What is consumer culture? Why it matters?
A dynamically radiant consumer culture is something that we are witnessing in this era. We have moved past seller's market, now we are living in buyers market where commodities are being manufactured to meet or surpass consumer expectations.
The huge drawback that seller's market had was that it was highly authoritative, in seller's market consumer wasn't the king it was the other way around, the consumer was at the mercy of what the seller had to offer regardless of consumer's preference or choices.
In seller's market consumer had limited options to choose from but as we drifted from seller's market to buyer's market we are now having a plethora of options.
Buyer's market has given rise to consumerism, in Buyer's market customer's every move is inspected meticulously plus with the advent of social media, it becomes increasingly easy to keep tabs on trends and influences. Basically, consumerism is the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers.
Hence if consumer interest is being violated in any way then that gives rise to Doppelganger Brand Image, which can be disastrous in both tangible and intangible way, giant firms like Pepsi and Mc'Donalds have found themselves at the receiving end of this.
To Tackle the rampant consumerism that prevails due to consumer education and propagation through Social Media. Marketers need to think smart, they need to create clever Marketing Strategies that are actionable and transparent.
Latest example that we are getting to see is GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) After GDPR Took place, every website that we visit, we get to see a pop-up disclosing their cookies policy.
This is how marketers can tackle the rising consumerism. It's better to confess now than to get caught red-handed later. Maybe you will loose a handful of visitors. But if you do not give a disclosure, then tomorrow it will get compounded in a scary way.
Social Networking Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn plays an enormous role in educating consumers about taking the right decision when it comes to purchasing and consuming a product. For example, recently it had been brought into our attention by Facebook, as to how detrimental Zandu Balm is for our Health.
To further define the consumerist culture, we need to understand sociology.
Sociology which is a discipline that studies the constituents of a society and how its constituents behave helps identify culture that thrives, and culture varies from place to place. hence, firms have to devise glocalization strategies to tap maximum market share across demographic and geographic boundaries.
Glocalization is nothing but going global and acting local and hence global consumer goods companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mc'Donalds and Cadbury conduct varying promotional and advertising campaigns in different territories that they want to tap.
Amazon Prime, for example, won't just promote America Tv Shows and Movies in India, they are gonna have to promote Indian cinema because after all, that's the target audience. Global Consumerism is identified in certain parameters that are mutually exclusive, like the taste of original Coke is identified across all the geographic boundaries.
❝ We can find culture dictating consumerism in various walks of life, for example, Cadbury celebrations on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan and Diwali. Likewise, Amazon which is an e-commerce company headquartered in the United States operates in India as Amazon.in .in being the Indian subdomain accordingly on Indian occasions Amazon will be offering discounts, this is a classic example of culture and glocalization working hand in hand ❞.
One of the most recent phenomena that we are encountering these days in consumerism is that of reducing lead time and instant delivery like I mentioned earlier we are now living in buyer's market, goods and services are customer-centric.
Hence, consumer convenience is of paramount importance, we can observe these phenomena in supermarkets as well as hypermarkets, it is designed and organized in a way to make it convenient and fast for consumers which in future would elicit reinforced purchase and foster good and reciprocal relations and would induce referrals.
❝Advertising and consumer culture works in harmony with each other, former and later if violates that harmony then that would provoke consumer outrage because advertising influences purchase and advertising represents the culture and its subsets, recent Pepsi commercial featuring Kendall Jenner was heavily criticized. because both the factors weren't cooperating, as a result, Pepsi had to withdraw that commercial. ❞
Consumers are growing smarter day by day having been exposed to a plethora of options plus the internet has heavily democratized the way global consumption works, consumers are themselves searching all the information over internet about the product, reading it's review and then making the purchase, consumers don't like being sold out, and in this digital age it isn't even possible with consumer's exposure to various media which in turn paves the way for Affiliate Marketing. We are witnessing the trend of research online and purchase offline because some people prefer to cherish the experience of shopping, going to the shop to do shopping makes them feel happy.
Today we are living in a digital age where we are having portals like Google Shopping where you get to compare pricing in order for you to settle for best prices, BestBuy is also the best example in this regard.
Another mindblowing trend that we are observing is that of Pay What You Want (PWYW) strategy, we witnessed Radiohead put this into effect and due to their loyal fan following they saw enormous sales with exponential profit which they couldn't have had with conventional portals like Itunes and other. Also, giant education platform Coursera devises this strategy, where a price is fixed for the courses, however, if the user cannot afford to pay that price then he/she can indefinitely apply for financial aid.
So let's take a quick recap, consumerist culture is dictated by consumers it's not the other way around like it used to be. Sociology plays a pivotal role in the consumerist culture because again it is dictated by the fragments of society. If in any way consumer's interests are violated then brands shouldn't be shocked to see their Doppelganger Brand Image.
Conclusion: Yes consumerist culture matters a lot.
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