Advertising promotes conspicuous

Consumption

Advertising

Advertising is a paid form of non-personal presentation of goods or services by an identified sponsor to reach out to maximum number of audiences. Individuals and business firms promote their goods, services, ideas, issues, corporate messages and people through advertisements. Advertising messages can be conveyed to the target audience through a wide range of media. Media here may be print media like newspaper and magazines and electronic media like television.

The 4 Ps of marketing are product, price, place and promotion. All four of these elements combine to make a successful marketing strategy. Promotion looks to communicate the company’s message across to the consumer. The four main tools of promotion are advertising, sales promotion, public relation and direct marketing. Both are promotional tools of marketing.

Advertising creates a background for the promotion of sales. Advertising creates top of mind recall which helps sales

promoters to pull customers. Advertisement keeps consumers aware and sales promotions

helps to retain them. Advertising and sales promotion together creates loyal

customers. Both of them enhance brand exposure in the market.

For example: Big bazaar often promotes its stores by offering products at a lesser price then marked. It enjoys the benefit of bulk purchases, better inventory management and effective logistics information system.

Whenever we think of eating noodles, the first thing which clicks our mind is MAGGIE. There are other brands also which are there in the market but the brand MAGGIE is so strong that it has created on the of mind recall.

Consumer Behaviour and Decision Making Process

Before the industrial revolution, marketers were operating in a seller’s market and the consumers would accept the goods and services offered by the manufacturers. However, with the inset of industrial revolution the process of marketing has undergone a tremendous change with the marketing decision makers finding themselves removed from the direct contact of the consumers. This is where the market is come to depend upon consumer research studies for more information on the spending habits of the consumer. It has been found that there is a multidisciplinary approach to study the consumer behaviour. There are various factors which influences the consumer behaviour.

Cultural Factoro Culture o Subcultureo Social Class

Social Factoro Reference groupo Familyo Roles and status

Personal Factoro Age and life cycle stageo Occupationo Economic situationo Life styleo Personality and self-concept

Psychological Factoro Motivationo Perceptiono Attitude o Learning Beliefs

Buying decision process is the series of logical stages a prospective purchaser goes through when faced with a buying problem.

The consumer buying decision making process is the process by which a consumer decides whether a product will meet the need or want sufficient enough to warrant purchasing and using it; besides when, where, and how to make the purchase; and determines satisfaction with the purchase.

Normally a buyer decision process involves five stages.

A number of models have been developed to show the stages that a consumer may pass through in moving from a state of not being aware of the company, product, or brand to actual purchase behaviour. In the diagram below depicts the buyer as passing successfully through Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. The sales person must first get the customers attention and then arouse some interest in the company’s product or service. Strong level of interest should create desire to own or use the product. The action stage into the AIDA model involves getting the customer to make a purchase commitment and close the sale. To the marketer this is the most important stage in the selling process, but it can also be the most difficult one. Companies train their salesman in closing techniques to help them complete the selling process.

Problem Recognition

Information Search

Evaluation of Alternatives

Purchase Decision

Post-purchase Behaviour

AIDA Model of the Response Process

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous Consumption means spending money on goods and services mainly for the purpose of displaying wealth and status symbol. It simply means buying expensive services and products in order to flaunt your wealth.

The word conspicuous consumption was 1st used by economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class. He used this word to depict the behavioural characteristic of the nouveau riche, a class emerging in the 19th century as a result of the accumulation of wealth during the Second Industrial Revolution.

It is a common human psychology that when a person earns the wealth, he wants all the luxuries of the world. It is only because he is able to afford those luxuries. For example, Mukesh Ambani built his 27 floors hose at Altamount Road, Mumbai. He spent almost $ 1 Billion to construct his house followed by many controversies by the state and the central government of India and also by the Navy. Many distinguished corporates as well as social activists reacted on this house.

“It's a stupendous show of wealth; it's kind of positioning business tycoons as the new maharajah of India.”

— Hamish McDonald, author of Ambani & Sons

 Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata has described Antilla, as an example of rich Indians' lack of empathy for the poor. Tata also said: "The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and [asking] can he make a difference. If he is not, then it's sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways of mitigating the hardship that people have."

Advertising and Conspicuous Consumption

The brands mostly are consumed for image reasons and advertising creates a brand’s image. The key idea is that advertising informs the public the brand names and creates the possibility of conspicuous consumption by rendering

Brands are the signalling device. In a price competition framework, we show that advertising increases consumers’ willingness to pay and thus provide a foundation, based on optimization behaviour, for persuasive approaches to advertising. Advertising is a necessary requirement for establishing a product’s image. Without advertising, goods would be indistinguishable and could not acquire the distinct meaning that Allows conspicuous consumption.

Let’s understand this topic more accurately with the help of example. Every year, the credit card industry spends millions in advertising in an effort to attract new customers. This advertising can take many forms, including direct mail, online ads, and television, print and radio campaigns. While the ads can better inform consumers about the credit cards available to them, the ads can also have negative effects.

Misleading Advertisements

Many credit card advertisements present misleading information. For example, some credit card advertisements advertise cards with 0%APR financing. This can lead a consumer to think that they will not pay an interest on their payments. In fact, this rate may only be available to select customers with a particular credit score. In addition, the credit card company reserves the right to raise the interest rate under a number of conditions (including late payments), and to assess penalty fees. This can lead to a consumer paying far more for the card than he intended. The full terms under which the company issues the card only appear in fine print, which laymen may struggle to interpret.

Encouragement to Take on Debt

Many credit card advertisements encourage consumers to take on debt. Some ads show people taking vacations or purchasing expensive consumer products that they cannot afford, but which they instead charge on their credit card. Although taking on some debt is healthy, if debt payments become too large or if the debtor is suddenly unable to make the payments due to a loss of income, the debt can become unmanageable. This can lead to a number of negative consequences.

Promotes Consumerism

Many credit card advertisements encourage consumers to purchase products as a means of demonstrating their social status. Many companies attempt to attract consumers by displaying ads with card holders enjoying "lifestyles of the rich and famous." While the purchasing of products and services helps the economy, many credit card ads promote conspicuous consumption. It sends an implicit message that people who purchase certain goods and services--even if they do so by taking on debt--serve as figures of envy and admiration.

Now I would like to mention some examples of different advertisements which would make it clear how advertisement promotes conspicuous consumption.

Scene 1: A girl brings her boyfriend to her father in order to get his approval for marriage. Coincidently the prospective groom is standing in front of a Luxury Car. The father looks at him welcomes him to be his prospective son in law. Suddenly the luxury car behind the young man drives away. The old man realises the man is not the owner, and distances her daughter from him. Punch line: Respect comes naturally with Esteem.

In this scene, we can also infer that the advertisement is trying to change the perception of the society and making its brand more loyal and thus to attract his girlfriend’s dad he needs a esteem car.

Scene 2: A woman is irritating her young neighbour with daily doses of bragging about their new purchases.

"Woh na naya computer laaye hai (we have bought a new computer)," she announces and turns to the post man.

"kal se mut aanaa. Ab hum E-mail hi kiya kare ge.(No need to come now, we will use email from now on.)".

The irritated neighbour talks to her husband, "Kuch karna padega. Loan lena padega (something needs to be done. We should take a loan.)"

The husband comes up with a better advice and they end up using Tractor Emulsion. Not to beautify the house, but to shut up her bragging neighbour. Punch line: Yeh Sirf Dikhta Mehanga Hai (This is costly in appearance only) 

Scence 3: On receiving a call a man tries to divert the attention of his fellow, "udher dekh (look there).'' As the other fellow turns his head the man attends the call quickly "baad mei phone karna.( call later)," he says to the caller.

The ad goes on to show other creative excuses created by the users of black and white cell phones. "Phone nahi mere dil ki ghanti baj rahi hai." A man says to avoid using a cell phone in front of a girl.Punch Line: Black and white phone waloon ke Bahaane (the excuses of Black and white cell phone users)

Take cue from these ads and one should own a luxury car to get the consent of bride's parents. Costly paints, or at least those that appear costly are important, at least to keep off neighbours' bragging. Using black and white phones are an embarrassment.

Often ads of bikes are less about comfort or mileage and more about female attraction. So is the case with mobile phones.

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ConclusionThis “Consumer Society” is not only a disease of the today's culture, but is one that has existed from the very dawn of civilization. It has been noted that ancient empires such as the Egyptians and the Romans have suffered from consumerism; this is evident in their clothing which typically depicts their social class and status within the community.

Seeking wealth and material possessions is a natural part of human needs. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the lower needs such as physical needs and security needs could be easily satisfied by consumption of goods. This consumption is only harmful when it crosses a certain limit whereby the acquisitions of more products and services becomes an obsession and deters the individual or societies from other important goals. Heady, Muffle’s and Wooden (2004) found that consumption does have a positive impact on happiness but it is relatively small compared to other factors such as employment status.

It has been found that blue-collars have the highest level of materialism and that religious individuals show low levels. It also shows that the individuals who scored high on materiality exhibit low level of happiness. This was suggested to be due to their unwillingness to share their wealth or possessions even with family and friends.

If materialism leads to deterioration of cultural values and ethics and is not proved to provide sustainable happiness, then this implies that marketers promoting consumption are being unethical. This challenges the validity of using highly persuasive advertising and questions marketers' efforts to induce more needs and wants in consumers.

So are the ads promoting conspicuous consumption?

"Of course ads promote conspicuous consumption”