Lifestyle Consumption And Experience Economies

Lifestyle Consumption and Experience Economies

Module Number: BS4294
Module Co-ordinator: Daniel Turner

1109716

1.0 Introduction

It has been argued by various researchers that contemporary society witnessed a move away from fixed identities towards an environment in which identity becomes more self reflective, multiple and innovative.(Kellner 1992) Identity signifiers such as gender, ethnicity age and religion do not hold significant importance at present times as they used to, implementing a steady advance of society towards a new environment, in which consumption becomes the key mechanism for the development and communication of an identity and lifestyle.
The steady expansion of tourism activity throughout the world, the increase of personal incomes and the stimulation of international trade, helped the consideration of consumer choices and demands under the tourist perspective. The growth of tourism therefore it is right to say, is somehow directed by the tourism demand. (Johnson 1992)
With the increasing role of tourism in the global economy and growing competition in the global tourism market in-fact, the importance of developing quality tourism products has been recognised by both public and private tourism organisations. (Augustyn 1998)
In terms of social trends, one may see increases in the expectations of travellers; to this end, a number of factors influencing consumer behaviour had to be reviewed, consenting the initiative of quality improvement to be undertaken. Speculations on the future of tourism, especially of the aviation sector, suggested indeed, the need of adaptability and innovation in order to maintain revenue levels. (Eccles 1996)
Through the understanding of the main concepts related to lifestyle, in relation to Emirate Airlines, it is possible to easily enhance the experiential management, providing consumers products and services beyond their expectations.
This paper therefore, aims at successfully portraying the understanding of some of the key factors influencing travellers’ consumption behaviours, applying the concepts of conspicuous consumption, Personalisation of the Experience to the Emirate Airlines case, to consequently recommend possible compliances to a brighter future management of the experience economy enhancement.

2.2 Methods
Using theoretical and practical approach, the paper examines and discusses the phenomena of Conspicuous consumption, Experience economy and Globalisation, considering the application of the theories on the case of Emirate Airlines. The author utilises secondary research for both theoretical and practical reference, as the paper thoroughly considers academic journal articles, books and business references as secondary data collection methods.

3 Conspicuous consumption
Efforts to understand the totality of consumer behaviour have taken researchers into related fields, with some of the most fruitful results in terms of both theory and practice. (Grubb 1967)
The competitiveness and the extravagance consumption practises perceived at the beginning of the twentieth century indeed, characterise the consumer behavioural manners. Living in a world permeated by consumerism (Stearns 2001), the act of consumption has been driven not only by practical needs but also by consumers’ desires. (Benson 2000) Thanks to the unlimited choice and relative wealth, consumption has emerged as the major leisure activity. (Grimmer 2009)
Economic consumption is nowadays characterised by the individual living patterns that therefore influence and reflect on consumption behaviours. (Lazer 1963) The increase of disposable income and the wider choice of goods and services represent the main elements supporting conspicuous consumption. Nowadays the increase of working class per instance is synonymous of a higher percentage of population spending money on a broader number of provided goods and services. The choice of goods and services introduced in the consumers’ markets therefore, focuses onto facilitating the development of symbolic consumption as consumers receive a wider and diverse choice of products able to deeply symbolise their personal aspects.
Two conceptual areas within the behavioural sciences, which promise to yield meaningful information about consumer behaviour, are self-theory and symbolism. (Grubb 1967) The concepts reveal connections and reflections with the apprehension of the ‘self’, seen as the gathering of attitudes, perceptions and feelings about what the individual’s character is (Todd 2001), and ‘lifestyle’ perceived as the personal choice of way of living, consumption and time allocation. (Craig-Lees, Joy and Browne 1995)
Within the modern society, individuals tend to use products to express their self- concept (Todd 2001), and as Schewe defined it, individual’s consumption behaviour “is substantially intertwined with one’s self-concept”. (Schewe 1988, 63) As researched by Tucker in 1957, consumers’ personalities can be defined through product use, as individuals tend to utilise products to create, develop and maintain their identities. (Piacentini 2004) Consumers indeed can be analysed in terms of the product they acquire or in terms of meanings products have for them and/or their attitudes towards those specific products. (Sirgy 1982) A number of researchers have attempted to relate purchases of product types to the personalities of the purchasers. These in fact permitted the advance of the hypothesis that individuals who consume in a certain manner will also manifest certain common personality characteristics. (Grubb 1967) Grammer’s Application of Social Identity Theory to Car Purchase Behaviour is an excellent instance to express the idea of characters similarity within those individuals purchasing the same product, in this case motor vehicles. The interviewees, indeed, were asked to express their opinion over the topic. Results to the research were able to show an overall agreement to the theoretical idea: “I think you identify with them...they are similar people as you’, “he’s the adventurous kind of outback chap, he’s like me, he’s a good bloke”, that kind of thing’. (Grammer 2009 p. 4)
In trying to understand modern consumption decisions in fact, it has been noted by Ger and Belk (1996 p. 295) that consumption is a “communicative act crucial to the constitution of self” and that material possessions are therefore able to symbolise aspects of the owner identity to others. In other words, consumption decisions link to individuals as a symbolic communication. (Dittmar 1992)

The relationship between self-concept and behaviour therefore appears to be succinctly supported by forms of conspicuous and symbolic consumption.(Onkvisit and Shaw, 1987). Conducted research had focused on how individuals strive to achieve congruity between the way they perceive themselves and the images of the product and brands they consume, a concept that strongly supports the concepts of symbolic and conspicuous consumption.
In trying to understand modern consumption patters, it has been possible to find that material possessions are able to symbolise and communicate not only the individual’s personal qualities but also the individual’s social status and social position. (Sowden 2009)
Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) offered the opportunity to highlight how conspicuous consumption portrays social status and how products carry symbolic meanings. Following the sociologist’s idea in effect, conspicuous consumption is coined to describe the deliberate advertisement of one’s income and wealth through lavish spending on visible items.
As reported in Bagwell’s paper, budget brands are priced at marginal cost while luxurious brands, though not intrinsically superior, are sold at higher prices to consumers seeking to advertise their wealth. (Bagwell 1996)

When attributing the concept of conspicuous and symbolic consumption onto airlines, it is adequate to say that Emirate Airlines is seen as one of the world’s most luxurious airlines. (Nataraja 2011)
Choosing to fly with Emirates therefore becomes synonymous of conspicuous consumption. The choice of Emirate Airlines over a lower classified airline highlights the reflection of individual qualities and social position concepts analysed by Veblen, explaining how conspicuous consumers are able to affiliate themselves to higher standards of consumerism, therefore belonging to the higher social strata. The demonstration of wealth’s possession through consumerism strongly supports Veblen’s theory of social prestige and social status, highlighting the continuous shrink of what used to be the democratic leisure class. (Corrigan 1997) Booking and/or upgrading an Emirate’s flight from economy to business class or to business to first class also deliberately refers to conspicuous consumption and symbolic consumption, as the chosen product, service and brand carries a symbolic meaning, reflecting the traveller’s lifestyle but also the advertisement of its own wealth. Emirate Airlines refers to its first class as a ‘retreat into your own world’, and offering extremely ‘luxurious services’ throughout the entire length of the flight. (Emirates 2012)
To apply the idea interpreted by Bagwell to the case considered within this paper, it is possible to highlight how the choice of Emirates as a product, service and brand therefore indicates the individual’s wealth status, which the individual deliberately advertises through extravagant consumption, in this case represented by flying with Emirate Airlines, portrayed superior to others by the delineation of higher prices.

Conspicuous consumption is also seen as an encouragement towards competition and social isolation. (Corrigan 1997)
The last expressed ideology lead us to analyze the ‘distinction’ concept brought by Bourdieu in 1984, concerning with how consumption leads towards the creation of social boundaries through the system of taste. In his paper indeed, he introduces the concept of ‘capital’, portraying the different economic, educational, physical, social and cultural aspects. Portrayed as the preeminent, Bourdieu expands on ‘cultural taste’ explaining the importance of education in social life, and explaining how cultural knowledge, termed as ‘cultural capital’, permits individuals to behave appropriately in particular social contexts. His analysis also focused on how in terms of consumption, taste reflects on the consumer’s education and class, and consequently how in consumer’s lives, goods are associated with cultural capital and with the goods themselves.
A significant theoretical aspect in Bourdieu’s paper is the concept of ‘Habitus’, defined as a socially constituted system of dispositions (Weininger 2009) that orient “thoughts, perceptions, expressions, and actions”. (Bourdieu 1990a, p. 55) It represents the cognitive framework the individual carries in his/her head as a mean to interpreting the cultural situation he/she encounters and it therefore provides the structure by which the individual positions himself within the social space, according to his possession of cultural and economic capital. Habitus therefore can be easily turned against an individual in order to stimulate a desired reaction, whether positive or negative. The negative stimulus however is seen as an encouragement towards exclusion that could be generated by symbolism, language and practices (e.g. images, gestures, expressions). This encouragement towards exclusion is recognized as ‘Symbolic violence’, described by many as purely psychological, as being internal to the self- consciousness of the individual. (Carton 2003)

The concept of cultural capital expressed by Pierre Bourdieu, could also be reflected on the undertaken airline paragon. Emirate Airlines first class flights indeed, offer exquisite cuisine, carefully selected and prepared, ‘served on Royal Doulton fine bone china with exclusive Robert Welch cutlery, alongside the finest wines in the air’. (Emirates 2012)
A highly educated and knowledgeable individual, with a high level of cultural capital is facilitated in the approach to the offered service as holding knowledge on formal etiquettes to be maintained in higher standard services such as dress code and dining cutlery etiquette per instance. The language and symbols also wouldn’t result difficult to interpret. Unfavourably, individuals not holding high amounts of cultural capital would not find themselves comfortable with the required etiquettes, which could lead to some form of exclusion to that determined type of service. Images of on board luxurious dress codes and exclusive menu dishes also symbolise forms of symbolic violence which aim is to discourage those not part of the social group, not holding both economic and cultural capital.

3.1 Branding

Brand experience is conceptualized as “sensations, feelings, cognitions and behavioural responses evoked by brand related stimuli and identify packaging, communications and environment”. (Brakus, Schmitt and Zarantonello 2009 p.62)
Conveying brand image to a target market is a fundamental activity. (Park 1986) An important factor influencing the selection of a brand concept is the consumer’s need, that motivates the search for products that solve the consumption related problem. Symbolic needs in this case are defined as the desires for products that fulfil internal needs for self-enhancement, role position, group membership or ego- identification. The sociology of consumption as previously explained illustrates the important relationship between symbolic needs and consumption.
A brand with a symbolic concept is one designed to associate the individual to a social group, role and/or self image. Although being a perceptual phenomenon affected by the firm’s communication activities, branding also represents the understanding consumers derive from the total set of the brand itself. (Park 1986)

Three stages representing ‘branding’ are: Introduction, Elaboration and Fortification.
The Introduction stage is identified as the set of activities designed to establish a brand image and position within the market during the period of market entry. This action is always interrelated with marketing procedures.
The Evaluation stage instead represents the stage in which the image strategies focus on enhancing the value of the brand image so that it is perceived superior to other similar brands in the market. At this stage, elaborating the brand is therefore critical as the competitive environment becomes more complex. More competition arises and changes in consumer’s needs are possibly triggered by some factors such as enhanced product knowledge and desire for better product may assert brand image.
The Fortification stage, finally aims at linking an elaborated brand image to the image of other products produced by the firm in different product classes.

Applying the concept to current reality it is possible to utilise Emirate Airlines as an example. Based on an excellent media construction and offering most luxurious product and services, Emirate Airlines’ attributed personality and perception relies onto being a high-quality provider funded on a great marketing management. It can be said therefore that the installation of the brand image on Emirate Airlines succeeded. The introduction stage representing the set of activities well interrelated with marketing procedures as Emirate Airline’s popularity and image expanded worldwide.

4 The experience economy
Seen as the final stage of the economic progression, evolved through stages of commodities, goods, and services economies, the experience economy focuses on the increasing growth of experiential dimensions in the social and economic life. This evolvement conducts to a change in social values, the so called de-materialisation, encouraging customers towards the prominence of additional product value instead of the product tangibility itself. Thus the consumer attention progressively deviates from the product or service towards the experience. (Flagestad 2006)
The experience economy can be nowadays considered a well-regarded trend within different global fields. The driving force of the 4th stage of economic progression is possible to be attributed to the consumer’s need of creating, contouring personal identity and personality, possible thanks to the variation of individual consumption freedom. As defined by Pine and Gilmore (1999), experiences are “events that engage the individual in a personal way”. Similarly, Michael Wolf claimed in his book, ‘The Entertainment Economy’ that products without an entertainment component will not survive in the future. (Boswijk et al. 2007)
The specific characteristics attributed to the ‘Experience’ are the motives of Personalisation, Transformation and Authenticity. These represent the mass marketing customisation elements needed in order to enhance mass consumption. Within the economic world, goods and services are no longer enough (Pine and Gilmore 2007), but what customers want today are memorable experiences, that engage them in a personal way and transform them. Authenticity rendering became the last and most important element of the experience as consumers no longer focus on quality but on the authenticity of the economic offering.
4.1 Personalisation
Introducing personalisation as the main focus element for experience economies, it is possible to say it aims at effectively and efficiently satisfying consumers’ needs, by offering personally unique products and services, in order to provoke a positive and beyond expected experience. (Tseng 2010) The idea of personalisation is by some also seen as a step towards profitability and gain of competitiveness by ensuring customer satisfaction and word of mouth. (Tseng 2010)
Personalisation is not referred as a thing but it is rather seen as a way of doing things. It extracts customer information to provide consistent, timely and relevant individualised interactions and offers to each customer across all touch-points that increases customer loyalty and lifetime value. (Jackson 2007)
The Frequent Young Flyers Reward (Emirates 2012) is a personalisation programme introduced by Emirate Airlines that focuses onto the children reward for flying with the airline. Miles, indeed, can be exchanged with free flights, toys, books and also free trips to the Wild Wadi water park in Dubai. (Emirates 2012) This type of initiative indeed supports the previous theory stated by Tseng, able to personalise the experience tailored to the traveller’s needs, but also generate the traveller’s satisfaction with an exclusive service beyond expectations.
A similar programme has been approached by KLM Airlines. KLM ‘surprise’ is the best example of experience personalization applied by an experience economy. The KLM surprise project, launched in late 2010, resulted the most successful introduction of an original customization plan. Through the help of available information of Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and other social network sites, accessing social network passengers’ profiles, the airline has been able to gather information on passengers’ likings, past experiences and future plans, to then be able of greeting them with a surprise gift at check-in desks, gates and luggage drops. (May 2010) The successful program not only gave passengers that warm feeling of importance but also introduced the idea that little imagination is enough towards big success. The fore spoke personalization idea is also easily applied to Emirate Airlines, as the business could acquire the same sort of personalization program onto its travelers, with special personalization on birthdays and honeymoon.

5 Conclusions & Recommendations

Being predominant in our society, consumption eased the movement of individuals’ identity from fixed to self reflecting, multiple and innovative. With the expansion of product choice, characterized by an increase of goods and services on the market, consumption became the key concept towards the interpretation and illustration of our ‘self’ to the community and the communication of our identity and lifestyle. With time, individuals also engaged consumption with the demonstration of their belonging to a determined social group and social strata, a concept that inspired deep research and the development of many theories.
With the steady and fast expansion of the aviation sector under the tourism industry and the growth and development of consumerism, the number of factors influencing consumer behaviors are increasing and diversifying. Particular attention to change and innovation practices therefore needs to be addressed by those experience economies wanting to maintain and increase revenue levels.
Having analyzed the main lifestyle concepts of consumer behavior attributed to the case study, the author has been able to identify two emerging concepts attributed to Emirate Airlines, being Conspicuous Consumption and Experience Personalization.
The analysis of the two consumption concepts permitted indeed a step towards the future development of the considered experience economy management.

In analyzing Conspicuous Consumption, it has been possible to interpret some of the theories highlighted within the concept. Consumers nowadays have the tendency of showing their social position and characterize their lifestyle through the expenditure of wealth. Characterized by its successful brand management, Emirate Airlines has been always able to maintain its popular image of one of the world’s most luxurious airlines. Within the paper, an example of conspicuous consumption has been shown by the distinction of First Class, Business Class and Economy Class flights. The products and services at this point become exclusive to the each individual passenger, creating a link between conspicuous consumption and personalization.

Having also considered Experience Personalization, it is crucial for an Economy to service consumers with a personally and unique experience. This way the concept is able to favour both the Experience economy and the consumer; the experience economy, by enhancing revenue and consumer acquisition and, the consumer through personal satisfaction and the acquisition of a memorable experience. Focusing on the case of Emirate Airline the author has been able to find exclusive personalization examples already undertaken by the business. The ‘Young Flyer reward’ is an applied example.
Similar initiatives such as ‘KLM surprise’ have been developed by other airlines, representing possible suggestions and recommendations to Emirate Airlines.
Other different suggestions towards the personalization of an experience, finally, could be a ‘Welcome’ accompanied by a glass of Champagne for a frequent Business flyer travelling in coach with family or surprising a traveler flying on its birthday.

References

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