Consumer Happiness: The Give and Take of Emotional Products: A Case Study in Philanthropic Branding

This study reports on a two-year ethnographic research project that focused on a cause-related professional feature film production in which the researcher participated as the film director. The feature film was made to support an orphanage and theatrically released in 2009. Findings from this research project build on and extend the gift giving literature. Specifically, this study proposes the Epic Gift system, connecting the commodity exchange, gift giving and sharing systems. The Epic Gift requires multiple contributors to complete the gift for momentous reasons. The findings support the notion that each individual contributor conceives different meaning of the gift ranging from a materialistic gift to a taonga and, thus, plays both the giver and receiver roles. Hau and gaunxi largely govern the reciprocity in the Epic Gift system and, therefore, Epic Gift contributors might enjoy eudaimonic outcomes when they contribute, and suffer penalties when they escape the giving circle.