The Consumption Value of Esteem

A generic product is usually consumed for its functional value – it is a means to an end, and the consumption experience is evaluated according to the effectiveness of the product in achieving the desired end.   A branded product, however, is usually consumed for a non-functional reason: the consumer seeks the product for its functional value, but any brand of that product would be equally effective in achieving that functional value – so the choice of brand is for reasons other than functionality.

Once such reason, arguably the most significant, is the esteem of the brand.   To consume a brand is a statement, “I am the kind of person who uses this brand,” and in that sense the brand aligns to the perceived personality of the perceived user (perception being significant in both instances, as few consumers conduct much research to determine the actual personality of the actual users of a given brand).

The most common and easily understood aspect of esteem is in social recognition of conspicuous consumption.  A person consumes a given brand because of the expectations that others will witness this consumption and, in so doing, recognize or at least consider the consumer to be in line with the kind of person that consumes that particular brand.   It is part of their declaration of social identity, whether the identity that they are declaring is actual or desired (as people commonly seek to associate themselves with what they wish to be rather than what they actually are).

A less recognized aspect of esteem is self-esteem, the declaration of one’s own standing to oneself – regardless if the act of consumption is witnessed by others.   The individual consumes the brand not so that others will recognize them, but so that they will recognize themselves – to feel that they are the kind of person that consumes a particular brand, even if no-one is there to witness it.   Brands that are privately consumed, in the home for example, still rely upon this form of esteem.

And while it is generally considered that the desire for esteem is always upward bound, this is not always so: a person of integrity may wish to be identified precisely as they are, and at certain times in history (the present included), there is a certain fashion to nostalgie de la boue, which would cause an individual to adopt a brand of a lower stratum of society.   The three are by no means mutually exclusive, and in fact they can often be witnessed in combination.