Keeping up with Joneses losing its cachet

May 16, 2010

A democratization of snobbery after recession

The wealthy will soon have less drool to mop off their Bentleys.

With the recession having dimmed our view of conspicuous consumption, and the global middle class projected to hit 1.2 billion by 2030 - up from 430 million in 2000 - a new report finds traditional symbols of prestige are losing lustre.

According to researchers, pricey cars and similar luxuries are now just one part of a vast new "statusphere" that includes everything from a person's eco-credentials to their number of Facebook friends and knowledge of local restaurants. Think of it as the democratization of snobbery.

"As the priorities of society change and diversify, so do the ways in which consumers can get their status fix," says Chris Turner, head of research and analysis for Trendwatching.com, the consumer behaviour clearing house behind the report.

"The first priority for brands (must be) to move away from an assumption that their customers' status is necessarily based on the old priority of 'bigger, better, harder' consumption."

Unity Marketing's annual State of the Luxury Market report - released this month - reveals that participation in the luxury sphere, as measured by purchase incidence, was down dramatically in 2009, with lead analyst Pam Danziger noting, so far, "there are no signs that the customers who dropped out of the luxury market as a result of the recession have returned."

Recognizing this shift, the new virtual stock-exchange Empire Avenue uses a person's online contributions - not their bank statement or worldly possessions - as a yardstick for their worth. The more influential someone is in their social networks, the higher their share-price and thus their potential appeal to advertisers, which the Edmonton-based startup will approach on members' behalf.

"It's really hard to say what status is these days," says Duleepa Wijayawardhana, CEO of Empire Avenue. "To me, it's not about who has the most toys; it's about who has the most knowledge. It's about who is willing to communicate and who's willing to go the extra mile to share information."

June Cotte, professor of marketing at the University of Western Ontario, identifies several possible catalysts for the new state of the statusphere.

"There's some indication that the wealthy feel guilty about having so much ... and that in the face of massive unemployment, they shouldn't be showing off the biggest diamonds or newest Mercedes," says Cotte.

"There's also a lot of diffused anger toward capitalism, and the corporations that messed things up, which is resulting in fewer logos and fewer brand names among consumers in general."

People still crave differentiation. They're simply finding new and more segmented ways of doing so, says culture expert John Alberti.

"We're seeing an erosion of the idea of a mass public, with marketing being targeted to highly specific groups," says Alberti, a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University. "It really does open up (the field) to those who may have been excluded by the previously narrow avenues of acquiring a degree or accruing certain social status."

While Louboutins, for example, are the n'est plus ultra of shoes among fashionistas, a less expensive pair of Terra Plana vegan pumps are what earns prestige with the eco-conscious. A recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in fact, found a yen for social cachet will cause people to pay more for "green" merchandise simply because it signals self-sacrifice for the greater good.

« More articles about trendwatching.com and our trends