Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Institutional economic theory of marketing (Conspicuous Consumption) -…
Institutional economic theory of marketing (Conspicuous Consumption)
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous act - something that can be clearly seen by others and or attracts attention
When people spend money to: stand out in the crowd, highlight success, blend into the crowd, hide success
Conspicuous consumption - spending money to show off or celebrate in order to be recognised and validated by others
Institutional perspective - People are more likely to consume more if the people around them are also consuming
What people consume and spend on is purely dependent on what people around them purchase as they try to fit in with others
Keeping up with the Joneses
People consume unnecessarily to impress others or to not look like their social status is lower than others
Wealth must be shown off and displayed
Social status cannot be gained merely by owning expensive goods
Eg many holidays abroad to sort after locations
Diven by others tastes and not the consumers
To fit in - Obtain the feeling of normalcy and security
To Outdo - feeling of beoing special, outdo peers in terms of beauty and powess
To award a sense of prestige
Economic behaviour that is designed to outdo peers, to obtain a feeling of self-seteem and to overcome feelings of inferioroity
Types of conspicuous consumption
Many occasions people make purchases such as: confromatory, remove feelings of inferiority or invidious (convey superiority to peers)
Consumers often have items that: Have very little or no additional use over and above the standard version or any additional value that the product has is out of place
to conform to a social group - many consume conspicuously out of fear of reprisals
Buy brands to conform to the type of person they want to be
Can choose to reveal or hide something about them
People want to be comfortable or to show how up to date or tendy a person is
Problems with Conspicuous consumption
Does everyone participate in conspicuous consumption activities?
Some people may purposly refrain from these activities because of upbringing or leant the need not to show off or emulate their peers
Some people may not be able to participate in these activities as their income is too constrained
When does imitation (Humans imitating their environment) turn into emulation (desire to outdo peers)?
Do the lower class emulate the presigious style of the rich?
When the rich no longer conform to their own class, are they signalling that they are so wealthy that they no longer care about signalling staus?
Institutional economic perspective argues that the behaviour of individuals is not sovereign to each individual and is dependent on what others think
Very difficult to identify evidence for this perspective
Who are the jonses for each individual?
The impact of being an acquaintance is different from one person to the next
Theorists
Jackson 2017 - "Ordinary people spending money they dont have, on things they dont like, to create impressions that wont last, on people they dont care about"
Veblen
Veblen 1899 - " As others conspicuously consume to illistrate their own social status within a society, an individual is also compelled to also consume conspiuously to illistrate that their own status is on par with or above those around them"
Veblen 1899 - "Simply owning an expensive item is not enough, you also need to actively display it"
Veblen 1899 - "People need to conspicuously consume in order to give an indication of their wealth to others within a society, to enforce their relative position, and climb the social rank in society
Veblen 1899 - "Signalling financial power siggests one can afford to waste money on a trivial yet expensive gadget"
Hirsch 1976 - "Tastes are displayed as goods that relate to our relative position within society, often referred to as positional goods"
Gershuny 2004 - Inconspicuous consumption "Work rich, time poor people purchase items to put into store to consume at a later date"
Portwood-Stacer 2013 - Conspicuous non-consumption "Whereby consumers abstain from engaging with particular often media encouraged activites"