You might think they listen to a certain type of music or
potentially drink wine rather than beer.
Now imagine for a moment I told you that, that person drives a Toyota.
Would you make the same inferences about them or
might you make different inferences about who they are?
We do this all the time.
Whether at a party or at work when we meet a new person for the first time, or
even talking to someone we've met before, we make inferences about
who they are based on how they're dressed and what they do.
If someone told you they're a lawyer, for example, versus an art historian you'd
make different inferences about what they might do with their spare time.
And so importantly, consumption, the things we buy and what we do has meaning.
What we buy, say, and do can act as a signal of our identity to others.
It can communicate unobservable things to us about others around us.
Someone drives a BMW, might assume that they're wealthy, or showy,
or drink wine again, rather than beer.
They drive a Toyota,
maybe they're a little bit more functional, a little bit more utilitarian.
Maybe they care a little bit more potentially about their family.
And so importantly, we buy products not just for what they do or their functional
benefit, but also what they mean, what they symbolize or communicate about us.
So one question is, well, where do products or ideas get that identity from?
Where does meaning come from in the first place?
One way consumption gains meaning is through brand positioning,
what the brand puts out there on the world.
Whether it's an ad or the store experience.
Take Abercrombie and Fitch, for example, they use lots of black and
white photos with attractive young men and
women seeming like they're having a huge amount of fun wearing the clothes.
Or you walk into the store, and it has a certain smell and
feel to it that associates the brand with particular things.
The brand has spent a lot of time and
money associating them with a particular identity.
BMW's done the same, their ads show attractive people driving fast cars around
beautiful scenery, encouraging a certain image to be associated with the brand.
But importantly the brand doesn't totally control what it means to use that product.
Take for example the Honda Element.
Honda built this car to appeal to people in their mid-20s.
They built ads that showed people using the car, surfing and
skiing and snowboarding.
And they played fun music in the background,
showing young people having a great time using the brand.
All of this was to get that target market to buy the car.
But that isn't exactly what happened.
Because just like Axe meant to appeal to a certain segment but
attracted another one, the Honda element did the same.
Senior citizens ending up loving the car because it had lots of headroom and
was easy to get into.
And as a result, younger people became less interested in buying the brand.
Because if lots of seniors are using it, they didn't wanna use it as well.
And so the signal values depends a lot not only what the brand says, but
who else is using it.
If people wanna convey a certain meaning,
they may adopt things that signal that meaning to others.
We all wanna seem wealthier, smarter, and fitter than we actually are, so
we may buy products or use brands that communicate those desired identities.
But importantly, adoption by outsiders can change the meaning of a particular brand.
Burberry, for
example, is a very high-end brand associated with lots of wealthy Brits.
But lots of soccer hooligans in Britain were also buying knockoff Burberry to show
themselves to seem wealthy to others.
And so as a result, it shifted the meaning of consumption.
It changed what the brand meant from a signal of wealth
to a set of wannabes who wanted to seem wealthy.
And a result, lots of true wealthy people ended up abandoning the brand and
moving to something else.