Consumer Culture Theory - Essay Example

IN ORDER TO TARGET CONSUMER CULTURE(S), MARKETERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND CLASS”. Student Name Course Code and Name Professor University State Date Due “IN ORDER TO TARGET CONSUMER CULTURE(S), MARKETERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND CLASS” Section 1 Paragraph 1 Consumer’s culture is not a new concept in the marketing world. According to Arnould (2005, p.868-882) consumer culture is the approach that markers use to make consumers purchase goods and spend on commodities. This concept involves concrete decision making, ideas and approaches which will satisfy consumers’ needs. Hence, marketers mainly focus on the class of the consumers in order to affect various aspects of the people live regarding their class. In most of the world’s countries, example the US the economy is based on classes of the people that is an upper, middle and lower class. In US the classes are based on the criteria of education, ethnic group and income etc (Featherstone 2007, n.d). While also in many of the African countries class classification of the consumers is based on class ness, therefore, the study will be based on whether the marketers need to focus on class or not while conducting their marketing activities such as advertisements. While considering consumer culture on the basis of their classes, developing the income level, education, race, region of origin and the consumer’s ethnicity will be essential. Changes also in the consumers taste will be evaluated on the basis of demographic, family status that is, married or single and the friends that one has will influence on what they purchase or spend their income on (Pugh 2009, n.d). This essay will mainly focus on household goods consumption that is, whatever one person consumes at his or her home with a broad view from the United State to the African consumer for the same goods. Household consumption being a basic necessity for all human beings. Marketers therefore, need to be keen on their marketing skills to establish what is their consumers need in order to do the rightful advertisement (Okazaki, Mueller and Taylor 2010, p.26). Class of consumers positively affects household consumption example, In the US the upper class people normally have a taste on manufactured products such as canned fruits and meat, the lower class however, in the same nation normally comprises the poor people with very low income they have little option of what meals they consume. Section 2: Argument For Paragraph 2 According to the theory of individualism in different countries, states that countries with a higher income level have got a higher level of consumption bases on class than those countries with a lower income level (Holt 2002, p.88). Thus, marketers need to understand the consumers’ individualistic desires that makes them live in happiness all times. This will allow them to focus on what every consumer needs bases on class level. The movement of families and individuals from lower class to an upper class is dependent of economic changes of places they are living in. Example is the use US where social class exist but changes to class can occur from a lower class to a middle class exist once the income level upgrades, but in a nation like India where the caste system exist no social mobility can ever exist since if one is in the agricultural family they will exist there forever, the leadership family will exist in leadership roles ‘aristocratic’ forever thus marketers will benefit more in India if they focus on class culture compared to the US (Westjohn et al. 2012, p.71). The marketers need to have a clear picture of the kind of people they are dealing with, in families where children find themselves in lower social class, the aspirations that is provided to them in advertisement that shows how educated people can purchase fast-foods, make these children have the motivation to work hard and have money of their own to make those purchases. According to Dominguez and Watkins (2003, p.111-135), those people in the upper class are more geared to attain formal thinking and abstract thinking while those in the lower class they only think of basic necessities for living, therefore he states that cultural reasoning can affect people mobility upwards and marketers have made relied on this assumption to market and sell their products. The marketers need have a great role in designing special products that can facilitate social mobility example developing a good advertisement for a certain college, they need to provide clear pictorial showing the difference between the possessions of a graduate and the possession of a class 6 dropout this will automatically induce parents to take their children to school and in the long run the marketers will have made sales by basically understanding their consumer class and exploiting it. Paragraph 3 There is dire need to have understanding of the class that the consumers are in in order to facilitate a comprehensive marketing strategy. According to Bourdieu’s (1991), the dynamics and the power of the society is eminent on how power is allocated and maintained across social classes of all generations. In order to develop the consumption patterns the social dynamics and social life is essential. For markers they need to focus on the education of the consumers in order to know what they are able to purchase. The taste of consumable goods lies on the judgment of the consumer’s social positioning (Mafé and Navarré 2006, p.21). The aesthetic nature of consumption according to Bourdieu is basically associated with the education and where the person socially originates. Social class normally helps in shaping the consumption practices in the structure thus, markets should seek to understand it first. The ruling made on taste is basically with the power of the ruling class in the society where the upper class can abandon some highly valued foods to lower foods for the lower social class. The social class in this social structure is between consumption and taste trends of the people, those having a good taste for the food as being on a higher social class and those with a heavier consumption being on a higher social structure (Bigne et al. 2005, p.193). Considering consumption of meat, as an example distinction on basis of class is evident in many African countries, those with higher incomes are regarded as them who can afford to purchase meat, however, due to health issues associated with meat consumption the people on a higher social class are abandoning meat for vegetable consumption. The idea of social class is also used by simmel, in his view that people in the higher class can abandon highly valued foods or drinks and adopt those for considered for the lower class this becomes an individualism tool and social class distinction that is useful for marketers. Paragraph 4 Veblen (2009) defines Veblen consumption as the utilization of goods whose demand increases when prices increases. The thinking behind the consumption of these good is attached to the mindset that, consuming an expensive good, is consumption of a better quality good. Example when the price of a certain fashionable is higher the demand for the same good goes higher since the consumer thinks that the material making the good is more better. In US when the price of Honda motorbike went higher the demand of the same increased therefore, this can be considered as a Veblen good. The markers has a task to develop whether, the consumers’ culture of the people targeted regards higher price as a reflection of quality (Wedel and Kamakura 2012, n.d). The markers also need to understand whether the consumers are conspicuous’ purchasers who buys goods to show theirs social status and or the success they have in their life. For some consumers they like wearing clothes that will communicate their success or social level class, therefore if marketers have this understanding developing such clothes design and advertising them to these people will make them fetch higher income for the increased purchase at a higher price on the commodities (Westjohn et al. 2012, p.61). However, in the contemporary would, Veblen consumption based on conspicuous consumption occurs in a limited way, since not many consumers in the developing nation can afford to continue consuming a good whose price continues consuming. The contemporary world is based more on consuming normal goods whose demand increases on price reduction. Therefore, to a greater extent class determination is important on determining kind of market the marker is dealing with. Paragraph 5 In accordance to the Marxism theory on consumption, every individual has their own class in the hierarchy which is determined by the role that they play in the production process and the class position they are in (Pettinger 2015, n.d). being in one class means that those people are interested in common commodities The classes can be distinguished from one another on basis of ownership for means of production and labor control. Being class consciousness brings self-awareness in social classes. People are able to classify themselves into a given class in the society. The marketers understanding of class is essential in developing consumers’ needs and wants being class predetermined makes consumer organize themselves into similar classes comprising of people purchasing particular similar type of goods (Dominguez and Watkins 2003, p.121). for instance, in the US where classes exist people from the loyal families that is the ruling families are associated with purchasing similar models of vehicles such as the Rolls Royce and Maybach. A similar example is where the Chinese market the consumption of luxury goods hiked in 2012 and accounted for 25% in the global market. This notion of class concept can only exist where people are earning higher incomes and can be able to change based on the changing trends of the market (Arnould and Thompson 2005, p.871) In most of the developing economies there exist a classless society. Since the level of income and education is lower, majority of the people are concerned in consumption to live but not the quality of what they consume thus marketers can easily formulate better strategies to help them capture this market. Section 3: argument against Paragraph 6 The class system does not always work in considering the consumers behaviour, while working on marketing of consumers good the marketer need not to have understanding of consumers culture class. Considering the consumption of basic needs such as food, example taking a breakfast before going to work. For some people it’s a must to take something with tea and for others it’s a great privilege to take tea together with bread but this is not associated with class (Pugh 2009, n.d). For instance, food consumption is a basic necessity for every human being, but food consumption is based on the income and the class of the people concerned, Example of two people in the African context the first person have white tea with sugar together with toast and another takes black sugarless tea alone for breakfast, the consideration is that the first person is wealthier and socially segmented but this does not mean there are of different classes. Ability to purchase basic commodity is driven by the desire to consume but not on class basis (Westjohn 2012, p.72). Marketers need not to practice class based segmentation while conducting marketing for their advertisements, every commodity has got its potential consumers, people having similar interest and needs and also location should be segmented together since it’s impossible to target the entire market due to the restrictions offered in that effort (Wedel and Kamakura 2012, p.66). for instance, marketers while marketing of the Bon Jovi versus Crosby still and Nash fans the Pandora radio did a segmentation which was based on interest and the demographic of the fans. While conducting segmentation its essential to consider psychological, demographic, and geographic and Behaviour of the consumers therefore, it’s the role of marketers to understand the consumers’ culture but not their class for them to remain relevant in their work. Paragraph 7 In situation where people exist without any social classes, the scenarios where all people have got no distinction on all social, economic and political indicators exist in the society. This can only be in- existence where the inequalities and the injustices have been taken out of social ranking (Bigne et al. 2005, p.189). Hence, in this class less society there is no power possession by the upper social class. To reach a situation of social classless the economic mobility is important, developing a situation where technology, education and every worker owns the means to produce these classes will gradually disappear. Examples of product in a class less society is availability of food to every human being in a certain region and every individual is educated therefore can be able to earn a living. The marketers need not to understand the classes in the society and thus should try to bring uniformity in their marketing approaches and eventually eliminate classes in the society. Most companies that have tried to segment their markets in terms of classes have incurred losses and some closed shop, case in point Nokia. Smith (1978) contends that, 8the consumption is always the purpose during all production. In considering the consumer sovereignty, the goal is consumer satisfaction where the needs and the wants usually designs the shape of economic activities as opposed to class and culture. Paragraph 8 During the consumption process, the people do not consume based on class, the consumers always keep the economy moving by creating demand for what has been produced (Featherstone 2007, n.d). Therefore, for the producers to continue producing there must be demand for their products, this makes the consumer central to economic system. In other situation people also need to promote their well-being in what they consume, lifestyle therefore is a major issue during consumers’ satisfaction. During advertisement the focus is on the consumer as a basic unit of the society (Holt 2002, p.87). It’s the role of the producer to focus on what their consumers need to purchase going by their taste and preferences and class do not determine how the demand will be. For instance, when a consumer wants to purchase food from the supermarket something like vegetables and groceries, they do so for consumption purposes to satisfy their desire to eat food but not because they are in a particular class of the society, it is therefore the role of the one selling these vegetable to avail what is needed by the consumer at the desired time and place, hence the consumer rules in the market (Okazaki, Mueller and Taylor 2010, p.14). When marketers want to do advertisement they need not to look at the class but the main focus should be on the consumers sovereignty. Paragraph 9 There exist distinction between human beings based on existence of cultural capital in the society, according to Bourdieu’s work he stated that existence of cultural capital among the society members bring about inequalities among them (Pugh 2009, p.21). This makes some consumers to be able to purchase commodities while others are unable to do the same. In capitalist societies it means that the marketers will focus on classes that people lives in in order to understand the consumer’s culture towards a certain commodity (Pettinger 2015, n.d). In the US where the society is capitalist and every individual works for their own gain and incomes are differentiated among people’s purchases are based on what one has in their pocket. Thus, communism removes classes and makes everyone equal, understanding these markets is quite challenging and predicting their culture may lead to extensive losses in the involved company. In cultures where communism exist like in African context for a country like Tanzania where communism societies exist, all people draw their resources towards a common pool and all people are equal and they consume similar commodities thus the marketer has to emphasis on a different marketing aspect since classes do not exist in such contexts. This may pose challenges to the capitalist society marketers since consumers in this society do not spend on class but rather on what they feel is necessary. The metropolis for instance work under the communist societies and are against any form of societal classification (Pettinger 2015, n.d). Section 4 Paragraph 10 In conclusion, majority of the researchers have coined the role of class in marketing of various goods and services. Moreover, the consumers culture is important in showing what people are willing to consume and what product they attaches greater taste to, It is evident that both class and class less societies exist but in many societies class economies are dominant. The consumer sovereignty is of great importance as it guides on what the producer can make and avail into the market. In shaping the consumers culture Marxists have suggested that determining the class of people will work well when planning how to market a product. Therefore, according to this topic clear understanding of the class of the consumers’ culture in my own opinion is essential as it will guide the marketer on the best approach to use while conducting marketing and formulating strategies. Having a clear picture on the class of people enables a marketer not to waste a lot of time dealing with the wrong people. Hence, class focus is very instrumental while dealing with marketing across all nations as this has helped companies like Apple grow exponentially. References Arnould, E.J. and Thompson, C.J., 2005. Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty years of research. Journal of consumer research, 31(4), pp.868-882. Bigne, E., Ruiz, C. and Sanz, S., 2005. The impact of internet user shopping patterns and demographics on consumer mobile buying behaviour. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 6(3), p.193. Dominguez, S. and Watkins, C., 2003. Creating networks for survival and mobility: Social capital among African-American and Latin-American low-income mothers. Social problems, 50(1), pp.111-135. Featherstone, M., 2007. Consumer culture and postmodernism. Sage. Holt, D.B., 2002. Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of consumer research, 29(1), pp.70-90.l Okazaki, S., Mueller, B. and Taylor, C.R., 2010. Global consumer culture positioning: testing perceptions of soft-sell and hard-sell advertising appeals between US and Japanese consumers. Journal of International Marketing, 18(2), pp.20-34. Pettinger, L., 2015. Work, consumption and capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan. Pugh, A.J., 2009. Longing and belonging: Parents, children, and consumer culture. University of California Press. Ruiz Mafé, C. and Lassala Navarré, C., 2006. Segmenting consumers by e-shopping behaviour and online purchase intention. Journal of Internet business, 3, pp.1-24. Veblen, T. and Banta, M., 2009. The theory of the leisure class. Oxford University Press. Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A., 2012. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations (Vol. 8). Springer Science & Business Media. Westjohn, S.A., Singh, N. and Magnusson, P., 2012. Responsiveness to global and local consumer culture positioning: A personality and collective identity perspective. Journal of International Marketing, 20(1), pp.58-73. 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