before the wedding.
She found him cold and reserved, but he was startled with the
change in her. She was sweetness itself, her voice subdued and a
look in her eyes he had never seen before. He thought her much
improved, and was glad of it. She made no mention of his absence,
nor did she speak of the past, she seemed to be seeing a vision.
Wynter and two friends had promised to come to the registry office
with him, prepared for a joke, but his face subdued them, and they
became silent. A visit to the Club first was insisted upon. Reckavile
wore his ordinary clothes, with no sign of the bridegroom about him.
“Cheer up, man,” said Wynter “it’s not an execution you know, and
after all there are worse things. You will have a better chance as a
married man, they always get the pick of the bunch.”
They all laughed, and Reckavile seemed to rouse himself.
“Another bottle,” he said with his old gaiety, “why are we going
thirsty? Call that damned waiter.”
They were far from thirsty, when they came to the place where
Curtis looking like an undertaker, met them with the marriage
settlement. It was the most wicked document he had ever drawn up,
for Reckavile had made over everything which was not entailed to
his wife, no doting swain sick with love could have bartered himself
away so completely. It was the price he was paying for his folly, but
Curtis little knew what was in his mind. It appeared to him sheer
madness. Winnie had scarcely looked at it, and she went up in the
opinion of the old lawyer, who expected a sordid interest. She
seemed quite content to have Hugh without any thought of money.
And she certainly was beautiful, more so than ever before, thought
Hugh, not realising that every woman is transfigured on her bridal
day.
Then for a moment something comes to her in a flash, whether
with the organ pealing in some grand old Church, or in the squalid
surroundings of the registry office, a light from the Unknown
illuminates her soul, and departs leaving only the memory of a guest
that tarrieth but an hour.
Winnie had brought a girl friend with her, a devoted little soul who
had stuck by her all through and borne with her moods. That she
was young and attractive was quite enough for the amorous Wynter,
who began to make violent love to her at once.
The ceremony was over, with that blinding swiftness which has an
element of indecency in it. Before they realised that it had started,
they were signing their names, and the step had been taken from
which there is no retreat. The situation was beginning to appeal to
Reckavile’s cynical mind. After all Italy was far, and why the devil
should one be tied up with one woman. To hell with convention. He
had been too solemn, too wrapped up in domesticity; it was a great
mistake. There was an awkward pause, and Winnie looked shyly at
him, while the fussy little registrar buzzed around getting signatures
of witnesses.
Well, why not? Reckavile took Winnie by both hands and kissed
her, if not with affection, at any rate with a satisfying thoroughness.
The ice was broken, and Wynter and the two friends he had
brought followed suit, taking liberal toll both with Winnie and Florrie,
her friend, whose surname no one troubled to ask.
Even the old lawyer began to thaw, now that the irrevocable step
had been taken.
Wynter had arranged for a private room at the Gloucester, and
thither they adjourned. Curtis protested, but was lifted bodily into a
cab by the others, and brought along as a trophy.
The lunch was a merry one; Reckavile threw off all his moodiness.
It would be time enough to tell Winnie what he intended to do later
on. He was going to send her to Reckavile Castle, where he had
arranged matters with the butler, and he was for Italy. He knew there
would be a scene, and it would be as well to play the farce out first.
Soon corks were popping, the wine was running free and Wynter
filled Curtis’ glass to the brim.
“But I never take anything now,” he protested “I suffer much with
the gout.”
“That shows what a wicked youth you were,” said Wynter “but all
doctors agree about the hair of the dog that bit you. Drink up old
Deed Box, and smile at the Bride.”
As the meal proceeded the guests became more riotous. Wynter
was one who seldom showed signs of excess; he became solemnly
humorous, and then slept, but now he rose unsteadily to his feet and
gazed around with an owlish expression.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I rise to propose t’health of the Bride. ’Ont
congratulate you. Reckavile is sad dog, like all his family, but hope
fot’ best. Congratulate Hugh, damned pretty woman, beg pardon,
Ladies, but ’struth. Wish I had married her myself. Never mind.
Lucky to have hooked him, many tried unsuccessively—wrong—
unsuccess …, without success, t’ats better.
“Well, don’t want long speeches. Here’s to Bride, and all the little
Reckaviles, past, present and to come,” and he sat down.
“Get up you ass, and propose the toast,” said Harding, one of the
guests attempting to pour port into Curtis’ glass, and spilling most on
the table.
“I never take port now,” said the unhappy Curtis “the doctor has
absolutely forbidden it.”
“Stupid ass, the doctor,” said Harding “Port best thing for gout in
the world.”
Wynter rose again with difficulty and gave his toast which was
drunk with musical or unmusical honours. A waiter entered to ask
whether anything was required, and Harding hit him with a ripe
watermelon, which exploded over his shirt front, and he retired.
“Speech,” said Wynter clapping his hands vigorously.
Winnie’s face was flushed though she had drunk sparingly. In a
few tasteful words she thanked Wynter, and hoped that she would
make a good wife for Hugh, and that he did not regret the step he
had taken. It was a good little speech, and Reckavile was pleased
with her. She was a damned good sort, he found himself repeating,
and the subaltern on his left whose very name he had forgotten
agreed heartily with him.
Florrie had left the table and was sitting at the piano playing soft
tunes, while Harding was tickling her neck with a peacock’s feather
he had taken from an ornament on the mantelpiece.
Wynter rose to his feet again.
“Young couple want to start on Honeymoon. Got a proposiss … a
proposal. They want to go to Reckavile Castle. The trains no good,
too unromantic, I got my coach here, won competition yesterday, or
day before, I forget which. Bring it round here, and we’ll all go in
style. Only just beyond Brighton eh? No distance. What der say
Hugh, old bounder?”
It suited Reckavile’s mood. Anything to get into the air, and the
swift motion especially with the excitement of being driven by a
drunken man appealed to him. After all he might just as well see her