eLearning Session

After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain the impact of social class, ethnicity, age, gender, and religion on consumption choices.
2. Understand the bases for the ethnic segmentation and targeting.
3. Appreciate the difference between acculturation and assimilation and their relevance to consumer behavior.
4. Understand the idea of age cohorts and recognize the different kinds of cohorts relevant to marketing.
5. Recognize some of the key differences in consumer desires between class, ethnicity, gender, and age segments.
6. Understand the difference between sex and gender and its relevance for marketing.
7. See how the concept of cultural capital can be used to position products and services.

• Consumers participate in a number of economic and social structures and their participation integrates and differentiates them from other consumers.
• The structures discussed in this chapter-class, ethnicity, caste, religion, gender, and age-are the major organizational categories in societies around the world.
• Clusters of goods and services purchased and consumed are often connected to social status and personal identify, which these economic and social structures help to define.
• Economic and social structures are dynamic.
• Individual members' preferences shift over time as they undergo life transitions from youth through old age. Regardless of culture, old age creates certain consumption problems: medical, mobility, and mortality, for example.
• Economic and social structures anchor and mold consumer preferences and consumption patterns or lifestyles. Not only do they predict the resources controlled by consumers, but consumer skills and values are learned by individuals as members of these groups. Basic consumption tastes and preferences such as preferences for sweetness, saltiness, and tartness in food are molded not just by culture, but also by social class.
• Sumptuary laws that attempt to restrict certain types of consumption basedon social class date back to the Roman Empire at least four centuries before Christ. Although sumptuary laws are less common today, less formal social norms and consumer skills still defend social boundaries.
• Every element of the marketing mix may require adjustments to match the distinctive characteristics of economic and social segments we discuss in this chapter.

• Social class, ethnicity, tribe, and caste influence consumers' behavior, often indirectly rather than directly. For example, economic and social structures affect a person's identity and our lifestyle, and in turn influence many consumption behaviors. As with culture, the influence of economic and social structures is easiest to discern when we meet people whose class, ethnicity, tribe, or caste, differ from our own. In addition, consumers may embrace and switch between social structures, up and down the social ladder, depending on contexts in their daily lives.

1. Class Variation in Consumer Behavior
• Many firms and organizations focus their efforts on fine-tuned target marketing strategies to appeal to different segments of consumers. Some of the divisions in the consumer population marketer's target are based on social class differences. To understand cultural differences and similarities or consumer values requires we consider social class.
• Social classes are groupings across society, broadly recognized by members of that society, involving inequalities, or certainly, differences in such areas as power, authority, wealth, income, prestige, working conditions, lifestyles, and culture. People of any one class tend to associate much more with one another than they do with members of other classes.
• Class variables influence consumption patterns, customer privileges, and lifestyle distinctions. However, class relates differently to consumption depending on cultural context.
• The way in which elements of income, education, occupation, and residential location combine to form a specific social class hierarchy, whereby some individuals have higher status than others, differs according to a society's history.
1. How Social Class is Determined
• A key criterion of social class is income differences. Differences of income are especially significant for marketers as these resources are related to purchasing power. Also, absolute income and differences in income levels indicate the size of potential markets.
• The World Bank lists all countries by Purchasing Power Parity in its annual World Bank atlas. The index allows us to compare the relative purchasing power of goods in a particular country to what those same things cost in the U.S. In the United States, income level plays an unclear role in class identification.
• In the Triad countries, people typically perceive their own class positions based on their relative income, that is, how one's purchasing power seems to rate next to others of similar occupation or lifestyle.
• Throughout the first world, education, occupation, and social background are mutually reinforcing criteria that more precisely define social class than income alone. A landmark study asked Americans what class they belonged to and then went on to analyze why they classified themselves the way they did. According to this study, 8pecent identified with the poor, 347 percent with the working class, 43 percent with the middle class, 8 percent with upper-middle class, and 1 percent with upper class. Topping the list of reasons they belonged to a particular social class was occupation, followed by education and then lifestyles, values, and attitudes. Occupation is a pretty reliable indicator of social class, and occupations tend to be ranked in terms of prestige.
• Education is a determinant of occupation, and increases social and cultural capital (concepts we discuss later in this chapter), hence it is a critical element of social class and social mobility. Advertisements for executive education programs at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University play on the connection between education and social mobility as shown below.

Advertisments for the Kellogg Graduate School of Management (50.0K)

• In many countries, higher education choices are determined by standardized examinations that tend to favor those with higher-class backgrounds.
• Private education is a growth business in many nations including the US, UK, Brazil, and Mexico. Consumption of higher education is often based on social class.
2. The Geography of Social Class
• On a global level, most of the world's poor live in the less affluent world, where some 4.4 billion have been mostly left out of the consumption explosion of the last two decades.
• The richest one-fifth of the world's population live in the Triad nations where they consume the bulk of goods and services produced in the world. On a national level, wealthy, middle and working class residential areas are reasonably stable. Therefore, it is possible to target groups, site retail outlets, and make effective market communications.
• Demographic shifts made possible by development of the information economy have resulted in the emergence of new pockets of affluence in America and Europe.
• The globalization of a market economy and of consumer society has resulted in changes in class structure and the relationship between class and consumption. Changes in class structure are most dramatic in many NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) and the LAW nations. India and Indonesia likewise have a middle class of more than 200 million strong each. Many Triad countries have also seen their class structure change to reflect more pronounced gaps between the haves and have-nots.
3. Symbolic Capital
• Changes in class structure have accompanied the globalization of consumer culture. Global marketing has led to the proliferation of consumer goods, services, and expenditures. Technological advance has led to great communication across class boundaries and wider accessibility of goods, travel, and media by all but the poor. Simple models linking social classes with a stable set of class-related products and brands are no longer very useful to marketers. Lower-class consumers now consume many of the same goods and participate in many of the same activities as higher-class consumers. Consumer goods are no longer objective markers of class status but representations of the ways in which different classes of people consume them. What really differentiates consumers in different social classes is how they consume.
• It is useful to segment social class consumption on the basis of how people compete for higher status, or what some call symbolic capital. To obtain symbolic capital people draw on three types of resources, economic, social, and cultural capital. Economic capital means financial resources, including income. Social capital includes relationships, organizational memberships and social networks that are often nurtured in schools, jobs, or neighborhoods.Cultural capital is a more complicated product of a person's class heritage. One aspect of cultural capital is implicit practical knowledgeand skills such as how to use chopsticks, tie a bow tie, or how to set a formal dining table. A second aspect consists of access to consumergoods and objects such as fine arts and heirlooms. And a third is degrees, diplomas, and memberships in clubs and associations that certify certain qualities to others. For consumer researchers a useful way to think of cultural capital is as knowledge of high status consumption activities including culinary, literary, artistic, and travel. Knowledge of these consumption domains comes about in part through informal learning and socialization. Cultural capital has been thought of as a way of distinguishing upper class consumer behavior from that of other classes. Cultural capital may be demonstrated through increased consumption of products, entertainment's, and services associated with upper class goods and services such as tennis, yachting, golfing, symphonic music, abstract art, French popular songs, and vintage wine, for example.
• In general, across classes, we see a heightened emphasis on status-oriented consumption, that is, behavior involving competition forsymbolic capital often associated with status symbols. Status symbolsare consumer products, activities, or services that indicate one's position in the class hierarchy.
• Status symbols vary internationally as well: knowledge and appreciation of classic Kampuchean dances or Chinese opera are elite tastes, but mainly among Cambodians and Chinese. Taking an expensive cruise may be an indicator of cultural capital among upwardly mobile Thais, while knowledge of fast food restaurants may serve this role among lower middle class Brazilians. The point is that even when what is consumed overlaps, lower social class groups consume differently than upper social class groups. Marketers must position products for different social class groups in different ways to accommodate this fact.
4. Effects of Social Class on Consumption
• Social class influences a variety of consumer behaviors. Social class is a variable for segmenting product markets that satisfy needs related to such lifestyle expressions as housing, clothing, furniture, travel, sports, cuisine, and entertainment. Consumption experience with a variety of products and services increases in higher social classes, leading to more developed consumer decision-making skills. In part, this is due to the direct effects of income on consumption, but is also due to the cultivation of cultural capital that comes with educational and occupational attainment.
• Store patronage is related to social class. Research shows that Americans produce consistent rankings of retail outlets in terms of perceived status, and these rankings become more consistent with higher social class of respondents. Brand loyalty also is related to class, tending to decrease with higher social class, but this depends importantly upon the degree of purchase and consumption experience. Purchase and consumption experience may outweigh the effects of social class on brand loyalty.
5. Consumption Patterns and Class-Based Segments
• It can be misleading to look for neat social class divisions segmented on the basis of income, education, occupation, and residence. Nevertheless, it is valuable to develop measures of the rough size of such groups for targeting purposes. We distinguish three main class-based segments: an upper class (including both old, established elite's and the upper echelons of technical and managerial groups), a middle class, and a lower class (including the underclass). Exhibit 6.1 shows various models of class structure found around the world.

Exhibit 6.1: Class Structure by World Areas (50.0K)

• We can make a number of points about identifying social hierarchies for marketing purposes. One is that globalization reproduces a similar sort of class hierarchy around the world. This has led to upward mobility, a move to a higher social class, usually associated witheducational or occupational achievement in many transitional NIC and LAW countries. It has also led to downward mobility, a move toa lower social class for millions of people, in some of the Triad countries and in many transitional and LAW countries as well. Downward mobility has been associated with a loss of agricultural, and lower level manufacturing and managerial jobs in the Triad countries due to the move to an information economy, the collapse of state enterprises in the transitional economies, and a failure of many enterprises to produce for competitive global markets in LAW countries.
• A second point of significance is that global class segments may be over or under represented in different countries. Thus, upper class segments are now represented in the Triad countries while the traditional industrial working class is now over represented in the developing world.
• A third point is that the upper middle and middle classes are now increasingly drawn from the ranks of service and information businesses, many of which create distinctive corporate cultures.
• Finally, members of the very lowest classes, ranging from native peoples in the developing world to ghetto gang bangers in the Triad nations now play an important role as sources of images and styles.
• When fashion trends start in the lower class and spread upwards, this is called status float and products as diverse as blue jeans, tattoos, and some musical styles like rap and world beat have benefited.
6. Upper Class Segments
• Because of its wealth, market researchers have targeted this group with distinctive media and product offerings. But the marketers have tended to divide this group somewhat differently into three segments, old money, nouveau riche, and the Get Set.
• Old money corresponds to the capitalist class or the upper-upper class. Old money individuals distinguish themselves through organized philanthropy and other activities that have to do more with the way money is spent and less to do with what is purchased. First generation computer billionaires have begun to mimic this pattern of philanthropic concern usually associated with the old money elite. Old money tends to value products that they view as simple, comfortable, and refined and engages in heavy consumption of custom-made products.
• Nouveau riche means new money; this group is like the lower upper class group, the reputation/behavioral model. Nouveau riche consumers combine qualities of the middle class with those of the upper classes. They tend to work very hard since hard work is the source of their newfound wealth, but also to spend or play hard as well. This is the group people associate with conspicuousconsumption. Conspicuous consumption refers to people's desire toprovide prominent visible evidence ofsocial mobility, the passage of individuals from one social class to another. Conspicuous consumption often involves purchase and display of status symbols, conventional indicators of wealth and power.
• Conspicuous consumption tends to be highly conventional, because the nouveau riche want to convey meanings that are conventional indications of success. Being rich enables these consumers to buy beauty through such services as personal trainers, prestigious health spas, and plastic surgery.
• Finally, as a result of changing attitudes towards consumption brought about by the globalization of marketing and consumer culture, the upper middle class is re-emerging as what marketers call the Get Set. It is possible that the increasing ability of middle class consumers to purchase the goods and services normally reserved for upper class groups is reviving status competition through symbolic culture.
• Lower upper and upper middle class segments in the United States purchase in distinctly frugal ways. Recent research suggests upper and upper middle class consumers in the United States are frequent customers of discount warehouse stores. Upper class frugality is unlikely to be found among elite consumers in countries without Protestant religious traditions.
• The emergence of affluent market segments in the NICs-with many people still learning how to be affluent-represents a new market opportunity with the newly affluent still learning how to be affluent.
• Targeting the very affluent is not always easy. One reason is that the numbers are small. Second, the truly affluent may own multiple residences. And finally, wealth may be used to purchase some degree of anonymity. Nevertheless, it is possible to pinpoint the wealthy. For example, Exhibit 6.2 lists the 10 most affluent areas in the U.S. in 1990.

Exhibit 6.2: Top U.S. Areas with Household Incomes of $100,000 or More in 1990 (50.0K)

• Finally, life style variations (i.e., bourgeois, post-Yuppie, counter-cultural, intellectual, political, risk-taking, New Age, etc.) that have emerged over the past generation exist vertically within upper middle class groups, often combining people from several classes. These life style subdivisions are probably more important for positioning both goods and messages than are the named classes in many Triad nations.
7. Middle Class Segments
• Sizable middle classes can be found in at least half of the 200+ nations of the world. Most Americans think of themselves as middle class. In 1978, 75 percent of Americans enjoyed middle class status, although this number has since decreased somewhat. In the U.S., middle class status would generally be attributed to households with incomes between $37,000 and $100,000.
• The American middle class is increasingly multi-ethnic. The number of African-American managers has nearly tripled and the number of African-American lawyers has increased more than sixfold.
• Middle-income segments now predominate in European societies as gross domestic product (an economic measure of output) doubled and quadrupled between 1980 and 1995. The economic boom of the early 80's led to the emergence of a named upwardly mobile middle class group, the Yuppies, found both in the U.S. and Germany, whose new found economic well-being fueled a huge demand for goods to express their new self-hood.
• New middle classes represent growth opportunities for international marketers.
• In many countries middle classes adopt values that include education, self-improvement, upward mobility, a future orientation, and interest in material self-improvement. These are values familiar to many Americans and lead to heightened expenditures on education and culture (e.g., theatre attendance and taking foreign vacations), household furnishings, popular leisure activities like sports, and brand loyalty.
• Marketing to middle-class segments in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa requires appeals that meld traditional and innovative values with great consideration of local norms and values.
• In some developing nations, the middle class is expanding. However, relatively rapid growth of per capita GDP is often accompanied by extreme income inequality, which inhibits growth of middle class market segments. The problem of rapid growth without redistribution to a middle class afflicts many developing countries.
• An increase in discretionary income characterizes the gains in income of these middle class households. Discretionary income is the income over and above that required to meet basic consumer needs. Discretionary income increases as overall income goes up. Consumers often desire to translate improvements in earning power into evidence of social mobility. People moving from lower to higher income groups often signal their new social class pretensions through changes in consumer goods. Thus, in the NICs, these income trends are fueling increasing demand not only for consumer durables, but also for higher quality food products and luxuries like recreation and private transportation as well.
8. Working-Class and Under-Class Segments
• Working- and under-class segments constitute a majority of the population of the world. Half of the nations of the world have per capita incomes of less than $2000; in two thirds of the world, per capita income is less than $5000.
• Poor first world households tend to be associated with single mothers, low education levels, a disproportionate number of minorities, youth and the aged.
• Studies of the working poor and working class groups in the U.S. and in developing countries show that official income figures conceal numerous sources of informal income. In the first world, these groups also receive a disproportionate amount of public assistance. Networks of reciprocal exchange act to improve standards of living. Such networks also redistribute consumer goods as suggested in Consumer Chronicles 6.2.

Consumer Chronicles 6.2 Redistribution of Consumer Goods in Peru (50.0K)

• One extremely widespread institution among the poorer classes in many developing societies is the rotating credit association. The fact that many working class consumers may spread the cost of acquiring desired goods amongst kin and neighbors by charging user fees or pooling income suggests marketers need to develop strategies to target these supra-individual, supra-familial consumer groups among the lower classes. Self-reliance and widespread using of pooling mechanisms means that many working class consumers avoid dealings with banks. In the United States, such consumers tend to use expensive check-cashing services for their limited banking needs. As Industry Insights 6.1 shows, some banks have an opportunity here.

Industry Insights: Bank to Cater to Low Income Consumers (50.0K)

• Studies in Triad nations as well as in some developing nations have found that working-class consumers are resistant to changes in the basic characteristic of their lifestyles. Brand loyalty and cost consciousness are examples. These characteristics have been little altered by broader patterns of global change, even in the technological environment.
• Working class consumers seek to participate in the consumer economy not through innovative new ideas, but through consumption of familiar goods and services that strengthen existing relationships. Characteristic behaviors include keeping up with the Jones's, so to speak, but not getting ahead of them; favoring regional and mass merchandise brands. The home and family is a focus for working class consumption, with home repair being a typical activity in countries as diverse as the United States, France, and Norway. In working-class homes in many industrial nations, products exemplifying values such as orderliness and prosperity are often favored.
• Working class demographics and value orientations might suggest that working class and underclass poor represent unattractive markets. However, it is important to note that even in the U.S. almost 40 percent of consumer's fall into working class groups. Hence, mass merchandisers and discount retailers who offer quality basics at fair prices may expect to cultivate loyalty with such groups. Recognition of this fact has led to the emergence of what is sometimes called two-tiered marketing. In two-tiered marketing, firms differentiate their retail outlet or product and service offerings into two groups depending on whether they are targeted at upper class or lower class consumers. Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy stores are an example of multi-tier marketing.
• In distinction to the working class, a behavioral underclass composed of poor, chronically unemployed and ill-educated people who are deprived of most consumer options has emerged. Members of this underclass allegedly engage in anti-social behaviors, especially crimes against property and persons. Some authors estimate that this group numbers between 1.5 and 2.5 million people scattered across 880 urban American cities. A similar class may be found in some of the U>K.'s worst housing estates, among the "lost generation" of former East Germany, and in places like Haiti or Sierra Leone. Even countries with significant consumer welfare policies are facing challenges from the problems of alienation and economic marginalization experienced by the underclass.
2. Ethnicity
• What do the U.S., Canada, Israel, Indonesia, Australia, and Germany have in common? Ethnic diversity is the answer.
• As a result of a stagnant growth in "mainstream" market segments, relatively strong rates of demographic growth among ethnic communities, and recognition of their purchasing power-15% of the U.S. total for example-marketing consultants from the U.S. to Australia and South Africa extol the virtues of multi-cultural marketing, or special targeting of ethnic minorities.
• Targeting and positioning products to appeal to ethnic groups is at the heart of multicultural marketing. So what is ethnicity?Ethnicity is defined in terms of frequent patterns of association and identification with common national or cultural origins of a subgroup found within the larger society. In addition to a sense of common origin, four elements often define ethnicity. These elements are: 1) a self-perpetuating population; 2) shared cultural values; 3) a field of communication and interaction, facilitated by a common language; 4) membership which defines itself and is identified by others as a distinguishable category.
• Ethnicity is based on social capital (relationships, networks, and personal connections), and then elaborated through economic and cultural capital and expressed in consumption.
• At the individual level, ethnicity also involves self-identity or feltethnicity, an individual's perceptions of him or herself as a member of an ethnic group. Worldwide felt ethnicity has increased in the last two decades.
• When expressions ofethnicity vary with social context, this is learned situational ethnicity. In other words, while shared cultural values remain stable, the expression of ethnic values varies with social situation.
• To understand the role of ethnicity in consumer behavior it is necessary to clarify two related concepts: acculturation and assimilation. Acculturation produces changes in knowledge, beliefs, values and behaviors when an individual member of an ethnic group comes intoprolonged contact with a dominant culture.Acculturation produces identification with the dominant culture and preference for the language of the dominant culture. It also means adopting consumption patterns of the dominant culture.
• At one time, it was thought that acculturation lead inevitably to a second state called assimilation, a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire memories, sentiments and attitudes of other persons or groups and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life. The idea of a country as a "melting pot" reflects the idea that immigrants should assimilate to the dominant culture.
• Amid a worldwide renewal of ethnic identities, the more recent "mosaic" metaphor recognizes that assimilation is a far from certain outcome. Ethnic and regional ethnicities have reemerged throughout the world. Ethnic identities today are more voluntary than in the past, and represent a creative mix of values, beliefs, and consumption styles. Consistent with our argument in Chapter 5 that culture is now marketed, ethnic identity has become a marketed commodity.
• Studies have shown some Mexican Americans, Chinese, and Korean over acculturating. Some Mexican Americans show exaggerated consumption of some presumably mainstream Anglo products, while some assimilated Koreans show exaggerated reliance on advertising and word of mouth relative to mainstream US citizens. Chinese-Canadians too abandon their Chinese identity in preference to their Canadian citizenship. This complicates the tasks of targeting ethnic consumers and positioning products and services to appeal to them.
1. Ethnic Group Segments
• The following section will make special reference to ethnic diversity in the US, but the marketing implications will be similar for countries experiencing increased immigration or a renewed sense of ethnic identity among certain population segments, a trend noted in many parts of Europe, North, and South America.
• Ethnic groups are growing seven times faster than the Anglo-American group in the United States. Population projections are that no single ethnic group will dominate the U.S. culture in the twenty-first century. African-Americans are the largest ethnic minority, numbering nearly 34 million. They represent over $500 billion in spending power. More than 13 percent of African American households may be considered affluent. Of course, African Americans are not homogeneous in their ethnic identity. For example, middle-class Haitian immigrants are lumped with African Americans in the United States, but they distance themselves from this groups.
• Recognition and respect are two key value orientations that are more meaningful to African-Americans than the general population. Style and trend setting, concern with self-image and elegance, and a concern for cultural heritage are significant orientations among African-American consumers.
• Hispanic Americans are the next largest ethnic U.S. segment. There will be 40 million U.S. Hispanics in 2010. This is a youthful population. Hispanics contributed 47 percent of the U.S. population growth in the 1990's and doubled their purchasing power from what it was in 1980. The Hispanic-American market is currently estimated to represent almost $400 billion in purchasing power.
• Hispanic Americans are not a homogeneous group, and marketers should tailor their campaigns to capture these differences. National origin--Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, for example--is the single most important segmentation variable among Hispanic Americans. Cuban Americans report lower levels of assimilation than most other Hispanic groups, except Puerto Ricans. Mexican-Americans report feeling most assimilated. But even highly assimilated Hispanics appreciate marketing efforts that acknowledge their characteristics and purchasing power.
• Hispanics exhibit some distinctive value orientations that affect product and advertising evaluation. To them, age means acquired experience and knowledge. Responsibility and a strong work ethic is characteristic, as is religious orientation. Gender roles tend to be more conservative, and divorce less common than among the majority population. Hispanics are family centered; their primary loyalties are to the family. Hispanics are often concerned with aesthetics and with the emotions, and place considerable emphasis on quality of life and enjoyment.
• Asian Americans are the fastest growing and most affluent minority market in the U.S., their numbers tripling between 1980 and 2000 to 10.9 million or 3.9 percent of the population. Four out of ten live in California, they are youthful (mean age 30), affluent (one third live in households with incomes over $75,000 per year), and well educated (39% having attended four years of college vs. 17% of all Americans). Asian-American purchasing power is estimated at $US229 billion per year. Asian-Americans are diverse. Chinese-Americans and Filipino-Americans now surpass Japanese-Americans in number, while Korean-and Indian-Americans almost equal their numbers. Second and third generation Asians tend to be highly assimilated. As with Hispanic-Americans, Asian-American markets should be segmented into national groups. Family, tradition and cooperation, and a strong work ethic are among the distinctive values that affect product evaluation among Asian-Americans, but each national group displays distinctive cultural characteristics.
2. Targeting and Positioning Issues in Multicultural Marketing
• In developing targeting and positioning strategies to reach ethnic markets, marketers should consider a number of issues. One issue of interest for marketers is intensity of ethnic identification. Consumers who strongly identify with their ethnic group will exhibit a preference for specialized ethnic media, marketing communications that use national languages, "ethnic" products and services, and an ethnic consumer "lifestyle." Highly targeted media, native language advertising, and niche products and services are appropriate to less assimilated groups and can reap big rewards for marketers. Native language media tend to be much less expensive than mainstream media, exert more effective reach, and translate into higher levels of brand awareness and eventually loyalty among ethnic consumers.
• Marketers must determine empirically whether identifiable ethnic groups constitute market segments for ethnic media and ethnically targeted products and services. This will be based in part on whether their cultural values translate into distinctive preferences.
• Successful ethnic marketing often depends upon appealing to the basic motivational drive to express integration, in this case ethnic affiliation, through benefit- and values-based segmentation.
• Successful marketing firms sometimes must adapt to distinctive evaluative criteria employed by ethnic consumers in decision-making.
• Understanding acculturation affects language choice in marketing communications. Advertising is more effective when it taps motivations in the language in which those drives are spontaneously expressed. More than 25 million Americans speak a language other than English at home.
• Targeting ethnic minorities through special language media may sometimes cause problems. Acculturated target groups may identify with the values and goals of the dominant culture instead of the ethnic values emphasized in the ad. Or the target may perceive the ads as condescending. The ad may use the wrong dialectal variation.
• Style is often important to ethnic consumers. Since style is a shared set of preferences, it is a way for ethnic groups whose social status is primarily based on social capital (networks, relationships, and connections), to transform it into symbolic capital. Ethnic groups may be recognized for a particular style or for stylishness in general. Marketers facilitate this process when, in their search for new product ideas, they mass market fashion or events like Cinco de Mayo developed by ethnic minorities.
• A final note of warning: there is no generic ethnic market segment, such as the "Hispanic,""Turkish," or "Chinese" market; instead there are multiple sub-segments. Further, ethnicity is not a static demographic characteristic like income that can be used in a simple way to segment or target the market. Instead, ethnicity varies with individual felt ethnicity, situation and stage of life cycle, and between generations. Ethnic marketing campaigns must attend to these issues on a case by case basis.
3. Tribe and Caste
• The term tribe is derived from the Latin word tribus and referred to the three-fold division of the people of ancient Rome. A more recent definition describes it as a group of people forming a community and descending from a common ancestor. Tribes are often associated with the peoples of Oceania, Amazonia, and Africa who lived in stateless societies for centuries. Tribal loyalties persist in many of these countries.
• The millennium is also marked by the emergence of global tribes that combine the sense of common origin and shared values with geographic dispersion. Notably successful examples of global tribes include South Asians, Chinese, Lebanese, Palestinians, Greeks, Gitanos (gypsies) and Jews. Such groups may be important not only as market segments, but also as conduits for the spread of patterns of preference, purchase and use of goods and services to their home communities.
• Caste is a social category almost unique to South Asia, primarily India, secondarily Indonesia and Bali. It cannot be compared to either ethnicity or class insofar as it combines both hierarchical (vertical), and lateral (horizontal) systems of inequality. The four major castes from the highest to lowest are 1) Brahmins (priests, scholars), 2) Kshatriyas (warriors and princes), 3) Vaisayas (merchants and artisans), and 4) Sudras (laborers and servants). These four groups are divided into over 3000 subcastes. In addition, there are hundreds of millions of "Untouchables," uncasted persons relegated to the lowest levels of society, and now forming part of the global underclass. The distinctive thing about the caste is that caste membership is associated with occupations, rights, and duties toward other castes, and an explicit moral dimension. Caste differences are very distinct and enter into many lifestyle differences, and for this reason marketing communications need to be sensitive to caste differences both in positioning products and presenting models and spokespersons.

• Age, gender, and religion are three additional social structures that impact consumer behavior and affect marketing strategy. It is important to keep in mind that there are many interactions between each of these social structures. For example, gender roles and acceptable patterns of consumption are influenced by religion and age. And, of course, these social structures are also influenced by social class, tribe, and caste.

1. Age
• Like ethnicity, age is a subcultural system marketers use to segment and target markets. People's wants change with physical aging over the course of the life cycle, the movement from death to birth and beyond. Consumers' preferences vary with age as do their access to resources.
• Age-related life transitions-a socially recognized change in status-engender demand for specialized products and services. Examples of age-related life transitions include: entering school, becoming a teenager, military service, "pledging" a fraternity or sorority, entering adulthood, graduating school or college, 25^th wedding anniversaries, and retirement. Finally, the collective experiences of certain age cohorts, that is, groups of people who have grown up during specific time periods, exhibit similarities in experiences, memories and symbols that translate into similarpreference patterns. Thus, people who were young during the turbulent 1960s differ in outlook from the youth that experienced the growing economy and horizon-expanding technological changes of the 1990s. As shown in Exhibit 6.3, U.S. marketers have distinguished millenials, baby boomers, generation X, and generation Y, among other age cohorts.

Exhibit 6.3: Vital Statistics on U.S. Generations (50.0K)

1. Children (Millennials and Generation Y)
• Children's consumer demands represent considerable market opportunities for those who can meet their distinct needs and cognitive competencies. There are more than 800 million children age's 4-12 years in the industrial world, and they are not being ignored. The ads shown below are indicative of the lifestyle and media products increasingly now targeted at preteens.

Stevies Shoes Targets the Increasingly Market Savvy Pre-Teen Segment (50.0K)

• In Western consumer society, we now recognize the cognitive sophistication of consumers as young as five to seven years old, as well as children's role in influencing adult consumption. Kids encourage up to $120 billion in family spending in the U.S. alone, for example. Businesses in the NICs are waking up to kids, age 10-19, in the region and their economic clout is considerable.
• Children assume the role of consumer decision-makers at a young age. Visual cues such as television advertising and vivid packaging influence their learning and attitudes toward brands.
• If you look at young children's letters to Santa Claus, you'll discover something surprising. About 50 percent of children's gift requests are for specific branded items, and about 85 percent of the children mention at least one brand name in their letters to Santa. Sometime between preschool and second grade, children begin to make inferences about people (such as occupation and age), based on the products they use (such as their cars and houses). By the sixth grade, U.S. children have a keen sense of the social meaning and prestige associated with certain types of products and brand names.
• Children play an important role in influencing parental shopping and spending habits. Many children globally are exerting significant influence on consumption behavior. Ignoring kids can keep shoppers away from stores. Making retail outlets kid friendly can bring in shoppers and increase sales initiated by children.
• The proliferation and globalization of marketing has both pluses and minuses. For many urban, lower class children in the U.S., watching commercial TV at home, or congregating in the shopping malls are some of the only relatively safe leisure venues available to them, making consumer activities a pervasive part of their lives. In addition, children's demands may fuel deep conflicts over family, class relations, and tradition, both in first world and developing societies.
• One important controversy in consumer research concerns the ability of children to defend themselves against the claims advertisers direct to them. Some argue children develop considerable abilities to counter-argue against commercial messages. Others argue that children, particularly younger children with more limited problem solving abilities, have limited defenses against commercial claims. Most research supports that television advertising has a powerful influence on children's product preferences and choices, and at least a moderate role in perception and usage of products such as cigarette, alcohol, and heavily sugared non-nutritious foods. Recent legislative and judicial decisions concerning tobacco marketing in the U.S. reflect the view that children's cognitive defenses against advertising are not adequate. Hence, government-financed programs to de-market tobacco products are enjoying popularity. On-line privacy has also begun to attract attention, particularly with regard to marketing tactics directed at children.
2. Teens (Generation Y)
• Teens are a popular target for marketers for many reasons. First, they are numerous. There are almost 31 million teenagers in the U.S. and by 2010 there will be 35 million. A second reason that young people are attractive to marketers is that the young in the Triad and NICs (Generation Yers) enjoy enormous discretionary purchasing power. Millions of youngsters are regularly putting money into mutual funds and the stock market. A third reason teenagers are an attractive segment is that they are increasingly market savvy and involved with consumer culture. Many initial purchases are made as a teenager and so this age group offers an ideal target market for promoting brand loyalties.
• Teenagers in many of the transitional economies (e.g., Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary) have grown up with a market economy and are much more comfortable shopping and making consumer decisions than are their parents or grandparents.
• Teenagers make purchase decisions for an ever-widening variety of their own products, from books to clothes, making them attractive targets for marketing communications. In addition, teenagers appear to be extremely brand aware and often fiercely brand loyal. One study found that 50% of female Generation Yers had already developed cosmetics brand loyalties. Of course, at the same time, their loyalties tend to be quite volatile perhaps due to their rapid personal development. "Coolness" goes a long way in determining which brands are most popular.
• From Singapore to Greenland, teenagers globally are increasingly wired into the Internet. This facilitates the spread of images, ideas, values, and trends among teenagers around the world. The Internet drives both increased similarity and fragmentation in Generation Y or Net Generation (N-Geners) consumer tastes. That members of the new net generation are so accustomed to computers makes them a distinctive market segment in a number of ways. First, due to zapping and surfing, N-Geners' wants, fashions, and brand loyalties may be transient. Second, because the net makes it easy to search and compare, N-Geners demand customization to meet their personal preference. More and more niche products will be required to meet their needs and mass-market products may loose share to niche products. Third, in a mindset developed by clicking on a computer mouse or remote control, choices do not necessarily stick. N-Geners like to change their minds. Fourth, since interactivity is the hallmark of the Internet, N-Geners prefer to try things out themselves rather than rely on promises. N-Geners are important candidates for more relational approaches to marketing. Finally, unlike the baby boomer generation, N-Geners are not dazzled by technology, they care about function.
• The connectedness and familiarity to the Internet has gained the attention of marketers because of children's distinct influence on their parents. Today's children and teens are more techno-savvy and more knowledgeable about Internet and computer related products than are their parents. If children are instrumental in a parent's learning about the Internet and computers, it stands to reason that they might also be instrumental in shaping a parent's techno-consumer behavior, whether it be online shopping or purchasing home computer products/services. Marketers have begun to think of creative ways to use this alliance to their advantage.
• As the number of single and working parent families increases in Triad countries and many transitional economies, many teenagers are also becoming the primary shoppers for their families. Like adults, teens rely on personal sources of information, friends, and family for high-risk purchases.
• A final reason that young people are attractive to marketers is that young people everywhere go through rapid periods of physical, mental, social and emotional change.
• Generation Y is a difficult and elusive group to target effectively. This is because they are market wise, highly suspicious of advertising, pros at TV zapping, zipping, and channel surfing, and subject to rapid shifts in fad and fashion. Generation Yers readily reject traditional advertising they see as too manipulative. Marketers will be forced to develop more concept rich marketing communications as kids will see through fluff and eye candy. A side effect of teenagers' Internet experience has been an increasing fragmentation of the teen and young adult market into smaller groups that are less easy to target on national, regional, ethnic, or gender lines.
• Common to affluent nations with large, youthful populations is the phenomenon of the youth subcultures. First identified in the U.S. in the 1950s, youth sub-cultures are common today in Europe, Japan, and even China. In the LAW nations, universities often provide the setting for the timid emergence of youth cultures. Today, marketers quickly convert youth street styles into marketed commodities, even anti-styles as grunge or gangsta rap. This fuels the rapid rise and fall of youth fads and fashions as young people seek to differentiate themselves by developing consumption styles that are different from mass-market offerings.
3. Boomers, Depression Era and War Babies
• The population is aging in many of the most developed nations (see Exhibit 6.4). Elderly population segments will grow dramatically in the next twenty years in the Triad nations, especially the oldest segment. For example, the 80+ segment is currently the fastest-growing one in the United States.In the year 2000, there will be 35 million Americans older than 65, and by the year 2010, 18 % of the population or 55 million will be aged 60 or older. In many other Triad nations, the aging will comprise a larger percentage of the population than in the U.S., and the situation will be even more extreme in Japan where 30% of the population, or 38 million people, will be over 60 years of age in the year 2010.
• To reach the new senior segments of the world's markets requires that marketers start from two bases: 1) abandon stereotypes concerning the aging consumer; 2) understand that the aging consumer of tomorrow is going to be very different from today's aging consumer market. Although baby boomers are probably the least homogenous of any cohort, a common factor is that they aren't getting older no matter what the calendar says-they intend to stay young forever.
• In the U.S. the over 60 consumer controls 50% of the discretionary income and 75% of the nation's assets. The elderly will continue to be more female than male, but they will also be less traditional.
• Older adults should be divided into sub-segments based not just upon their chronological age or physical age, but their mental or cognitive age as well. Cognitive age represents how people see themselves andtheir actual levels of cognitive processing. Cognitive age tends to be about ten years younger than the chronological age. In any case, cognitive age and chronological age do not overlap very well, so the use of segments based on chronological age alone is not very effective.
• The elderly of the future will be more affluent, better educated, and more active. Hence, it makes sense to position goods and services to take advantage of these facts. One example of these trends is the growth of participation in cyber-culture by older people.
• Other businesses enjoying the boom in the aging population are the leisure and educational industries. The recreational vehicle industry is an example. Many seniors are taking to the road in their Winnebago RV's, as you can see at Winnebago-Itasca Traveler's Club site.

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• The growing economic significance of the elderly segment has generated increasing interest in unique responsiveness of the elderly to common marketing variables.
• Senior citizens price discounts have interesting effects. One segment of older consumers rejects senior citizens discounts because they wish to avoid negative connotations of being senior. Another senior segment rejects discounts because they wish to avoid the negative connotations of being perceived as a senior citizen by others. Finally, some elderly consumers assign positive meanings to stores that promote senior citizen discount use. Older consumers do patronage discount stores perhaps because of a tendency toward frugality amongst war babies and depression era seniors.
• Age differences in information search behavior have been examined. In some cases, older consumers consider fewer product characteristics and alternative brands than younger consumers because of greater experience and brand familiarity. With unfamiliar products and brand, however, older consumers may search less because they cannot hold and manipulate numerous alternatives in memory, because of diminished working memory capacity. The elderly show poorer recognition memory for advertising claims: thus, they are more likely to miscomprehend advertising assertions, sometimes misconstruing new claims as old and believing them as a result. This may lead to lower levels of satisfaction with purchase choices. In addition, memory deficits may make it difficult for older consumers to take advantage of new information sources, such as nutritional and medical labeling, or advertising designed to improve their decision making.
• Research on the effects of different advertising strategies on the memory, attitudes, and product choice of the elderly has found that information-rich ads are more favorably received than music-based, emotional appeals.
• Other studies have examined the use of elderly figures in advertising. The elderly perceive middle-aged and older models as more credible than younger models. Hence, we may expect to see older models in ads as the population ages.
2. Gender
• Gender is a significant segmentation and targeting criteria in marketing. By gender we mean the sex-based divisions of humanity and the norms, values, and beliefs associated with gender roles. People often use a shorthand in describing gender roles, referring to values, behaviors, and products as masculine or feminine.
• Gender is a significant segmentation and targeting variable for at least three reasons. First is the universal division of humanity into at least two genders. Homosexual, bisexual and other gender identifies are recognized in some cultures, denied in others. Evident physiological differences between men and women lead to specialized product needs in nutrition, health, and personal care, for example. Marketers often use stereotypic appeals that combine biology with gender.
• What constitutes stereotypically masculine or feminine behavior varies across cultures.
1. Gender Roles
• A second reason that gender is significant to marketers is because gender roles are learned early and play a formative role in personality development and self-identity. Patterns of wants and responses to market appeals vary with gender.
• Research in developing and transitional economies suggests how marketers have successfully positioned products to appeal to men and women differently. Not surprisingly, certain products appear to be more appropriate for one gender than the other. Nevertheless, products may become less gender-typed as gender roles change.
• Traditional gender-related differences in information processing and response to marketing appeals have been identified. When forming judgments, a masculine orientation involves the use of a single cue or small set of highly salient cues that converge to imply a single inference or course of action. The cues that men use tend to be meaningful to the masculine self. In contrast, a feminine approach to judgment makes use of multiple cues and attempts to assimilate both highly salient and subtler cues.
• Masculinity is associated with an instrumental orientation, that is, a concern with goals external to social relations. Femininity is associated with an expressive orientation and places a priority on dealing with others, on being actively interdependent and relational. Brand names with numbers in them appear to have a more masculine appeal perhaps because of an association with instrumentality. In a study of Christmas gift shopping, men were found to be more object focused while women were more interested in the relational meanings conveyed by the gifts chosen for purchase.
• Gender roles definitely persist and influence consumer behavior, but the behaviors of male and female consumers often defy these stereotypes. For example, 80% of all households in the U.S. are made up of dual-career couples, and women are the chief wage earners in about a quarter of all U.S. households.
2. Gender Based Needs, Segmentation and Targeting
• A third reason gender is a significant segmentation and targeting variable is that gender is associated with relatively distinct endowments of cultural capital. That is, one gender often specializes in certain purchase and consumption behaviors for consuming units such as families, households, and organizations.
• Some research suggests that in positioning products marketers need to be sensitive to gender-based differences in product meaning and symbolism. Gender based meanings are conveyed by products, persons, words, and even sounds. Angularity, sharpness, and simple designs are stereotypically masculine characteristics of products. Roundness, softness, and refined design are considered more feminine product features. Cross-cultural evidence indicates these associations are quite widespread.
• As women enter the wage labor force both in developed and developing nations and gain access to economic resources, a blurring of gender role differences with higher income, educational and professional attainment occurs.
• Proactive marketers should follow changing women's needs closely. Some industries such as the big automobile makers have responded slowly to women's increasing share of economic resources. Finally, driven by the estimated $65 billion spent by women who purchase 49% of new cars sold in the U.S., the automotive industry learned to be more responsive to their needs.
• Changes in gender roles sometimes suggest a trend towards global standards of behavior.
• In much of the developing world, gender roles and interests are fairly compartmentalized or separate. Such differences can be reflected in preference for a wide variety of products and services including entertainment products.
• One additional important change in the role of gender in marketing efforts concerns the recognition of gays as a distinctive market segment. Several recent books have profiled the economic clout and distinctive value orientations of gay consumers. Several marketing communications firms have emerged that specialize in the gay market and major advertisers across an array of product categories are devoting increasing resources to target the gay market.
3. Religion
• Religion is a cultural subsystem that refers to a unified system of beliefsand practices relative to the sacred. Consumer research has not extensively studied the impact of religion on consumer behavior or the purchase and consumption of religious goods and services. This is remarkable given the global resurgence of organized religiosity, the degree to which beliefs in specific religious values and ideals are held and practiced by consumers. The United States exhibits a high degree of religiosity. Forty five percent of American claim to worship at a church, synagogue or other religious meeting place at least once a week. The only European country to exceed the United States in religiosity is Ireland, where Sunday church attendance reaches 82 percent. As with ethnicity, the predictive power of religion probably varies with perceived religiosity, that is, self-identification with a religion and its values, the strength of this identification, and situational factors.
• Religion-based segments and consumer behavior certainly merit more investigation; in the United States alone, religion is a multibillion dollar industry employing thousands of people in which there is intense competition between competing products. This competition is most obvious with regard to proselytizing (the act of conversion) denominations like the Seventh Day Adventists and the Church of Latter Day Saints; other denominations also advertise for converts and engage in active lobbying, as displayed by televangelists. So-called mega churches have perfected marketing techniques to lure members of the baby boomer generation back to church. The Catholic Church has launched marketing programs in many cities to attract customers to its parochial schools, using high-quality academic performance, traditional values, and discipline as some of the positioning variables. How-income and single-parent families are considered prime target markets.
• Religious segmentation may be salient where religion becomes one of the main tools in the construction of a distinctive ethnic identity. In the United States, for example, the Jewish community is notable for a high degree of congruence between culture and religion. Perhaps this is true of other historically socially isolated groups and religious minorities in other nations, such as Jains in India, Copts in Egypt, American Black Muslims, and so on. Research conducted on the American Jewish community suggests specific reasons that marketers might value religious segmentation; the high value placed on information seeking, information exposure, and educational attainment within this community suggest that Jewish consumers may be relatively more innovative and more prone to diffuse information about new products at least within the community. These consumers may be opinion leaders, but they may also exhibit less brand loyalty.
• In addition, religion may be a useful segmentation variable because religion influences preferences of all kinds.
• In the United States, the Protestant working-class segment associated with the revivalist and born-again movements has significant marketing implications. This segment contains both African-American and white sub-segments. Important values include literal belief in biblical texts, respect for authority, passionate expression of belief (e.g., through testimonial and gospel singing), and personal success achieved through faith in and obedience to revealed divine will. Products targeted at this market sell well. A Women'sDevotional Bible has sold more than two million copies, for example. Overall, this segment may be of broad interest for marketers in that its conservatism, traditionalism, and relatively lower tolerance of diversity may lead to greater male dominance in major purchase decisions and higher brand and store loyalty.