Consumer Tastes

In spite of all efforts to influence consumers’ preferences, taste remains the primary criteria for purchasing choices.  Individual likes/dislikes drive preference in a vague manner that is only partially explained by innate and socially acquired factors.   Some patterns have been observed, though most are based on the rational factors that ought to influence a consumer’s choices rather than the irrational factors that have a more demonstrable effect in actual purchasing behavior.

It is theorized that while cultures as a whole consume a broad array of goods, each falls into a pattern as a result of habitual consumption.  When societies were more isolated, consumer preferences tended to what was locally available and there was little intrusion of or exposure to anything else, accompanied by a species of bigotry that regards anything from outside the community as foreign and undesirable simply because it is outside of the norm.

It is believed by some that tastes can be most easily influenced during formative childhood years rather than challenging the established preferences of adults, such that earlier familiarity with a variety products and brands leads children to be more accepting of new ones later in life.  This is practiced in the home, before children become independent as consumers: the choice of brands made by their parents influence their buying decisions throughout their lifetime – for a specific, narrow range of brands or a more liberal sampling.

There is also evidence of culture’s impact in consumer preferences over time.  The “golden ages” of societies are often accompanied by a plethora of product options, which leads to more varied consumption, and during an economic recession there is a return to less hedonistic and more practical choices.   As such, the flexibility of taste fluctuates with the economic success of societies.

In that sense, consider the past century in western culture:  the periods of recession and expansion marked by the World Wars, the Great Depression, the postwar recovery, the mid-seventies recession, the boom era of the 1980s and 1990s, then the recession of the early twenty-first century.  Each period of recession coincides with a retraction of product variety and an increase in self-denial, and each period of expansion with the return of choice and self-gratification.

Furthermore, the globalization of markets has enabled consumers to regain some of the options they might otherwise have lost by making products available at a much lower cost, even in times of recession. This may be a symptom of a cultural identity crisis, but the products of foreign manufacture adopted into domestic use are pursued in a mercenary manner – consumers seek to gain the advantage of the product within their means and are not concerned with the cultural underpinnings that led the components to become popular in their own culture.