Green products : A new status symbol?

Green cars, domestic products and fair trade food are bought as status symbol according to a new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. People are willing to sacrifice performance to raise their environmental status by buying hybrid cars. Consumers can even kill two birds with one stone : Because many green products cost more than traditional equivalents, consumers are able to display their wealth while communicating altruism.
Driving non-green cars can communicate status, but it can also suggest the customer is a selfish and uncaring person. In a study one group (A) was told a story about social status while an other group (B) read a story without a status message. Afterwards, they asked to group members to make a choice between a luxurious and better-performing car and a green car. 37% of Group B chose a green car, while more than 50 percent of group A chose a green car. The author claims that playing on desire for social status is a way to encourage consumers to chose green products.

http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/03/30/green-cars-a-social-status-symbol-suggests-study/

I personally love the fact that people contribute to buying greener products. But of course, as for all of us, I’m still keen on traditional luxury products. I definitely won’t leave out all the luxury, status related goods to become a fanatic green consumer. Am I a selfish person? No I don’t think so, even if I say it myself. Life isn’t about strictly buying environmentally-friendly goods, it’s about becoming aware of the fact that the environment conscious consumers and contributing yourself in a certain degree.
I do believe there’s a market for green products within the luxury industry. Every social class has conscious people. Especially rich people are looking for new ways to express their wealth by doing something morally good.

Luxurious lifestyle manual

How come wealthy people often share a similar consummation pattern, well it seems to be that there is a manual how to life your life filled with luxury. Of course in real life this is not the only reason or even a reason at all.

One of the actual reasons is that people in a social class always look at the social level just above them and see how to consume their extra funds if they would reach that level. Things like this site contribute to this phenomenon as it indicates where luxurious meetings are held, new trends in the luxury network and much more so that a person can try to distinguish himself in the right social level. Not only sites give you these possibilities, magazines and meetings provide a similar service, also it is not exclusive for the luxury sector.

The site also gives you a look at different fashion styles you can try and obtain, like the celebrity style in which the site gives you different looks who were spotted and approved at the red carpet. But this is just the start of the capacities of the site, after a very wide selection range going from food to airplanes you can also decide to order it. So after looking into all of these possibilities you don’t have much more trouble in fixing your purchase as it is just a mouse click away from being delivered to your doorstep, obviously depending on what you just bought.

http://www.justluxe.com/

Fictitious conspicuous consumption

It might be to expensive for people to buy a genuine Rolex or they might find it not worth the money. Solution for this problem, replica products, is indicated at the following site. When you open the site you immediately see an article describing the benefits of replica watches and other products.

They start by giving an alternative description of conspicuous consumption, these replicas contribute to your appearances and give your self-confidence a boost by upgrading your image. Genuine Rolex watches do this undoubtedly even better but there is a significant difference in the price range. Therefore replicas make a very good alternative if your options are limited. Replicas are sometimes very hard to spot, the site gives the example of Switch Rolex replicas who look very much alike and only an expert might recognize the difference.

My opinion on replicas is ambiguous, I see the benefits because replicas bring a suiting alternative to people with less possibilities with their budget. On the other hand these brands steal ideas from successful genuine products in order to profit from these ideas. Also the brands who distribute cheaper, but original, watches will lose a certain piece of their target audience to these replica brands.

http://www.replicahorloges.info/rolex-goed-idee.html

a watch, a man's best friend

Who thought that men didn’t care for quality and classy accessories are wrong. Apart from a wedding ring, a watch is the only socially accepted jewel for men. So it’s not surprisingly that men are very choosy when buying one. It has to be one from a brand with a history, one with a high standard quality, one with its own personality, one that is a unique piece of art. Furthermore multiple men even have a emotional relationship with their watch.
It is said that these watch loving men are part of some kind of secret society and that they are able to recognize each other by one simple look at the wrist. Consequentially you can say that luxury watch wearing men have a (strong) bonding with each other and that when they (accidentally) meet they could talk for hours about their precious accessory. And it’s not only the appearance that makes a watch so special, it is above all the technique of the watch, created by Da Vinci, Galilei and Huygens, that makes it so interesting for men. According to these men, it is the complexity and the hours and hours of handiwork that makes it worth the money and gives the watch his own soul.
Luxury brands, like Universal Genève, are aware of these facts and try to stay as traditional and unique as possible.

http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=GP831J4TU&word=mannen+horloges

I receive business partners on my yacht

Many people think CEOs of big companies buying impressive yachts are doing this only to stress their status and huge pay, but there are some other reasons why (in this case, Chinese) directors are considering buying a yacht. How do you convince very important clients that your company wants to make the difference? Of course, you have to be able to present a good deal, but there is more. One possibility is to receive your important business partners in a luxury environment. Boring offices and fully booked restaurants are simply not that alluring, not to mention it's completely unoriginal. It's as simple as that: not all CEOs really want to boast about their position, but are forced to luxury products when they want to complete their task successfully.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-07/22/content_11035745.htm

This article proves that conspicuous consumption is sometimes overestimated. Many people don't really choose conscious for buying luxury products, but are sometimes forced to do that. Especially in China this trend is universal, because big Chinese cities don't lend to make deals in a quiet and relaxing atmosphere.

Fine water

A climate change and an overpopulation in many cities in de world have resulted in the fact that water is becoming more and more scarce and more and more expensive. This current problem has leaded to the creation of a whole new market: Luxury Water. This ‘new’ and non-alcoholic beverage for the wealthy individual has become the new champagne in the more exclusive bars, restaurants and hotels, some of them even have their own water list like a wine list. People are willing to pay almost 30 times more for it because of its unique look ( some bottles look like wine bottles, some are adorned with classy Swarovski crystals and some water bottles are even a piece of art) and because they believe that this water is more healthy than normal mineral water ( it’s coming from certain wells, springs, aquifers and catch basins throughout the world).

I really think that this ‘luxury water’ is a bit overhyped. People who buy this kind of water must have no idea what to do with their money. Why showing of with a bottle of 60$ when it’s almost free from the tap.

http://www.finewaters.com/
http://www.fineh2o.com/

From Patricians to Proletarians

A recent study by Marshall School of Business found that luxury brands charge more for “quieter” items with subtle logo placement and discreet appeal. By examining designer handbags, high-end vehicles and men’s shoes, they were able to identify luxury-good consumer species :
1) Patricians: They are wealthy consumers, low in need for status. They pay a premium for quiet goods, products that only their fellow patricians can recognize.
2) Parvenus: They’re wealthy consumers, high in need for status. They use loud luxury goods to signal to the less affluent that they are not one of them.
3) Poseurs : The people who lack the financial means to buy luxury goods, but they are highly motivated to buy counterfeit items to “emulate those who they recognize to be wealthy.
4) Proletarians : There are the ones with no drive for status consumption.
An other conclusions is that counterfeiters focus on the lower-priced, louder goods. These goods are sold to non-patricians.

http://designtaxi.com/news/32602/Study-Luxury-Brands-Charge-Less-for-Loud-Items-with-Big-Logos/

I chose this article because it really connects to my previous article about snobs and followers. This study classifies the luxury-good consumer in a different way, but we can still recognize the same pattern. We can describe patricians as snobs. We can classify parvenus in a larger extend as followers. You can also count poseurs in a limited degree to the followers, because they try to accomplish status. But I refuse to do that because they mostly buy fake goods. Proletarians do not have a drive to separate them from the followers or to follow, so there’s no criteria to decide to which group they belong.