CONSUMPTION FEELINGS AND TYPES
CONSUMPTION FEELINGS AND TYPES
Emrah Altuntecim
“Consumption feelings”, which is the type of feeling that we emphasize that it must be paid particular attention and taken under control during our trainings, are indeed triggers that can easily direct people to the behaviour of purchasing. Scientists also mention that marketing has gained a new dimension, and that “traditional consumption” has been replaced by “experiential consumption. The increase in product diversity, and various marketing activities bring about new stimuli that effects people’s decisions.
Types of Hedonic Consumption:
Symbolic Consumption: Many researches confirm that consumers establish an association between themselves and the products they use. This approach expressed that consumers consume also the symbolic meanings of products while consuming them in the real sense. The products preferred the most in the symbolic sense are listed as products of care, cleansing, health, automobile, clothing, food, and hobby objects. Consumers may quite often prefer the symbolic meanings of products rather than their beneficiary values, and thus, symbolic purchasing behaviour is displayed. Products are viewed as subjective symbols rather than objective objects by consumers.
The following are the various meanings attributed to meanings:
- Compassion: Consumers like establishing an emotional bond with the products they buy, and they may make their preferences accordingly. While a pen can make some people feel very strong emotions, a scarf can make some others feel the same emotion.
- Power and status: In reality, consumers make their decisions not based on their income but according to the position branded products with a status will represent their positions. Branded shoes and bags, watches, and houses are the most obvious examples of status indicators.
- Creativity and taste: Consumers want to boost up their creativity and show their own tastes about their needs.
- Loyalty: Most consumers refer to their past experiences or maintain their habits when making a product preference. For example, people tend to use the oil or margarine preferred by their mothers, or they prefer using the same brand toothpaste.
- Gender appeal: Most products bear masculine or feminine meanings and are preferred because they will evoke attraction in the opposite gender. Perfumes or automobiles can be given as examples.
- Youth: Staying young and looking young is a matter of all times, and consumers do all they can to this end.
Compulsive Consumption: Those behaviours resulting from an individual’s feeling a motive to buy and their inability to control this motive are called compulsive consumption behaviours. Compulsive buyers are people who continuously shop and buy things they will never use or more than they will ever use regardless of their financial conditions. This type of consumers are people who see shopping as a sort of adrenaline source, are unhappy, inclined to fantasies, and have low self-esteem. While they are in a great emotional intensity at the moment of purchasing, they feel a deep regret after the act of purchasing. Nonetheless, consumers have a desire for novelties, surprises and change in shopping, and they feel an emotional satisfaction with the act of purchasing.
As women attach greater importance to their appearance, they are more closely interested in the symbolic meanings of products, and they clothes, accessories, shoes, and bags that would define them. Unlike women, men are interested in products which symbolize power and wealth such as big electronic domestic appliances and automobiles.