In Marketing Sales Strategies we all know that nobody has the recipe that can be applied to every product or service.
The truth is that creating a Marketing Strategy and achieving effective and accurate communication, which reaches the ear (or sight) of our target audience at the right moment, is something that takes time, work, dedication and commitment in the process. marketing.
Despite this, the truth is that we can take many references from what has happened in the observation of behavior through the science of economics and sociology.
Today, we can call a person like Thorstein Veblen a visionary, in 1899 he wrote a book called “The theory of the leisure class” among others, he develops the concept of “conspicuous consumption” (conspicuous consumption) in which he stated that consumption is truly a spectacle.
It is best known and is a basis for the analysis of the type of products that consumers choose, in most disciplines is the Maslow pyramid (1943). Another visionary, how not to say it. Well, it turns out that Veblen comes to be like a base (note the irony) of the explanation that Maslow justifies with the different social instances that he explains in his pyramid.
In his book “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, Veblen argues that the consumption of goods and services has become a central activity of modern life, and that people are attracted to objects of consumption, not their usefulness. intrinsic, but by their ability to acquire goods to demonstrate status and wealth (conspicuous consumption) . Veblen argues that consumption has become a “spectacle” in which people compete to demonstrate their wealth and power through the acquisition of expensive and exclusive goods and services.
Now that period films and series are trending, you can check out this concept in Bridgerton, a Netflix series, which shows the ostentatious class served by a working class, the constant competition for Status and from a feminist perspective, patriarchal control and rules. that subjugate the fate of women who must look for men to “marry” and “survive.” Otherwise, “scandal”.
Thorstein Veblen divides consumers into two large segments. The leisure class and the working class and that those belonging to the first group made it very clear which one they belonged to since the consumer elections.
He also argued that consumption had become a means of “flaunting” wealth , rather than a way of satisfying basic needs. He argued that people bought goods and services not because they needed them, but because they wanted to demonstrate their social and economic position . In this sense, Veblen argued that consumption had become an important aspect of the “culture of ostentation” that characterizes modern societies.
But it gets better, conspicuous consumption is relevant to marketing because it suggests that consumers are motivated to demonstrate their social status and power through their consumption choices. This idea has been used in the development of marketing strategies that focus on the brand and image of products and services, rather than their functionality or usefulness.
Segmenting our public, and managing to understand which group it is in, we can focus on enhancing the qualities that this segmentation marks us as relevant to consumers; their motivations, interests, aspirations and desires.
If we are working with products of basic needs, working on utility, durability and satisfaction of the need, may be one of the focuses on which the strategy focuses. However, if the item is a second necessity, what we have to work on showing is the exclusivity, status, reward or sense of belonging that the product brings to the consumer.
Those of us who work in marketing and communication already know that not everything works for everyone, what we can do is take the bases that the great thinkers have left us and, creatively (and ironically) continue thinking based on the observation of what really satisfies the product or service we want to sell.
