The psychology of consumerism
Digital MarketingOn the marketing and behavioral aspects of consumerism and the advantages and disadvantages of consumerism
Consumerism is, in a way, the most human aspect of business, and companies and businesses regard consumers along with their employees as the essential “human elements” of their endeavor. However, consumerism can have other meanings and represent a shopping culture, highlight the virtues and vices of a materialistic society, and emphasize the importance of the globalized business environment. Companies have to keep their consumers happy and develop and sell new products based on the needs of consumers. However, consumer needs and business needs appear to be circular, as businesses create consumer needs and consumers also project their needs to businesses, suggesting a relationship of interdependence. When I say that companies create the needs of consumers, we can consider the example of Apple’s iPhone. Apple successfully created a consumer need for a product that could successfully integrate the phone and iPod. Of course, Apple must also have done the initial survey to find out what the consumer needs or demands are and then eventually expanded and focused on these consumer needs to introduce the new products, including the iPhone. A good company is one that can provide well-defined and realistic frameworks for the vague initial needs of consumers. Consumers’ needs are initially not well defined and clear, as consumers tend to have an idea of what they want, but are not quite sure what they really want. Then, through surveys and discussions with consumers and internal product development or technical advisors, companies can develop these initial consumer insights and vague consumer needs and shape their future product plans.
However, we could first try to define consumerism and understand why consumerism is such an important aspect of business and marketing. The term consumerism seems to have both positive and negative connotations, as consumerism could mean a culture of possessions and the glorification of materialism. However, consumerism could also mean increased consumption of goods and products that could benefit the economy and markets with a greater buying culture among people, although consumerism could also mean the full range of commercial and shopping activities. marketing that ultimately lead to the purchase of products by consumers. .
Therefore, consumerism has a broad definition and can include a variety of shopping and commercial behaviors, so finally, consumerism is a “type of behavior” and that is why it is important for psychology and psychologists. Consumerism is about individuals or groups and how they select or purchase insurance and use or dispose of products and services so that they can meet their consumption needs and the practice of consumerism would also have a significant effect on society. The study of consumer behavior in a systematic and even scientific way would be the basis of consumer psychology and consumerism. The psychology of consumerism could be considered from two different aspects, one from the marketing or commercial point of view in which consumerism is considered essential since it helps to maintain companies and businesses, so the psychology would be based on how to attract consumers, while the other point of view is the behavioral aspect of consumerism or why consumers buy or consume products and services, and what are the reasons for a buying culture and how this could be justified with an analysis of normal or abnormal behavior.
The last part of this discussion can help us answer several questions about consumerism.
Consumer Psychology from a Marketing Aspect –
Consumers buy according to their personal needs and what they feel is necessary and also according to social needs as they follow trends and thus become interested in certain products and services. Certain products seem more important, essential or attractive to consumers and these products tend to have a certain value, which makes it easier for companies to sell them. Businesses and companies are able to attract more consumers using the psychological principles of marketing and consumer behavior, and the key is to create a desire or need for a product. Businesses and companies understand the initial needs of consumers through surveys and then develop new products to attract consumers. Once products are developed, brand image and advertisements help provide an association between products and companies, and when consumers develop an element of familiarity with this association between the brand name and the characteristics of the product, they even tend to want the product. In line with the demands of competition and consumerism, companies tend to make promotional offers, discounts, rebates and low-priced products in order to attract more consumers. Taking the marketing perspective into account, consumerism is advantageous as more consumers and higher purchasing behavior would mean more product sales, although the disadvantages of higher consumer spending would be minimal, except that higher consumerism would also indicate higher competition from other manufacturers.
Therefore, the most essential features of consumer psychology from a marketing point of view are: creating the need for consumerism or a specific product by advertising specific and unusual product features, developing the association between brands and products and offer attractive options such as discounts. and sales to attract not only more consumers but also more sales.
Consumer Psychology from a Behavioral Aspect –
From a behavioral perspective, it would be interesting to engage in an analysis of buying behavior and we can try to understand why consumers buy in the first place. There can be various reasons for buying arising from social and personal needs, emotional and financial needs and some of these needs are healthy and positive and in fact essential in our daily lives. However, buying behavior as in ‘shopaholics’ would be unpredictable, random and even unhealthy from a psychological point of view, as excessive shopping or consumerism indicates bipolar illness or a type of addiction. However, consumerism and the specific focus on luxury brands could highlight the almost unhealthy addiction to fashion trends and status symbols in modern times and globalization seems to encourage this. Companies and businesses create choices in consumers so that consumers already have a “need” when they engage in purchasing behavior. While this need may be personal and social, the need could also very well be an emotional need to possess.
From a psychological point of view, consumerism is about satisfying our inherent need to control and possess certain objects that could very well replace or substitute other possessions. For example, a woman going through a divorce may suddenly develop an irresistible urge to continually buy things because her need for possessiveness toward her partner has been diverted in other directions.
From a more clinical point of view, consumerism could be explained with abnormal psychology and the role of depression, the need to satisfy excessive possessiveness and also blind faith or dependence on fashion trends and all of these are seen as Negative aspects of consumer psychology. If consumerism is considered as a positive phenomenon, the advantages of consumerism would be the application of psychological principles to understand purchasing behavior.
Consumerism and the study of consumerism helps us understand and recognize not only the needs of consumers and how these needs are created or satisfied, but also the behavior and attitudes of consumers towards products and business directions or efforts to understand marketing from a behavioral perspective. The psychology of consumerism is thus about creating needs and associations so that consumers develop some familiarity with product ideas even before they buy them.
Consumerism can be both positive and negative and represent not only a global and globalized culture, but also highlight surface trends and deeper needs of individuals in societies and communities.