The Concept of Status Consumption With Regard to How a Marketer Might Essay

The Concept of Status Consumption With Regard to How a Marketer Might be Able to Use Status to Market a Specific Brand or Product Type - Essay Example People with high degree of honour in society are simply referred to have status. Logically, people with high social status have much recognition than people with low social status. In this direction, there are people who believe that real success in life has to do with the attainment of status. Regrettably though, Waytz (2009) observes that the eagerness to acquire social status leads to aggressive and self-defeating behaviour. However, once achieved, becoming a person of status or class live its ‘benefactors’ with a conventional ways of life. One of these conventional ways of life has to do with what these people with social status consume: thus status consumption. As there become a pedigree of standard placed on the kind of purchases people with status consume, marketing as an industry also become a benefactor if well harnessed with status consumption (Haruna, 2003). What is Status consumption? Schertz et al (2007) argue that status consumption has to do with the †Å"intent of showing off wealth to others when the good is publicly consumed – ranging from applying an expensive lipstick in public to driving an expensive car† (p. 2). ... As Maiese (2004), notes in Harold (1983, 113), there could be several reasons accounting for why people would consume conspicuously but the most outstanding reason could be due to the fact that â€Å" most societies do have some form of social hierarchy with some people in stronger, more dominant positions, and other people in weaker, lower positions.† So in other for the one-time ‘ordinary’ person to be noticed and accorded necessary social respect, he or she would then resort to status consumption. Again, with the blame still going to society as the cause of status consumption, it would be in place to argue that society expects people occupying certain positions to live within a certain conventional class. To this effect society always want to see people such as politicians, music icons, movie stars and sports personalities own certain property, that are tagged as expensive or of class. These are the major reasons why status consumption continues to exist among both the one-time ‘ordinary’ person and the so-called people with status. There are people who presume that status consumption automatically leads to social status acquisition. This is of course another reason why people resort to status consumption. To such people, there is a level of benefit to them. Nobel Laureate economist, John Harsanyi, said that â€Å"apart from economic payoffs, social status seems to be the most important incentive and motivating force of social behavior† (Waytz, 2009). For this reason, people who succumb to status consumption with the hope of gaining social status get a level of psychological satisfaction of the presumed lens with which society sees them. Empirical Scenarios of Status Consumption One group of people