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Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

LESSON25

CONSUMER SOCIAL CLASSES

CHAPTER 4: ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

Understanding:

· Affluent Consumer

· Middle Class Consumer

· Working Class

· Non Affluent Consumers

Consumer Social Classes

Consumer research has found evidence that within the social classes there is a constellation of specific lifestyle

factors (shared beliefs, attitudes, activities and behavior) that tends to distinguish members of one social class from

members of other social classes. In this section we will study the following classes:

1. Affluent Class

2. Middle Class

3. Downscale Consumers

4. Other types of social classes

Affluent Consumers are likely to focus on savings, reducing time and effort and seem to be willing pay more for

many things that provide the above mentioned conveniences

1. Affluent Consumer

Affluent Households place more importance on friendship, leisure times, and hobbies. They seem to place less

importance on money which is why they consume more domestic airline tickets, own more vehicles, hold more

securities and spend more money on desktop, laptop and hand held computers as well as other electronic

gadgetries.

Members of the affluent class have incomes that provide them with disproportionately larger share of all

discretionary income. The extras allow the purchase of:

Luxury cruises

Foreign sports cars

Tourism resorts

Fine jewelry

Ready access to

There seems to be a relationship between health and economic status. Healthiest people are those who are

economically advantaged. Higher income and more highly educated people are less likely to die of heart disease,

strokes, hepatitis, TB, cancers and other diseases of the sort. Affluent class seems to live longer and in better

health than middle class. Middle class live longer and in better health than individuals at the bottom

Children of the Affluent Class

Evidence suggests that children of the affluent may have problems with:

Substance abuse

Anxiety

Depression

The above may be caused by excessive pressures to achieve as well as due to physical and psychological isolation

from parents.

Millionaire VS Non Millionaire

Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

Millionaires the first generation wealthy may be taken as a subcategory of affluent consumers. Millionaires are

quite similar to non millionaires. Millionaires working for themselves in non glamorous businesses work hard and

live in nonpretentious homes next door to non-millionaires

Media Exposure of the Affluent

Media habits of the affluent differ from the general population. They seem to view less TV per day and read more

of different publications

Segmenting the Affluent Market

Not all affluent consumers share the same lifestyle (lifestyle is activities, interests and opinions). Affluent may be

isolated into meaningful segments.

One scheme has divided the affluent into following categories:

The upbeat enjoyers who live for today

The financial Positives who are conservative and look for value

One hypothesis in this regard is that most people who have money are fairly conservative and have accumulated

wealth because they are good savers

Upper Deck Consumers

An affluent market segmentation schema developed by MRI (Mediamark Research Inc, 2004)

They call Top ten percent households in terms of income, Upper Deck Consumers. The divided them into

following categories:

A. Well feathered Nests

Household those have at least one high income earner and children present

B. No Strings Attached

Household those have one high income earner and no children

C. Nanny's In charge

Households that have two or more earners, none earning high incomes, and children present

D. Two Careers

Households that have two or more earners, neither earning high incomes no children present

E. The Good Life

Households that have a high degree of affluence with no person employed or head of the family not

employed

2. Middle Class Consumer

Middle Market is the middle 50% household income. Households composed of college educated adults, who are

involved in children's education and are confident that they can maintain the quality of their life.

Middle class can be thought of as including households that range from lower middle to middle class in terms of

some acceptable variable or combination of variables (income, education, age or income).

This view does not include the upper middle class which over the years has been exceedingly treated as affluent

consumers.

Children Education Differences

Working class families often teach their children, at an early age, to do what they are told to do and manage their

own free time. Middle class parents actively play a role in shaping their kids activities, want their children to

participate in extracurricular activities that will add to their talents, and encourage them to speak to figures of

authority

Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

Middle Class Disappearing?

Middleclass consumers increasingly move upstream to the ranks of affluent consumers. The other segment is

losing ground and slipping backwards to the ranks of working class, creating a distribution that looks like hour

glass

Middle Class Increasing

Over the last decade rapid increase is seen in the middle class consumers in select Asian and Eastern European

countries. In USA middle class is fast dissolving into upper middle class (affluent). American, Japanese and Korean

automobile manufacturers are now manufacturing their cars in China, hoping that the growing middle class in

China will be interested in purchasing their vehicles

3. The Working Class and other Non Affluent Consumers

Although advertisers would prefer to show their products as part of an affluent lifestyle, blue collar or working

class represents a vast group of consumers. Downscale consumers may actually be more brand loyal than wealthier

customers because they can not afford to make mistakes by switching into unfamiliar brands. A sensitive fact for

marketers should be that non affluent consumers often spend higher percentage of their available income on food

than their middleclass consumers

4. Techno Class

Degree of literacy, familiarity and competency with computers and the internet appears to be a new basis for a

class standing. Inability to adequately use technology is negatively impacting lifestyles. Parents in all social class

groupings are seeking an early exposure to computers for their kids. They don't want to see them left out the

"sweep of computer technology". Understanding computers is a necessary tool for development. Older people

business men don't want to be left out so they are seeking computer training, functional understanding of

computers so that they will not be considered geeks. In this sense there is sense of technological class structure

that centers on the computer skills. It appears that people without necessary computer skills will increasingly find

themselves to be under classed and disadvantaged.

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