Chapter Overview

This chapter concentrates on the meanings of consumption, which we describe as central to understanding consumer demand for products (goods, services, experiences, and ideas). To understand this process we first introduce the idea of semiosis, or the nature of meaning. We describe what meaning is and how it attaches to objects. We point out that consumption involves both individual meanings and social ones. In the next section we explore five types of consumption meanings that may be derived from products: utilitarian, sacred and secular, hedonic, and social. Often these overlap in a single product, yet specific meanings associated with a product may vary between market segments. In the next four sections of the chapter we describe the origin and movement of meanings, using the meaning transfer model to organize this discussion. First we describe the origin of meaning in the culturally constituted world explaining the role of cultural principles and categories in organizing meaning. Next, we describe how culturally available meanings are linked to products through the advertising and fashion systems.

Various techniques and rhetorical (persuasive) strategies are described in detail including advertising formats and literary devices. The role of various participants in the meaning transfer process including spokespersons, copy writers, and designers are described. The roles that consumers play in interpreting and assimilating advertising meanings are also explored. In the next section of the chapter, we describe two kinds of consumer meaning transfer processes. Both ordinary behaviors and ritualized ones are discussed, both of which are employed to extract meaning from the world of goods. The next section discusses the inherent malleability of consumer meanings. Our purpose here is to point out that there is inherent dynamism in consumer meanings. Meanings fluctuate both within and between market segments. Some of the processes through which consumers debate the significance of goods are described. In the next section of the chapter we discuss the significance of collecting, a peculiar and economically significant vehicle for the consumption of meaning. Collecting provides consumers with important opportunities to experience hedonic and sacred meanings and to engage in possession and exchange rituals. We discuss both individual and institutional collecting, especially as conducted by museums.

To conclude we discuss several dimensions along which consumption meanings vary cross-culturally. We point out that cataloguing all possible consumption meanings is impossible, given the fluid quality of demand in a global economy. Nonetheless, seeking to manage the apparently universal human propensity to invest products with meaning requires that marketers pay attention to the ever-shifting play of cultural meanings.