Consumption Meaning - Essay Example

Consumption Meaning: Literature Review Introduction Contemporary organizations are facing cutthroat competition in the current business arena. As a result of this intense rivalry, organizations are compelled to provide quality products and services to sustain their position in the markets. Stiff competition among organizations has reduced the importance of attracting new customers; instead of this organizations are nowadays more concerned with retention of profitable customers. To fulfill the expectations of consumers it has became important to understand the needs, choices, and principle desires preferred by them. Needs can only be identified and prioritized if we apprehend how consumers give meanings to those needs. This document analyzes the meaning that consumers give to consumption by examining various academic literatures. Consumers have a personal domain of knowledge which is nurtured and affected by their native habitat, social environment and culture. Their buying behavior is based on the intuitive knowledge that they possess in their personal repository. This knowledge gives them meaning and value. They ascribe these meanings to marketed products, services, images, ideas and experiences and behave on the basis of these meanings (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). Meaning can be defined as the extent to which a consumer holds something highly regarded and places a high value on it (Hirschman 1991). Semiotics: A study of Signs and Meanings To have a better understanding of the term consumption meaning let us turn to semiotics, a branch of cultural anthropology focused on study of signs. A sign is anything that stands for something else (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). The sign can be communicated through a corporate logo or a brand symbol. “A brand is a sign for the field of meanings consumers integrate into their personal space to enhance, complement or transform themselves and their world” (Oswald 2003). For instance, a logo of “Nike” or the brand “Sony” represents as a sign to the consumers. Consumers perceive these products based on their own experience and are brands or products are given different meanings by different consumers. Semiotics is a three part system and it’s also called as semiotic triangle. It involves a sign, object and an interpretant. For example, Toyota a renowned automobile company would be the object, its logo or brand name would be the sign and “reliable”, “comfortable” and “long lasting” will be the interpretation regarding the brand “Toyota” made by different consumers. Each semiotic triangle exists within a particular cultural context that provides the consumers residing in that society with the knowledge they need to interpret signs (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). A culture is a set of shared that a society considers important and norms of behavior that are sanctioned in the society. These values will determine how people will perceive, think about and react to various environments (Jones & George, 2003). Hence members of a particular community will discern the world around them in similar way and will agree more or less on these meanings. As there are diverse set of communities in the globe, this signifies that meanings vary in each market segments and they are inconsistent among individuals. Therefore this heterogeneity in market segments sets in a complication for marketers as it becomes difficult to personalize the need of each individual. Types of Meanings Meanings play an essential role in generating consumer purchases and they are considered as a vital tool which influences consumer behavior. As per the literature, these meanings are divided into five broad categories; utilitarian, sacred, secular, hedonic and social meanings. Utilitarian meaning is the perceived usefulness of a product in terms of its ability to perform its core functional or physical tasks. Traditionally, marketers believed that utilitarian meanings were the sole tool which moulds the motives of consumer purchase but now they have recognized other forms of meanings which affect consumption. The functional or utilitarian value stems from the physical characteristics of a product such as reliability, durability, robustness, performance and price. For instance, toothpaste brands are promoted and publicized on the basis of their core attributes such as fluoride, baking soda or breath freshness. Consumers grasp meanings on their own and they buy those products which fulfills their personal needs. Utilitarian meanings are mostly derived from advertisements as products are more promoted on the basis of their distinctive features (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). Consumers often express and give meanings to certain aspect of sacredness in their consumption behavior. They value sacredness in their life because they dedicate themselves to a divine purpose in certain occasions. The sacred meaning adheres itself in those things that are discovered to be of paramount importance. Muslims in the month of holy Ramadan consume slightly different things (Dates, Lassi, and other ritual meals) and consecrate their life to this holy month. Commodities in Cairo provide an excellent example of consumption based on sacred commodities. The consumption of prayer beads, Islamic posters, banners, greeting cards, stickers bearing verses from holy Koran become automatic trigger for humane and devotional acts and are considered as a sign of Gods presence (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). Marketers often position their products on the basis of sacred characteristics as it is apparent in many advertisements that they employ sacred theme as a source of enticing the consumers. Secular meanings can be thought of as completely opposite to sacred meanings. Consumers derive such form of meanings from an extremely rational and logical thinking process. Nuprin is a pain reliever that works even on the worst headache pain and it makes sense to use this pain alleviator due to its distinguished characteristic. Secular meanings can be thought of those meanings that are used by consumers to counteract unwanted natural events (e.g. Nuprin in the above example was used to counteract headache) and to dominate others (sports, equipment, apparel, high performance products) (Hirshman 1991). The meanings given by the consumers can be also classified as hedonic meaning. Products acquire hedonic meanings when they are associated with specific intimate feelings or when they facilitate or perpetuate feelings. Many consumers display deep affection with music, art, and religion and they develop passionate attachment with these artifacts. For instance, an art-lover who buys expensive paintings without any rational thought must have a strong emotional bond with aesthetics. Products that affect the personality of a person such as apparel, cosmetics, health foods, perfumes, and personal care products also provide hedonic value (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). Many of the products evoke feelings of comfort and tranquility as consumers link these feelings with their exhilarating childhood experiences, reminiscences, remembered places and loved ones. Familiar brands also remind people of their loved ones and comfort them. According to Olsen, consumers brand equity involves the accumulated history and sentiments attached to particular brands. Another potential source of hedonic meanings emanates from experiences enjoyed by the consumers. “Travel, leisure, tourists firms and recreational services are all primarily in the business of delivering hedonic meanings to consumers” (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). Finally, the social meanings play a dominant role in shaping consumer decisions. The social life provides an environment where you are nurtured and where your interpersonal relationships are the keys to your consumption decisions. The social status of a person is often correlated with his consumption pattern. A concrete example of social meaning is demonstrated in the city of Mexico. People living in that city hold a solemn ceremony during the first two days of November. These two days are devoted to remember those who have died. Consumers express their social meanings by consuming a wide variety of toys, ornaments, foods, and drinks on that day. Meanings Transfer Model So far we have discussed the definition and types meanings that consumers give to their consumption behavior. Now we turn our course and focus on how these meanings are formed. Consumers are initially in an oblivious state but as time passes on then they make sense of their environment and apply the knowledge accumulated from their social settings. Knowledge accumulated is further transferred into the behavior of consumers. –Once these meanings are formed, they often disintegrate and vanish from the behavior of consumers over the period of time. New meanings are formed once consumers gather information in social interactions and they respond to the affirmation and denials given by others. McCracken (1986) proposed a theoretical framework that determines how meanings are formed and transferred to an individual consumer. He explained that the original location of cultural meaning resides in the culturally constituted world. This is the world where consumer is nurtured and where his senses are shaped by the assumptions and beliefs adhered by his culture. These meanings can be defined in terms of two concepts; cultural categories and cultural principles. Source: Adapted from McCracken (1986) Cultural categories symbolize the basic differences that a culture uses to divide up the phenomenal world. For instance each culture sets in distinction between categories of class, social status, gender etc. Consumer goods are interrelated with the categories established by the culture. Many studies have been conducted to confirm the linkage between cultural categories and goods. Levy (1981) conducted a study between food types and their connection with sex and age in American culture. Coleman (1983), Davis (1956), Goffman (1951) and Sommers (1963) studied the relationship between social class and consumer goods. Gender categories have been thoroughly examined by various scholars (Belk 1982; Hirschman 1984; Levy 1959). Cultural principles are also preserved in the meanings promoted by the consumers. The principles determine the values and norms encouraged by that culture. If we say that cultural categories are a result of a culture’s segmentation of the world into discrete parcels than cultural principles will be the organizing ideas by which segmentation is performed (McCracken, 1986). Cultural principles are also encoded in the consumer goods by some form. When goods show a distinction between two different cultural categories they do it so by including the principles which shape the categories. Islam encourages women to wear veil as this feature is established through their principles and values. Instruments for Meaning Transfer: Advertising and Fashion System It is identified through the discussion that the cultural principles and categories provide a sense of meaning to the consumers. They play a critical role in developing a culturally constituted world which influences the decision of consumers in acquiring goods. Once these meanings are formed then they disengage from this world and are transferred into goods. McCracken identified that are two instruments responsible for meaning transfer; advertising and product design as practiced in fashion system. Advertisement is considered as an indispensable tool for transferring meaning from the culturally constituted world to consumer goods. The process of advertising begins with a clear idea of the product on hand. Thorough understanding of the product is an ultimate prerequisite for effective advertisement. Once the features of the products are defined, a communication plan is created which identifies particular meanings to be associated with brand. Advertisements have an essential function; they are designed to evoke meanings in the mind of the target audience. Ads are tacit in nature that is they do not explicitly state their meanings but they merely suggest their meaning and it depends on the audience to fill in missing spaces. The perception, values, beliefs and principles of the audience plays a leading role in drawing out meanings that underlie in missing spaces. For instance, if you are addressing to a seminar in the city of New York and you use the phrase “seventeen seventy six”, the audience sitting in the auditorium would conjure up a mental picture relating to the declaration of independence. This phrase might stimulate their imagination to individuals such as Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin with values such as liberty and patriotism. Advertising is chiefly responsible for the function of socialization, that is transmission of cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes, and it influences the way we view world (Gerbner & Gross 1976). This is symbolic relationship between consumer goods and culturally constituted world and advertising is responsible for fostering this relationship. The audience or viewer attributes to the consumer good certain properties he knows exist in the culturally constituted world (McCracken 1986). In the advertising model of meaning transfer there are three main players; sponsor, author, and persona (Stern 1994). Sponsor as the name suggests is the firm. The author is the agency which creates the theme and message of the advertisement. The persona is the spokesperson or the celebrity endorsed by the firm. The sole purpose of the author or agency is to consolidate the culturally constituted world with the consumer goods. The sponsor provides an explicit view of the product to the agency which includes the physical properties of the product such as price, features and packaging. The objective of agency is to join these elements in such a way that it glimpses a close similarity between the culture of audience and goods. Smooth transfer of meanings is only possible when the agency associate the product with evocative images or themes (Strate 1991). For this purpose, the firm conducts a detailed market research and specifies properties being sought for consumer good. The author then decides where the properties desired for the ad lie in culturally constituted world. The author wields a high range of discretionary power to design the advertisements. The design of the advertisement is crucial in transferring cultural meanings to the consumer goods. An issue of concern for agency at this stage is to decide on whether the place of ad should be a fantasy or natural setting. Time of day and year are to be specified as they may affect the architect of advertisement. If a celebrity or a persona is to be appeared in the advertisement then their age, class, status, occupation, clothing, body postures must be selected carefully as they represent the culture of the consumers (Goffman 1979). The author must choose from among alternatives that have been created by the network of cultural categories and principles that constitute a culture world (McCracken 1986). The author must decide how the culturally constituted world is to be visualized and portrayed in the advertisement. This process consist of examining and identifying all the features that substantiate the selected meaning and then deciding which of those features will be used to evoke this meaning in advertisement (McCracken 1986). It is necessary that the meanings should be conveyed in a simple way and they must not be too hard to understand. Ads use symbolic language to develop relationship between sign, object and interpretant which we discussed in semiotic triangle. Inclusion of visual images and verbal materials enhances the value of communication in advertisements. The selection and combination of visual symbols to achieve persuasive effects is becoming increasingly important in marketing communications (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). It is important that the verbal and the visual characters should complement each other otherwise the ad can distort the meaning. The agency is free to deliver the symbolic properties in the desired way therefore it is necessary to plan and decide on how to present the product in a contrived environment. The meaning is completely transferred to the viewer when he glimpses the sameness in his culturally constituted world and the product. The viewer decodes the message on the basis of cultural beliefs and assumptions. Advertising in the whole process serves as a conduit through which meaning consistently pours from the culturally constituted world to consumer goods (McCracken 1986). The second instrument for transferring meanings to consumer goods is the fashion system. It is somewhat less explicit and more complicated instrument than advertisement. The fundamental difference between advertisement and fashion system lies in the sources of these instruments. Advertisement makes use of an author or agency in exposing and transferring the meaning. On the other hand the fashion system has two sources entrusted with transfer of meaning; media of communication and agent of transfer. As a media of communication, fashion system sometimes work as advertisement, as it is evident in magazines and newspapers, the only difference lies in the way the message is communicated and comprehended. This version of the fashion system incorporates new styles of clothing or home furnishing and links them with the culturally constituted world. For example, magazines devote articles on the personality, preferences, life styles, fashion and clothing of pop stars. A research conducted by (Hogg & Banister 2000) on the study of pop music and young consumers, revealed that image of the personality made a major influence on the consumption decision of the consumers. Image encompassed the appearance, personality and lifestyle of the pop star. Fashion systems are also responsible for inventing new cultural meanings. The execution of the above function of fashion system is invigorated by opinion leaders. These individuals assist in shaping and refining the cultural meanings conjured by the consumers. Opinion leader is basically a person within a reference group who because of special skills, knowledge, personality and other characteristic exert influence on others (Kotler & Armstrong 2006). Opinion leaders are considered as sources of meaning for individuals having lack of knowledge and less information in understanding the products. It has been also noted that the major chunk of the consumers often imitates and follows the vogue promoted by the opinion leaders. There are two agents of transfer in the fashion system; product designers and fashion journalists. Product designers as the name suggests are individuals concerned with designing the architect of the product. The features underlying a product play a vital role in transfer of meaning from culture to consumer goods hence product designers are deemed as an agent of transfer in fashion system. Fashion journalists on the other hand are individuals from media responsible for identifying changes in consumer priorities and preferences. Rituals: Transfer of Meanings from Goods to Individual Consumers According to the McCracken (1986) model of meaning transfer, the cultural meanings are transferred and embedded into consumer goods. The process does not stop here, the meanings further move from goods to the life of consumers. Rituals are considered as an instrument which transfers meanings from the goods to individual consumers. “Ritual refers to a type of expressive, symbolic activity constructed of multiple behaviors that occur in a fixed, episodic sequence and that tend to be repeated over time” (Rook 1985). Generally there are four types of ritual activities which act as an instrument of meaning transfer; exchange rituals, possession rituals, grooming rituals, and divestment rituals. Ceremonies including gift-giving and birthday parities are classified as exchange rituals. Rook (1985) considered Christmas as an exchange ritual as it encompassed of gift giving activities and ritual symbols such as colored lights, mistletoe, wreaths, Santa Clause, foods and drinks. Exchange rituals are deemed as an important tool for insinuating symbolic properties and as a source of interpersonal influence. In these rituals, an individual choose and acquire goods based on his preferences and meanings and then he/she presents it to another individual. The individual selects a good because it possesses the meaningful properties which he intents to transfer into the other person. For instance, a gift presented by a parent to children contains certain symbolic properties which the parent wants to be assimilated by the child. Possession rituals allow consumer to take possession of the meaning of consumer good. Consumers devote a considerable amount of time in personalizing, decorating, discussing, cleaning, comparing, displaying and photographing the possessions that they own. Claiming of possession is considered as an activity through which consumer stresses on his personal identity. For instance, a consumer of a car might claim that the car never seemed to belong to him, because he denies the symbolic properties possessed by that car. In reality the car is owned by the consumer but the symbolic meanings remain stationary. Individuals often assert on some goods as they become source of personal identity. A study revealed that children who bought their cloths from leading retail outlets often leave the tags on their clothing to show it off to others as a source of their personal statement (Chin 1996). Grooming rituals are repeated actions to draw out meanings from goods which are perishable in nature. The “going out’ ritual in which an individual prepares himself for a gala evening or dinner party represents an example of grooming ritual. The individual glamorizes himself with fancy dress, flamboyant hairstyle and steps into the party for a particular period of time. These characteristics perish once the individual returns from the party. The aim of most of the grooming rituals is to enable the consumer to take on the powers of confidence, beauty, defense and glamour (Arnould, Price & Zinkhan 2004). It is not only the consumer that needs to be groomed, but sometime the goods are supposed to be groomed. Packaging of the goods is a prime example of grooming as it allows the consumers to freshen the meanings. Divestment rituals are different from other forms of rituals. They are used to void goods of meanings so that meaning contagion does not take place in consumer domain. They are mainly used for two reasons by the consumers. Firstly, if a consumer acquires a good which has been previously owned to someone else then this ritual is used to wipe off the previous meaning present in the good. Secondly the divestment ritual is deployed when an owner of a good is thinking to dispense it. Under such circumstances the consumer attempts to erase the meaning so it does not transfer to any other person. The current academic literature reveals that meanings are inexorably linked with the culture of individuals. 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