The self in Consumer Behaviour research

Résumé du document

Many consumer behaviour researchers suggest that 'consumers are what they consume'. This assertion could be the slogan of 'Nike Corporation'. This firm is a reference to Publicity and Marketing in our days. The goal of marketing tools is to suggest to consumers that they are what they consume. People who buy the brand buy the image of the product too. When Solomon suggested that 'you are what you consume', he wanted to refer to the link that exists between the consumer and the product. But is this quotation really true in all cases?

Extraits

[...] The first main point is maybe the offer. We don't consume all the time product according to our self. The reason is because everyone hasn't money to buy what they really want in our world. Sometimes, we prefer to buy in a less expensive way and we buy product that we don‘t consume usually. Others buy only discounted products. In fact, today in any markets, the offer is very large and complex. Consequently, consumers buy more for the ratio price/quality than for the benefit and the image of the product. [...]

[...] Ideal self is how a person really would like to be. We have all in our life somebody who is a model for us or a precise definition of how we would like to be or how we would like to be perceived. We have it, because we care about how we are perceived by people. We can take to argue this point an example of my life. I have a good friend, who seems to have a good self and who seems to be appreciated by most of my friends. [...]

[...] The social self is how we think that people perceives us. Everyone has a different social self and we have all different values of how has to be the human self. The social self change a lot during the life of one human. It depends exclusively on our image who is reflecting by people we meet and on the maturity that we have. For example, an old person with a lot of maturity is going to attach less importance to the social self than a young person who starts to make experience in his life. [...]

[...] The in the are what we consume is referring to the “self concept”. In class of Consumer Behaviour we have saw that it exist three kinds of different aspect of “self -concept”: _ Self Esteem _ Actual/real Self versus Ideal self _ Multiple Selves (Social) Freud said that self is into the identity, the ego and the superego”. I think that it can be more personal to give my own definition about self”. In my opinion, there are three real self: Self Esteem is referring to how a person perceives herself. [...]

[...] Is there another thing who influence our consumption? The answer is still yes. The consumer can be influenced by his social group and his own culture. We can take the example of one Indian and one French who are going in a supermarket. The Indian in many cases is going to buy more spices than the French, and the French is going to buy more bread than the Indian. We have all typical meal according to our culture. Moreover, group also influence the behaviour of consumption. [...]