859Aa Business Research - Conspicous Assessment Answers

Social factors influences

Social factors. Consumer buying behavior is also influenced by social factors, in particular, consumer groups, family, social roles and statuses. Because these social factors can significantly affect buying behavior, companies should consider this when creating marketing strategies.

Psychologists receive information about subconscious desires, studying small groups of different categories of consumers. This allows scientists to reveal the underlying motives that underlie the choice of these or other products. Researchers conducted unstructured, in-depth interviews and applied the projection method to penetrate the depths of the subconscious - free associations, completion of sentences, interpretation of drawings and role-playing games.                  Researchers of motivation managed to make interesting and sometimes rather unexpected conclusions about what associations cause this or that commodity in the human brain (Gilady, 2018). For example, as a result of one study, it turned out that consumers do not like buying prunes, because its shriveled fruits are reminiscent of illnesses and old age. Despite such at times, very unusual findings, the study of motivation is a proven method that allows marketers to better understand the behavior of buyers.

Effects of consumption

Based on the above described characteristics of luxury goods, we can conclude that the "status" of consumption of such goods. Indeed, the ability to purchase items related to the price category "luxury" is a kind of way to identify your belonging to the "higher" society and emphasize your status. Thus, for consumers, the purchase of luxury goods can be demonstrative (Veblen, 2017). For the first time, the concept of demonstrative consumption was voiced in Thorstein Veblen's Theory of an Idle Class: Economic Investigation of Institutions. "Veblen defined this term as a feature of the behavior of the so-called" idle class ", establishing the latter as the standard criteria for" social

He concluded that belonging to the idle class is achieved at a certain level of wealth or by inheritance of higher social statuses in his conspicuous consumption article. Moreover, the author concluded that the style of consumption of an idle class exerts a great influence on the other classes. Thus, the middle and lower classes often seek to adopt the manner of consumption of the idle class in order to feel involvement in something high, to elevate themselves above the others to become "their own" for the so-called "higher" society. "The peculiarity of the phenomenon lies in the fact that it is a kind of marker of welfare, solvency and high position of the individual in society, although it can be perceived as wastefulness, excessive consumption. The described patterns began to bear the name of the author and to be called the Veblen Effect, or the effect of demonstrative consumption.

Status brands: examining the effects of non-product-related brand associations on status and conspicuous consumption

Thus, the effect of demonstrative consumption presupposes the consumption of goods possessing for its owner some certain value associated with his desire to excel, surprise, sometimes shock, but most importantly - to show oneself (Hinz, et al., 2015). And here the price is often the determining factor: the higher it is, the stronger the desire to own the product. Sometimes demonstrative consumption can also be expressed in excessive generosity by the principle of "walking at my expense", the true motive of which is the need for respect or even envy of Veblen T.B.). However, despite its ambiguity, such a demonstration still has socially acceptable norms, and if it goes beyond the limits of these norms, it is perceived by referent groups as something inappropriate

Later, economist Harvey Leibenstein in his work expanded the number of effects to three, describing them as components of the nonfunctional demand for goods. So, he determined the presence of:

1) The effect of Veblen (the effect of demonstrative consumption)

2) The effect of joining the majority;3) The effect of the snob.                                                                

Limitations

The effect of joining the majority is that the consumer buys what the others want to feel equal, involved in common trends. In the context of consumption of luxury goods, this effect is also of great importance, because the segment is characterized by the "planting" of trends, and following it, and the rapid perception of their changes (which occurs from season to season when we talk about the segment of clothing, footwear and accessories) is a way of separating yourself from the rest of the mass, as well as the identity of the group (Mandler, 2018). For example, as an object of this very "involvement" can act and iphone, previously acted as an attribute that distinguishes progressive and fashionable youth, and the classic Chanel 2.55 bag.

Consumption and cognitive processes- Feelings

The effect of the snob, in turn, is the opposite effect of adherence to the majority and involves the desire to differ from the "gray mass" and manifest itself in consumption as an individual person (Newholm and Shaw, 2017). However, often the snob focuses on the choice of the majority, analyzing, on the consumption of which goods the choice is falling more than before making its own, diametrically opposite choice

The effect of the" snob, thus, can be observed under two conditions:

1) when new? prestigious? the product appears on the market, the "snob" first acquires it to become a unique owner of the goods in the data moment;

2) the "snob" will refuse the goods, when the majority will start buying it  The perceived limited supply of goods, according to research, increases consumer value and brand preferences, thus giving greater value to limited supply products, compared to more affordable goods.

References

Bellezza, S., Paharia, N. and Keinan, A., 2016. Conspicuous consumption of time: When busyness and lack of leisure time become a status symbol. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), pp.118-138.

Gilady, L., 2018. The Price of Prestige: Conspicuous Consumption in International Relations. University of Chicago Press.

Hinz, O., Spann, M. and Hann, I.H., 2015. Research Note—Can’t Buy Me Love… Or Can I? Social Capital Attainment Through Conspicuous Consumption in Virtual Environments. Information Systems Research, 26(4), pp.859-870.

Mandler, M., 2018. Piracy versus monopoly in the market for conspicuous consumption. The Economic Journal, 128(610), pp.1257-1275.

Newholm, T. and Shaw, D., 2017. Re-reading ‘voluntary simplicity and the ethics of consumption’. Journal of Consumer Ethics, 1(1), pp.37-42.

Veblen, T., 2017. The theory of the leisure class. Routledge.