The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

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In a recent post, I naively wondered –

if there is a way for a brand to make people happy, and benefit from it, without asking them to buy anything.

In a world that will soon be driven by the “economics of free”, that may not be a trivial question anymore.

Then I read this paragraph from Paco Underhill’s ‘Why We Buy’ –

When does a shopper actually possess something? Technically, of course, it happens at the instant that the item is exchanged for money — at the register. But the register is the least pleasing part of the store; nobody is savoring the joy of possession at that moment. In fact, all that is experienced is loss (of money) and pain (of waiting in line, of waiting for the credit card approval, of waiting for the clerk to get the thing into the bag so you can leave). Clearly, possession is an emotional and spiritual process, not a technical one. Possession begins when the shopper’s senses start to latch onto the object. It begins in the eyes and then in the touch. Once the thing is in your hand, or on your back, or in your mouth, you can be said to have begun the process of taking it. Paying for it is a mere technicality, so the sooner a thing is placed in a shopper’s hand, or the easier it is for the shopper to try it or sip it or drive it around the block, the more easily it will change ownership, from the seller to the buyer.

I have known from the beginning that the key to my off-consumption experiment is to be happy most of the time, because being off-consumption means you cannot resolve to self-gifting to snap out of sadness —

The problem with being off consumption is that you can no longer buy a ‘treat’ for yourself in order to snap out of a bad mood. Being off consumption means no comfort food, no self-gifting, no temporary postponement of pain by the rush of adrenalin triggered off by that perfect purchase.

But I knew that when I went off consumption. I knew that, to resist the temptation to buy, I’ll basically need to be happy all the time. I also knew that I’ll face my first big test as soon as I hit a bad day.

Now, I have scientific research to back up my hunch.

According to a study published in the June edition of Psychological Science magazine, Misery Is Not Miserly: Sad and Self-Focused Individuals Spend More (via WSJ via Chhavi), the emotional well-being of shoppers can affect both their eagerness to buy and the prices they’re willing to pay –