Chapter 18 Consumption Meanings

Learning Objectives After completing this chapter, you should be able to: Explain why meaning is an important issue for marketers. Describe the basic process of semiosis and the semiotic triangle. Have a working knowledge of the meaning transfer model. Appreciate the role of advertising and fashion in linking meanings to products. Describe both ordinary and ritualized processes through which consumers transfer meaning from products to themselves.

Learning Objectives (continued) Explain why spokespersons are important and describe the link between spokesperson selection and marketing success. Recognize the kinds of meanings that consumers value. Know why questions of meaning are important in cross cultural contexts. Recognize the significance of collecting for consumers and marketers. Identify a variety of techniques through which consumers derive meaning and value from consumption.

Overview Consumer motives for purchase, consumption and possession stem from the meaning of consumption acts and objects and the value that meaning provides. Some consumption activities are primarily about the evocation of important meanings and values. Goods and services are media of interpersonal communication; they are social phenomena conveying meanings that are shared by at least some others.

Consumer Meaning Sources of meaning for the products and services that people consume - marketing communication Source of meaningful possessions: marketed consumer products. Many of people’s most meaningful possessions are not marketplace commodities but things without much monetary value, such as heirlooms received from parents, photographs of family and friends, exchanges of dinners and parties, gardens and collections. Loss of Meaning: Success of global markets system tends to homogenize meaning and value of products. Both marketers and consumers face the problem of unsatisfactory meaning

What do we Mean by Meaning? Semiosis is the science of meaning; process of communication by any type of sign. A sign is anything that stands for something else. The semiotic triangle reflects the three-part system of semiosis involving a sign, some object, and an interpretant. Relationship between the three parts are conventional; meanings are relative to particular communications communities responding to them. Members of a communications community agree, more or less, on meanings because they share significant cultural capital.

Exhibit 18.1 Semiotic Triangle

Understanding Consumer Meanings First approach: examines the role of possessions in defining the self and creating a sense of identity. Second approach: emphasizes the use of goods within a culture’s social communication system. Third approach: looks for particular meanings of goods and possessions that give them value.

Product Meaning is Changeable Product meaning changes with time. Product meaning is unstable across market segments. Product meanings are contested by social groups and market segments.

Types of Meanings Utilitarian meaning perceived usefulness of a product in terms of its ability to perform functional or physical tasks. Functional value derives from functional or physical attributes. Attributes generally relate to performance, reliability, durability, number and type of product features, and price. Functional meanings are important for both product category and brand-choice decisions.

Types of Meaning (continued) Sacred and secular meanings sacred meaning: adheres in those things that are designed or discovered to be supremely important. Secular meaning: secular properties of things are the reverse of sacred ones. Hedonic meanings products that are associated with specific feelings or facilitate or perpetuate feelings. consumers’ brand equity involves the accumulated history and sentiment attached to particular brands. negative emotional meanings of consumption include addiction, compulsive consumption, terminal materialism (greed).

Exhibit 18.4 A Model of Hedonic Meaning

Types of meaning (continued) Social meanings reflexive relationship between social relationships and the goods individuals consume. Reflexivity means that in consumer society, people intentionally communicate statements about who they are, what groups they identify with, and those from which they are different primarily through consumer goods. Others tend to see what people consume as expressions of who those people are.

Movement of Meanings: Origins of Meaning Meaning transfer model (Exhibit 18.5) Consumer meanings move between three locations: the culturally constituted world, the good (product, service or experience), and groups of consumers. Meaning moves in a trajectory between world and good, and good and consumer or consuming unit. Cultural categories segment time, space, nature, and the human community.

Exhibit 18.5 Meaning Transfer Model

Linking Cultural Meanings and Product Meanings Marketing communications are a vehicle for connecting cultural meanings to consumption objects. persona: the spokesperson depicted or implied within the advertisement itself. Advertising Texts and Consumption Meanings: Advertising Model of Meaning Transfer Advertising serves as a kind of culture/consumption dictionary Ads often use: Similes - figures of speech that explicitly use a comparative term such as “like” or “as” Metaphors - like similes but with the comparative term omitted Symbols - omit any explicit expression of comparison between sign and object

Linking Cultural Meanings and Product Meanings Pictorial Conventions and Consumption Meanings selection and combination of visual symbols to achieve persuasive effects. Characters and Consumption Meanings Meaning movement and the Endorsement Process Research shows that the meanings attributed to previously unendorsed products changed dramatically when they were linked to celebrity endorsers.

Linking Product Meanings and Consumption Meanings Consumers provide products or their advertising images with meaning through their recognition of what they stand for, what they symbolize, at least within the space of an ad. By using particular products, consumers differentiate themselves from other people who consume different products with presumably different meanings. There is a sense in which consumers allow themselves to be created by ads and products. Apostrophe is a technique of direct hailing. Consumers derive meaning from both ads and consumption by actually creating themselves via particular products.

Models and Rituals of Meaning Transfer The final step in meaning transfer involves temporary or permanent acquisition of goods and services. There are four main categories of ordinary consumption modes: Hedonic activities: experience, playing Utilitarian activities: integrating, classifying Special behaviors consumers use to transfer meaning include possession, grooming, exchange, and divestment rituals. Possession rituals: customizing, decorating, personalizing, cleaning, discussing, displaying, and photographing. Grooming behavior: form of body language communicating specific messages about an individual’s social status, maturity, aspirations, conformity, and morality.

Malleability and Movement of Meanings The meanings of products and services are highly malleable. There is considerable variation in the extent to which consumers share meanings. Product meaning is a multilevel construct, with four types of meaningful associations: tangible attributes cultural associations subcultural associations unique, personal associations Special possessions are those regarded as extensions of life. Marketers work to change meanings at each of the four levels to align their products with the desires of target markets. Marketers seek to exploit the unique, personal meanings that develop between people and products.

Collecting and Museums Collecting is the selective, active, and longitudinal acquisition, possession, and disposition of an interrelated set of differentiated objects (material things, ideas, beings, or experiences) that contribute to and derive extraordinary meaning from the set itself. What do collections mean to consumers? control, magical power, evocation of other times, people, places, legitimization for materialism, an expanded sense of self, hedonic pleasure.

Collecting and Museums Collecting is a behavior characteristic both of individuals and institutions. Institutions/Firms reinforce the social and economic significance of collecting behavior by pre-packing the experience for consumers and providing the comforting assurance of authenticity. Museum shops and catalogs are an important part of the growing collecting industry.

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Meanings of Possessions Dimensions along which consumer researchers can expect to find differences in meaning between cultural areas include: Underlying meaning of consumer goods Identity of goods that are the focus of consumption meanings Quantity of meaningful possessions in circulation Stability of consumer meanings

Key Terms apostrophe brand equity collecting communications communities compulsive consumption culture/consumption dictionary functional meaning reflexive relationship sacred meaning secular meaning singularized sign similes semiosis semiotic triangle special possessions

Key Terms (continued) hedonic meaning indexical role meaning meaning transfer activities metaphors persona symbols terminal materialism textual meanings utilitarian meaning