Postmodern Consumption

Reference van Raaij, W. F. (1993). Postmodern consumption. Journal of Economic Psychology, 14, 541-563.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

What is postmodernization?
Different perspectives
Sociological theory Postmodern era Philosophers: A rejection of logical positivism makes one a postmodern thinker Characterized by eclecticism and pragmatism Three waves (Alvin Toffler)

What is postmodernization?
Different perspectives
Ihab Hassan
Applied the label postmodernism to experimentation in arts, architecture and technology Postmodernism is discontinuity, indeterminacy, immanence

Consumer researchers
Nonconventional research approaches and alternative ways of knowing

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

Postmodern era
Passing from industrial era to information era No dominant ideology of the modern era
Liberalism, anarchism, socialism and feminism have either achieved their goals or have vanished

Sociological theory: Three independent trends of the postmodern era

Societal differentiation Secularization Individualization These trends lead to Societal fragmentation Loss of identities and social structures
5 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 6

A pluralism of style

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

Three waves
The premodern period (1000 BCcirca 1450) The modern period (circa 14501960) The postmodern period (circa 1960 present) The three waves can be distinguished on the following characteristics: production, society, time, orientation (geographical), culture.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 7 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 8

The main characteristics of postmodern consumption

Toffler
Demassification Fragmentation Individualization Increasing speed of change Hyperreality Fragmentation Reversal of production and consumption Decentering of the subject Paradoxical juxtaposition
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 9

The major causes of postmodern change

Social change Technological change

Firat

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

10

Social change
Individualization: a major trend Fragmentation
Market segmentation based on lifestyles over many products no more valid Disjointed experiences with products, television programmes, commercials and shopping malls

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

11

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

12

Technological change
Hyperreality
Media related Simulation of reality (IMAX theater)

Fragmentation (of the information supply)

Ideologies of the modern era have given way to decentralized pluralism Loss of single lifestyle
Consumers live by the moment Market segmentation or market sentimentation? Hard time for fashion specialists

Product complexity
Decentering of the subject (following the instructions)

Value realization
Reversal of production and consumption
Value realized in consumption and not in production Value is produced when consumers add effort and appropriate meaning in the products they buy Packaged meaning and hyperreality

Prosumption (Toffler)
Production and consumption coincide

Acceptance of multiculturalism Scepticism is replacing dogmatism Freedom of choice

13 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 14

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

Disjointed experience
Products, services and brands represent disconnected experiences without linkages, contexts and historical roots (decontextualization) Image switching
Is there a real self? Not one self-image but several self-images

Segmented production
Changed meaning of mass production
Not more quantity of the same but more of different variety Economies of scale?

Hyperrealistic collage
Disjointed experiences and moments of excitement No central meaning, context or history

Freedom from constraints and conventions

Interest, attention and retention cannot be expected on the basis of relevance, context, linkages or connected representations What will happen to brand loyalty? Will people attend to stimulus?
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 15

Products become isolated from their context and even from their original functions Postmodern values are less or non-principled
The new values are: irreverence, nonconformity, noncommitment, detachment, anti-elitism, pragmatism, eclecticism, and tolerance
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 16

Segmented media
Newspapers, magazines and television channels are losing their large audiences Growth of special interest magazines and television channels
Broadcasting has changed to narrowcasting

Hyperreality
Simulation of the reality or hypes
Beyond the utilitarian and economic reality of modern times Documentary movie (refers to the objective reality) Fiction (because there is no objective reality)

Signifiers become detached from their dignified reality and may become free floating
Tooth paste (clean your teeth) to consequences (white teeth) to values (attractiveness)

Media are not perfectly segmented

Video clips, shattered and fragmented information, attraction through exciting and sensational stimulation
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 17

Advertising as a tool to add hyperreality to mundane products and brands

Advertorials, infotainment Difficult to define the concept of misleading advertising

A virtual reality is created or enhanced with the help of media or theatre

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 18

Value realization
Early economic view
Value created in production and destroyed in consumption

Confusion of subject and object

Active input and participation of the subject
Do-it-yourself home maintenance, medical self-care, distance education

Postmodern view
Consumption is the end of production Value is created in consumption

Consumers produce benefits and value realization (traditional view) or commodities they use produce benefits (postmodern view)
Latter if consumers follow instructions correctly Consumers are there to allow products to achieve their functions

Value is no longer the property of the product, but a property of the image Confusion of subject and object
Prosumer (Toffler)
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 19

Being in control
Consumers use only limited functions (mastery of a limited functions!) on their hi-fi equipment
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 20

Paradoxical juxtaposition
Anything can be combined and juxtaposed with anything Postmodern era requires a kaleidoscopic sensibility and tolerance Due to absence of a dominant ideology or lifestyle, there is a demand in the public sphere for lifestyle and identity information Postmodern era is characterized by its openness
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 21

In closing
Postmodernism is not an ism but an increasing pluralism Postmodern conditions in consumption are
Fragmentation, hyperreality, value realization later in consumption cycle, and paradoxical juxtaposition

Research methodology has to adapt to the changed conditions

Naturalistic observation, contextualization, maximized comparisons, sensitized concepts

Marketing may play a key role in giving meaning to life through consumption
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK 22

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR NKS/IME/IITK

23