Attract Conservatives with Luxury Maintenance

Knowing distinctive purchasing characteristics of political conservatives is useful for targeted marketing. Certain media outlets, such as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, tend to have politically conservative audiences. Demographic surveys have shown that certain geographical locations, such as Colorado Springs, Colorado, reliably contain a high proportion of conservative consumers. And psychographic research indicates that ads directed to senior citizens should take account of the conservative sensibilities which prevail in that population.
     Researchers at Georgia State University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and INSEAD looked at how such sensibilities influence interest in luxury purchases. The distinctive characteristic they identified was a desire to maintain status. Unlike what was true in consumers of more liberal political persuasions, this desire to maintain status was stronger than the desire to increase status. Therefore, in marketing luxury to politically conservative target populations, emphasize status maintenance. In the research, this was accomplished with phrasing like, “Keep your status with [product name],” and by asking consumers to think about ways they are maintaining their status as the world around them is changing.
     Consistent with these findings, other research finds that political conservatives are responsive to statements of stability, such as “Our business has been here for 100 years,” while liberals are sensitive to statements of growth, such as “We’ve been changing for 100 years.” In marketing to conservatives, highlight the concepts of tradition, conformity, security, power, and materialism. With liberals, highlight harmony, benevolence, universalism, and egalitarianism.
     Political scientists at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Rice University say that liberals tend to be physiologically different from conservatives, and that the differences influence what the people will purchase at retail. A primary distinction between the two orientations is in the frequency, nature, and intensity of physiological signs of disgust. Prior research had found that the higher a consumer’s identification with politically conservative values, the higher the probability of that consumer buying lots of cleaning supplies, laundry baskets, and desk organizers for use in the household. In another set of experiments, political conservatives spent more time than political liberals fixating on depictions of vomit. This suggests the conservatives would be more receptive to items which head off the disgust.
     Conservatives have a sharper sensitivity to all sorts of negative stimuli. Depictions of house fires and dangerous animals also drew prolonged attention. Facial expressions interpreted as surprise by liberals were more often interpreted as threat by conservatives.

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