Consumption
First and foremost, let us look at how scholars think of consumption. If we take consumption as a social process, it is thought, more specifically, to be a process of cultural production; a process of distinction; a process of social reproduction; a process of appropriation and a process of value production. Some scholars, like Durkheim, take consumption as a threat the society. Durkheim required the 留學生dissertation網identification of “social facts” by his rules of methods. However, long before him economists had carved out a sphere of “economic facts” by disregarding the ending of human activity and concentrating on problems of choice. The changes happened in the division of labour increased mobility and released people from old social bonds, therefore they were set free. However in Durkheim’s eyes, this would not necessarily lead to and happy ending, which he called “organic solidarity” (1968) since there was always the threat of anomie, which, moreover, can be increased by consumption and the endless desires evoked by it.
Anthropologists think consumption is a private matter, besides there are two boundaries in defining consumption in anthropology. First may be drawn by an idea essential to economic theory: that is that consumption is not compelled; the consumer’s choice is free. Second, it may be drawn by the idea central to national book keeping that consumption starts where market ends. Thus, consumption decisions become the vital source of the culture of the moment. Douglas and Isherwood said that they had “succeeded in defining consumption as an area of behaviour hedged by rules which explicitly demonstrate that neither commerce nor force are being applied to a free relationship… social sanctions protect the boundaries”.(1996: 38) And goods, from their point of view, are considered goods as an information system. They assume that “goods are needed for making visible and stable the categories of culture instead of supposing that goods are primarily needed for subsistence plus competitive display”. (1996: 38)
Then, they developed those two conceptions in the sphere of ritual. Rituals, from their perspective, are conventions that set up visible public definitions. To manage without rituals is to manage without clear meanings and possibly without memories. Some are purely verbal rituals, vocalized, unrecorded, but they fade on the air and hardly help to limit the interpretation scope. More effective rituals use http://www.ttc-switch.com/Thesis_Tips/material things; and the more costly the ritual trappings, the stronger we can assume the intention to fix the meanings to be. Under such argument, goods are just ritual adjuncts; and consumption can be seen as a ritual process whose primary function is to make sense of the inchoate flux of events. Meanwhile, since consumption uses goods to make firm and visible a particular set of judgments in the fluid process of classifying persons and events, we can still define it as a ritual active. And, the most general objective of the consumer can only be to construct an intelligible universe with the goods he chooses. (1996: 43)#p#分頁標題#e#
Anthropology has developed a sophisticated mode of inquiry into the deep structures of traditional societies: their kinship networks, totems and taboos, and food ways over the course of the 20th century. Levi-Strauss argued in Totemism that it was not dietary or gastronomic criteria that allowed and disallowed certain foods. On the contrary, Douglas and Isherwood remind us, “animals which are tabooed are chosen…because they are good to think, not because they are good to eat.”Animals those are good to think—what exactly does this mean? The anthropologists explain: “If it is said that the essential function of language is its capacity for poetry, we shall assume that the essential function of consumption is its capacity to make sense… Forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking; treat them as a nonverbal medium for the human creative faculty.”(Douglas and Isherwood, 1996: 40-41)
Douglas and Isherwood ask us to consider commodities from the wrong end round: to think of them not for their use value, for what we do with them, but for the spaces and hierarchies, the rituals and relationships, that their very existence makes possible in a culture.
Comparing to arguments above, sociologists have another way in talking about goods. Goods were considered “not only to be the most important means to make and maintain social distinctions, but also to be an important element in our identities” (Campbell, 1996; Ilmonen 2001a; Warde, 1994). Sociologists illustrate the process of consumption as a process individuals internalize and externalize goods they choose. More specifically, they start at the actor network theory, which argues that “knowledge has become constitutive of social relations” (1997: 8). And then it would be stated that not only can the consumers appropriate goods, but goods can mediate consumers because the co-dependency of humans and goods is increasingly strong and during the “work of hybridization” (Preda, 1999) “objects and humans become (for a while) one” (Kaj Ilmonen, 2004: 31). Furthermore, the use of goods of individuals is also the process for individuals to internalize goods to attach their personal marks on them. The change would begin at the step that individual use the good just follow the instruction he was told or informed, day after day he would have increasing number of experience and the use of the good would become more and more personal and new meanings would be given to the good. Thus, the good have been internalized. Finally, the process of externalization would begin if the innovation individuals made during consuming can be accepted by the community as part of its cultural heritage, which means the outcomes of internalization become part of common wisdom that serves as a social resource for the whole community. (43) To this question Adam Advidsson has given us a good point of view. He begins his argument from the point of Marxism on social labour and value of goods. He thinks that it is the meaning-making activity of consumers that forms the basis of brand value. Brand, in another word, means the faith of individuals towards a product of a certain remark. Remarks or labels given to goods are providing consumers some images of their products mainly on their use value. However, when a brand has been built up, it has been given more meaning of standing for social status and self-identities. There is more surplus value created than before by the autonomous immaterial labour of consumers. #p#分頁標題#e#
In the same way, McCracken illuminate the creation of value from the perspective of meaning management, but in an anthropological approach. He argued that value is the basis of price and the front of profit. Some value comes from cultural meaning. Marketing generates value partly because it generated meanings. Kotler and Armstrong’s “three level of the product” model locates meanings at the centre of the model, in the core product (1999, 238-239; Levitt, 1986:74). As to McCracken, he thought that well-constructed , well-managed meanings add value, create consumers, sell products, advance careers, generate profit, and rise stock prices even while badly constructed, managed meanings confuse the consumer, diminish brands, damage career, generate losses, and help pull stock prices down. One of the reasons that meanings add value is that meaning sources provided by marketing are vital to self-invention and self-completion of the individual. Without the meaning made available by the marketing system, the individual is, for some social and cultural reasons, incomplete or at least pallid. (McCracken, 2005: 175-176, 178) As it is argued here, surplus value has been largely attached to goods today. As a not-so-affordable product, car has more possibility to become the approval of the sense of good taste and certain class in society.
Cultural differences in advertising
To some extent, consumer buying the product or service is to obtain the meaning contained in it. Then, Grant McCracken argued that advertising, a way used to sell goods, should be meaningful more than informational. He explained two models of consumption: a meaning-based model of consumption and an information-based model of consumption. In his view, a meaning-based model of consumption says the consumer is an individual in a cultural context engaged in a cultural project. Both the content and the project are culturally constituted, and this project is a continual one. There are two senses can demonstrate this. It is first intensely processual, so that its objective, the construction of life, is realized not with a single operation or a series of operations but through the act itself. It does not have a beginning or an end; it is fulfilled as it is undertaken. And second, the project is constantly changing as the individual is driven to change by circumstance, preference, and the life cycle. The model of consumption that follows from this perspective says that the world of goods is cultural construction and that culture is constantly being played out in goods. Cultural meanings, those in goods and those outside of them, make up the cultural content of consumption. Consumer goods are an important source of the meanings as well as an important instrument by which we capture, experiment with, and organize the meanings with which we construct our lives. Based on this, the role of advertising in meaning-based model is that it is one way we get into the goods (Grant McCracken, 1986a). And, it is the conduit through which meanings are constantly transferred from the culturally constituted world to the consumer good. Advertisements are called a “diecasting mechanism” by Lotman and Uspensky (1978: 213). Advertising helps capture these old and new cultural meanings and invest them in consumer goods. It serves as a kind of dictionary constantly keeping us apprised of new consumer signifieds and signifiers, in this capability, advertising contributes a lot to the context of consumption. (Grant McCracken, 2005: 164-165)#p#分頁標題#e#
Soft sell and hard sell
In fact, when talking about advertising, there are first two definitions to show. The committee on definitions of the American Marketing Assn gave the definition in 1948 that advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. After this, in 1952, the International Chamber of commerce issued a dictionary of marketing terms, in which advertising is defined as non-personal, multiple presentation to the market of goods, services or commercial ideas by an identified sponsor who pays for the delivery of his message to the carrier distinguished from publicity, which does not pay the medium and does not necessarily identify the sponsor. Compared to this, S. R. Bernstein provided two misconception of advertising. First and most serious of advertising’s role is that it should be impartial and unbiased. And the second is about who wants/ is interested in advertising. The assumption is the manufacturers, distributors and retailers who pay the costs of advertising their products have some inherent interest in advertising as such. The fact is their interest consists entirely in using advertising as a useful and effective tool in selling their products or services. The only people and organizations that have a vested interest in advertising as such are the sellers and the production of advertising, not the buyers. Similarly, Timothy Joyce has three assumptions about advertising. First, it was queried related to purchasing itself, in terms of what advertising would achieve if it was effective. Specifically, advertising achieved “conversion”, converting loyal users of other brands to loyal users of the brand advertised. However, this pattern had a repertoire of brands within the category that were purchased with varying frequency. Therefore, the standards of evaluating whether advertising works is either it will cause the brand to be added to the consumer’s repertoire or it will cause the brand to be purchased more frequently; or, at least, it will prevent the brand from dropped or being purchased less frequently. Second, it was queried related to the advertising communication process—to the effect that the consumer was merely a passive receiver of message. Communication is a far more dynamic and interactive process. Third, it was queried related to models of the advertising process that were then rather conventional—models described variously as step-by-step, hierarchical, or transmissional—all, in any event, implying a rational consumer being moved by advertising through a sequence of steps to purchase of the product. Here, I want to name the best known—DAGMAR, which demonstrates the stages of advertising works are “Awareness—Comprehension—Conviction—Action”. It proposed that there could be quantifiable objectives for advertising over and above sales objectives. (1998:13-14) We can quote from Russell Colley for better understanding of this model. “All commercial communications that aims at the ultimate objective of a sale must carry a prospect through four levels of understanding, from unawareness to Awareness—The prospect must first be aware of the existence of a brand or company; Comprehension—He must have a comprehension of what the product is and what it will do for him; Conviction—He must arrive at a mental disposition or conviction to buy the product; Action—Finally, he must stir himself to action.”(1961:37-38) Compared to this model, AIDA model turns to illustrate the stages of advertising works to be “Awareness-Interest-Desire-Action”. It imputes two roles of advertising: an informational role, making them aware of the product; and a persuasive role, making people desire it before people have bought it. However, it only says one should have awareness before he has interest in the product and then he can have desire and the action of buying it. Still, there are critics of these models, argued by Andrew S. C. Ehrenberg. They are thought to be lack of evidence, and fail to explain many of the known facts as well, like they do not explain stable markets where shares of advertising and shares of sales are roughly in line for each brand. (Andrew S. C. Ehrenberg, 1998:67-68) In his eyes, this is a theory that seems to account for the known facts, the “Awareness-Trial-Reinforcement” theory. Under this theory, consumers first gain awareness or interest in a product. Next, they may make a trial purchase. Finally, a repeat buying habit may be developed and reinforced if there is satisfaction after previous usage. (1998: 63) #p#分頁標題#e#
In fact, Timothy has already made a speech in an ESOMAR conference early in 1967. In that paper, he portrayed the consumer as being far-from-passive advertising fodder. He said that there was a continual tug-of-war between perception of advertising and brand attitudes, and between brand attitudes and behaviour. Further, he argued that advertising evidently can affect behaviour “directly” without affecting attitudes as an intermediate variable in any measurable sense. Besides, he believed that there had been four major changes in advertising environment: first, the consumer has become exposed to still more advertising messages; second, advertising messages in every respect have on average become briefer; third, there is more emphasis on creativity and on likeability—this is mainly based on TV ads and more subjective. From his perspective, U.K. commercials are highly creative and enjoyable, and U.S. commercials are intrusive, strident, and loaded with copy points, which, can be considered to be “Tell more” versus “Sell more” (1998:16). And the most dramatic change affecting advertising has undoubtedly been the growth in importance in promotions, both consumer and trade. Most promotional expenditure does, indeed, lead to a price reduction.
What is going to be emphasised here, is the likeability of advertising, and what to talk is the Copy Research Validity Project conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation. Quoting from the ARF Executive Research Digest, reported by Russell Haley, it is said that “interactions improve predictability. Different approach yield different combinations of measures. Likeability can interact with three factors: persuasion, recall and diagnostics”. What is more, the copy-testing project turns out to indicate that “commercials that are liked sell better than those are not liked.” In another word, “commercials that sell are commercials that are liked (as measured by the liking measure) and commercials that lead people to believe that you have an excellent product (as measured by the highest scoring persuasion measure).” (Russell J. Haley, 1990)
At the same ARF workshop, Jim Donius pointed out that in recent years advertising has become more visual and more entertaining. This has been in response to changes in the consumer, who is better educated, has less time, and leads a more complete life. This has been combined with media proliferation, increased clutter, and remote controls that zip, zap and mute unwanted messages. (Tim Donius, 1990; John Philip Jones, 1998:21) Additionally, it is indicated that likeability increases over the first four exposures to a commercial then tends to fall back and flatten out. The most effective commercials, when measured on a moment-by-moment scale, were those for which the likeability factor remained high during the presentation of product attributes.
Short-term and long-term effect
Another scholar concerned on this argument is Andrew S. C. Ehrenberg. Jones has summarised his doctrine into 7 points. Ehrenberg doctrine explains a great deal about how purchasing takes place and what advertising actually accomplishes, at least in the medium and long term. He sees the short-term variability in consumer purchasing as haphazard, but with the haphazard changes adding up in some mysterious way to a total effect that is always the same. He says that the short-term variations in consumer purchasing cannot be managed. However Jones says that they can be managed. And he sees the short-term variability in consumer purchasing as the result of measurable and controllable marketing inputs; it is the mutual cancellation of the effect of such inputs from competitive brands that leads to stability. In Jones’ opinion, successful advertising campaigns have three general characteristics: they are likeable and offer a reward for watching because they are entertaining and amusing; they are visual rather than verbal; they say something important and meaningful about the brand being advertised. Jones is convinced that the short-term effect of advertising goes beyond simple awareness. By saying something important about the brand, advertising reinforce brand preferences. To be effective, the content of the advertising must be substantial enough to stand up the competition. What determines effectiveness is usually the strength of the underlying position. There must therefore be something more at work than a simple reminder, which would be expected to produce relatively uniform scores. John Philip Jones also provides suggestion for campaign to achieve both short-term and long-term effectiveness. As to short-term effectiveness, to achieve results, the campaign must have a creative edge in comparison with its competition. An advertisement does not have to be exposed repeatedly to work; the creative content is clearly all-important. As to long-term effectiveness, the first order of it is the result of a repetition of short-term effects. This naturally presupposes that the campaign has produced a short-term effect in the first place. Also it demands a sufficiently large advertising budget, and enough continuity in the media plan, to support the brand without too much loss of sales to the advertising and sales promotion of competitive brands. Therefore, in order to shake a brand free of Ehrenberg stability, not only must the advertiser expose advertising that produces immediate sales, but the advertising must be run with enough media weight to outperform the competition for longer periods than the periods during which the competition outperforms the brand. This race will be won by the competitor with the greatest and most carefully husbanded reserve of media energy. It is the second order of long-term effect that transforms a successful brand into a great one. Brands that grow are those that not only have functional superiority in at least some respect vis-à-vis their competitors, but also manage to develop and deploy their advertising with competitive efficiency. They have campaigns that have a creative edge. And they invest large enough budgets to ensure that there is a reasonably continuous advertising presence, which brings about more sales “ups” than sales “downs” over the course of a year, leaving a net gain at the end. Advertising does not create a great brand but makes an important contribution. (John Philip Jones, 1998: 88-93)Additionally, Nigel S. Hollis has his own view in this sphere as well. He argued that from the perspective of the companies who own brands, they are enduring, profitable assets, their jobs revolve around keeping brands strong and healthy in order to maintain the future income steam from this resource. During such a process, advertising is the means by which they can grow new brands and sustain old ones. Advertising works as a multiplier to him. It is to leverage the influence of the other elements of the marketing mix, so that the sales that are achieved as a result of those activities are greater than they would have been in the absence of the advertising. (244)#p#分頁標題#e#
There are five basic ways in which advertising works. First, by familiarizing, that is, as the dictionary says, by “making something well-known; bringing into common use.” This is absolutely basic value created by advertising, the one underlying all others. Second, by reminding, that is a function that may alone, in some cases, make advertising pay. Third, by spreading news, which, here means not only news in the newspaper sense, but a special kind of news that only advertising, in the commercial field, can most widely deal with. Forth, by overcoming inertias, the greatest drag on all human progress, http://www.ttc-switch.com/Thesis_Tips/economic or non-economic, as represented by the sociological term, “cultural lag”. The last one is by adding a value. The value is not added in the product, and this is considered the most challenging field for creativeness in advertising. (James Webb Young, 1989)