Plumb for Consumers’ Desire to Slum

Consumers strive to purchase and display items they associate with social classes they look up to. If a teen idol claims to use a certain brand of mobile device, other teens are motivated to get it, too. If a highly successful business leader appears at conferences with a briefcase showing a specific brand name and style, sales of those briefcases can be expected to climb among new MBAs.
     Yet, there are circumstances under which consumers will strive to use items they associate with a lower socioeconomic status. Consumer psychologists call it “parody display.” Among Americans, tattoos were more popular in low socioeconomic classes before the prevalence moved uptown. Among Brazilians, dancing capoeira was done most often in the slums before upper classes took it on as a form of parody display. Blue jeans. Pickup trucks. Work boots. And on and on.
     What’s behind parody display, and how can you use these motivations to build your profitability? Here are two major ones that were identified long ago:

• A desire to be distinctive. Everyone else is wearing the aspirational wardrobe. Create a striking image by incorporating artifacts others don’t expect, these shoppers say. The retailer leverages this motivation via contrast in marketing and merchandising. Show the lower-class item surrounded by the usual aspirational things.
• A wish to relax. Your customers could be sick from “affluenza,” worn down by the pursuit of high status. Parody display items project an attitude of, “I’m here to kick back and enjoy life.” The retailer addresses this one by creating a shopping context of fun.

     More recently, researchers at New York University and Israel Institute of Technology saw another motivation for shoppers slumming in their product choices: Shame.
     In one of their studies, college students were more interested in learning about a T-shirt tattooed with a sophisticated design when the T-shirt was worn by a grocery store packer than when by another college student. In another study, students developed a higher likelihood of buying a wireless charger when they saw it used by a security guard than by a college student.
     The irony here is that the attraction to the product depends on aspirational drives. Who was using the wireless charger made a difference only if the college student study participant considered technological innovativeness to be important.
     Discover which, if any, of these motivations will turn the shopper’s eyes down when looking at the socioeconomic hierarchy.

Click below for more:
Update Keeping Up with the Joneses
Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals