The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

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While ‘Something’s Missing’ by John Mayer continues to be my official off consumption song, it’s the words from ‘Shopping’ by Duncan Sheik that are swirling around in my mind, ever since Chhavi left a link to the lyrics in a comment –

So you wrote me a letter which I thought was really kind
I don’t recall which song it was but there was one you really liked
And you asked me, so innocently, of my inspiration
Why I write the songs I sing, the reasons why I make them

Well, nothing here is what it seems
I’ll risk the wreckage of your dreams
It’s so that you are always shopping
To steal away the cash you’re dropping
Listen to me when I say
Your fantasies are built to fade
So there you are, you’re always shopping
Don’t even try, there is no stopping

Don’t misunderstand me, it always makes me smile
When I can serenade you as you’re rollin’ down the aisles
On this journey of your souls desire, the paradise of goods
You’re doing just exactly what I think you should

I’m re-reading Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ for the third (fourth?) time, and it’s obvious to me that brands will never again trigger off the blind trust they used to, however hard we try as marketers.

All that we can do as marketers is to accept that we are all cynical post-Nader shoppers, and then work around that reality, like Paco Underhill does, on page 166 of ‘Why We Buy’ —

Another reason touch and trial have become so important is the waning power of product brand name. When consumers believed in the companies behind the big brands, their belief went a long way towards selling things. Now, we are all individualists.

For that matter, we are all post-Nader shoppers — we’ll believe it when we see/ smell/ touch/ hear/ taste/ try it. Depending on what we’re buying and what it costs, there’s a healthy skepticism (or is it a nagging doubt) in our heads that must be put to rest before we can buy at ease. We need to feel a certain level of confidence in a product and its value, which comes only through hard evidence, not from TV commercials or word-of-mouth.

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 –

I have already written about the work-watch-spend treadmill in my post on Annie Leonard’s ‘The Story of Stuff‘, but here’s a little excerpt from the annotated script of the documentary very thoughtfully provided by Annie —

So, in the U.S. we have more stuff than ever before, but polls show that our national happiness is actually declining. Our national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s, the same time as this consumption mania exploded. Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.

I think I know why. We have more stuff but we have less time for the things that really make us happy: family, friends, leisure time. We’re working harder than ever. Some analysts say that we have less leisure time now than in Feudal Society.

And do you know what the two main activities are that we do with the scant leisure time we have? Watch TV and shop. In the U.S., we spend 3—4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.

The intent of my off consumption experiment is to spend an year without buying anything that is not a necessity.

Even though I have written down rather elaborate rules for what is allowed and what isn’t during my year of being off consumption, I have deliberately avoided defining what is a necessity. This is because one of the most interesting aspects of the experiment for me is to discover what I think of as a necessity and how it changes with context.

Perhaps the only fool-proof approach to discover what I think of as a necessity is to record and study what I actually buy, and how it changes over time.

So, here’s a complete list of everything I bought during week 1-2 of my experiment:-

Now that we know why I have gone off consumption, it’s time to lay out the rules for my year-long off-consumption experiment, list down what is allowed and what isn’t.

The intent of the experiment is to spend an year — from Mar 23, 2008 to March 22, 2009 — without buying anything that is not a necessity.

I have deliberately avoided defining what is a necessity because one of the most interesting aspects of the experiment for me is to “discover” what I think of as a necessity and how it changes with context.

However, here are the ten rules — the ten commandments, if you must — I’ll use through my year of being off consumption –

Rule #1: I’ll continue to consume what I already have; when I run out of it, I’ll replenish it only if it’s a necessity.

I’m allowed to drink wine until my wine cellar is empty, I’m allowed to read the books and watch the DVDs I already own, and I’m allowed to fly if I’m using my frequent flier miles.

Why would a twenty-something, single, eligible, IIM-educated, upwardly mobile marketer on the corporate fast-track in India’s business capital decide to go ‘off consumption’ for a year?

Will a year off consumption (no eating out, no going out for movies or music or plays, no television or newspapers, no shopping except for necessities) leave him ill-equipped to handle life and work in Mumbai?

Or, will it leave him with invaluable insights into what drives us to consume, or not, into the nature of consumption, into human nature itself?

‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is a blog in which I document my year off consumption. It is also a book-in-progress, in search of a publisher with a multi-million dollar advance.