Frontmatter -- Chapter I The role of semiotics in research on consumer esthetics -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Some background on the study of signs -- 3. The study of signs in consumer esthetics -- 4. Criticisms and defenses of interpretive semiology -- 5. Preview -- Chapter II Semiotics and popular culture -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The ideology of consumption -- 3. Motion picture mythology -- Chapter III Romanticism and sentimentality in consumer behavior: A literary approach to the joys and sorrows of consumption -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Romanticism -- 3. The joys and sorrows of consumption -- 4. Epilogue -- Chapter IV Seven routes to facilitating the semiotic interpretation of consumption symbolism and marketing imagery in works of art -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Prospects and problems, dangers and difficulties -- 3. Seven routes to interpretation -- 4. Conclusion -- Appendices -- 1. Appendix 1: Women of Manhattan -- 2. Appendix 2: Beverly Hills cop -- 3. Appendix 3: Tin men and the marketing concept -- 4. Appendix 4: Gremlins as metaphors for materialism -- 5A. Appendix 5A: Coastal disturbances (coauthored with Stephen Bell and Mark W. Grayson) -- 5B. Appendix 5B: Sacred and secular consumption imagery in A Christmas carol -- 6. Appendix 6: Automotive signs in Two for the road -- 7. Appendix 7: Major and minor uses of symbolic consumer behavior to develop plot and character in Out of Africa (coauthored with Mark W. Grayson) -- References -- Index