The Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods

Consumer goods have a significance that goes beyond their utilitarian and commercial value

They carry and communicate cultural meaning

Cultural meaning is located in 3 places

1. The culturally constituted world

2. The consumer good

3. The individual consumer

How is meaning created, and how does it move between these three things?

The Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods

Grant McCracken: Culture and Consumption: Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods. J. of Cons. Res., Vol. 13, No. 1. (Jun., 1986), pp. 71-84.

The Culturally Constituted World

The world of everyday experience

The phenomenal world presents itself to the senses but shaped and constituted by the assumptions of our culture

Culture is the lens through which we perceive the world 

It also tells us how we are supposed to behave. -- is the blueprint for human action

Culture constitutes the world by supplying it with meaning

Meaning can be characterized by two concepts: cultural categories and cultural principles

Cultural Categories

Basic distinctions (categories) a culture uses to divide up the world

time (days, decades, leisure time, work time etc.)

Space (sacred and profane, public and private)

Nature (flora, fauna, land, supernatural)

Society (class, status, gender age, occupation etc.)

These categories help us organize the world

Cultural Categories

Are subject to change

They are also subject to manipulative efforts by various parties.

Social groups can seek to change their place in the cultural system

In other words the categories do not go uncontested

Marketers seek to encourage a new category of person (e.g. tweens) in order to create a new market segment

Cultural categories are invisible

We can see a plate of chicken curry but we can’t see it as ethnic Indian cuisine

We can see a church but we can’t see it as a sacred place of worship

Cultural categories are substantiated by human practice – by going to an Indian restaurant, or praying at church

We play out categorical distinctions so that the world we create is consistent with the world we imagine

The Substantiation of Cultural Categories

One of the most important ways cultural categories are substantiated is through a culture’s material objects

The cultural meaning that has organized a world is made visible, through goods.

The Substantiation of Cultural Categories

Objects are created according to a culture’s categorical blueprint

Objects render categories of this blueprint material and substantial

Objects are vital and tangible record of cultural meaning that is otherwise intangible

Goods make culture material - allowing us to discriminate visually among culturally specified categories by encoding them in the form of a set of material distinctions

Much of the meaning of goods can be traced to the categories into which a culture segments the world.

e.g. categories of the person can be divided into parcels of age, sex., class and occupation.

The Substantiation of Cultural Categories in Goods

These can be represented in a set of material distinctions by means of goods

Clothing “systems” for instance show a correspondence to cultural categories of the person

Demographic (age and gender) information is carried in goods

Cultural meaning also consists of cultural principles

With principles, meaning resides in the ideas or values that determine how cultural phenomena are organized, evaluated and construed

cultural principles

cultural principles are the organizing ideas by which things are categorized

Cultural categories are the result of this segmentation into discrete parcels

For example, burgers, fries, tacos etc. can be considered as in the category of “fast food”

The organizing principle is “speed” or “timeliness”

Both cultural principles and cultural categories are substantiated by material culture in general and in consumer goods in particular

Consumer Goods express both simultaneously

When goods show a distinction between two cultural categories they do so by encoding something of the principle according to which the two categories are distinguished e.g., clothing that distinguishes between men and women (the category) also encodes something of the nature of the differences supposed to exist between men and women (the principle)

Clothing communicates both the supposed “delicacy” or femininity of women and the “strength” or masculinity of men

Meaning first resides in the culturally constituted world

To become resident in consumer goods it must be transferred to them

One way this is done is through advertising

Ads bring the consumer good and the culturally constituted world together within the framework of the ad

The advertiser sees an essential similarity between them – a symbolic similarity

When symbolic equivalence is successfully established the viewer attributes to the consumer good certain properties that he or she knows to exist in the culturally constituted world

These properties thus come to reside in the unknown properties of the consumer good and the transfer of meaning from world to good is accomplished

What is the meaning of the cowboy?

And Marlboro cigarettes?

Step 1: identify the properties that are sought for the good (e.g. fun, sexy, helpful etc.)

Step 2: decide where in the culturally constituted world the properties for the ad reside

fantasy or natural setting

exterior or interior

Urban or rural

cultivated or untamed

Time of day, year

How is the Transfer Achieved

If there are people in the ad what is their•Sex•Age•Class•occupation •clothing •body postures •Emotional states

May be done at conscious as well as unconscious levels

These are pieces of he culturally constituted world that can be evoked

What meaning should we attach to Bacardi rum?

Step 3: determine how the culturally constituted world is to be portrayed in the advertisement

This involves reviewing all of the objects that substantiate the selected meaning and then deciding which of these objects will be used to evoke this meaning in the ad

1958 issue of Lady's Home Journal

What are the culturally meaningful objects in this ad.

What is the meaning of the ad

What have the designers of this ad assumed about the culturally constituted world – especially about the roles of men and women. 

What have the designers of this ad assumed about the culturally constituted world – especially about the roles of men and women. 

How would this ad change our understanding of our concept of the male gender?

Through advertising, old meanings of cultural categories are continually changed and new ones taken on

The idea is to see an equivalence between the world and the good

World and good must be seen to go together

When we see the sameness after many repetitions the process of transfer has taken place

Meaning has shifted from the culturally constituted world to the consumer good

The good now stands for a cultural meaning which it didn’t have previously.

It is chiefly the visual aspect that joins the world and object

Text provides instructions on how the visual part of the advertisement is to be read

Words makes explicit what is already implicit in the image

What’s the meaning of Clairol Herbal Essences and how is it achieved?

All of this must successfully be decoded by the viewer

What cultural categories and principles are used in this ad.

Because they don’t see the culturally constructed meaning.

Why do many non-Westerners fail to see the humour in this ad?

Fashion (in the broad sense) is another means by which goods are invested with meaningful properties

Works in three ways to transfer meaning

First way is seen in magazines and newspapers and the process is similar to advertising

similarity is sought

After all it is often hard to separate advertising from articles about clothing etc.

The fashion system takes new styles of clothing, home furnishings etc. and associates them with established cultural categories and principles moving meaning from culturally constituted world to consumer goods

“No longer the sole domain of prep-school boys, the V-neck sweater is having a comeback.” GQ Magazine

Wentworth Miller (Michael Scofield - Prison Break)

Done by opinion leaders who help refine existing cultural meanings, encouraging the reform of cultural categories and principles

Second way is through invention of new cultural meanings

Often people of higher social status are sources of meaning for those of lower social status

The innovation of meaning may be promoted by their imitation

e.g. sugar and tea

Recently, Beyonce unveiled her new perfume - True Star Gold, True Star Gold is “is more for nighttime, for a woman when she wants to be sexy and more confident. It's sort of like me onstage -- hair blowing, lots of attitude.''- it's a sexy, confident fragrance." (URB1.com)

Movie and popular music stars, are a group of influential opinion leaders who are highly regarded for their status, their beauty and (sometimes) their talent

These opinion leaders invent and pass along new meanings to prevailing cultural categories and cultural principles

“Lil' Flip has effected [sic] the dress of urban culture across America. One of the main causes of the streets going wild with burberry design-like car paint jobs, interiors, and matching clothing, he has truly set off many trend explosions in the past two summers.” (URB1.com, 1995)

Third way fashion system transforms meaning is through radical reform of cultural meanings

The groups responsible for the radical reform of cultural meaning usually exist on the margins of society e.g. hippies, punks, or gays

Such groups invent a much more radical, innovative kind of cultural meaning

Until recently in Western culture, only sailors, criminals and prostitutes got tattoos.

The Romans considered decorative tattooing barbaric, and used tattoos to mark slaves and criminals.

The negative connotations are still evident in the Latin word for tattoo: stigma.

Today, the tattoo is undergoing a renaissance reflecting a change in attitudes towards the body: seen as a canvas.

What do tattoos mean today?

Same sex marriages – redefine marriage

The redefined cultural categories have now entered the cultural mainstream

These groups redefine cultural categories often by violating existing cultural categories.

Product designers, clothes designers, architects, interior designers, technological and automobile designers, etc.

Instead, the consumer good leaves the designers hands and enters any context the consumer chooses

Agents of Change Designers and Commentators

Product designers, through the physical properties of the design itself, try to convince consumers that a specific object possesses a certain cultural meaning

ultimately is the consumer who supply the meaning transfer from the world to object

What is the meaning of this chair

Fashion journalists, commentators, academics and other social observers are also agents of meaning transfer

They review aesthetic social and cultural innovations as they appear and then classify them as either important or trivial

Once they decide what is important they begin a dissemination process to make their decision known

Locations of Cultural Meaning: Consumer GoodsCultural meaning is located in all high-involvement product categories e.g. clothing transportation, food, housing exteriors and interiors,

all serve as media for the expression of the cultural meaning that constitutes our world

How does meaning, now resident in consumer goods move from the consumer good to the life of the consumer Answer:ritual

Instruments of Meaning Transfer: Good to Consumer

Ritual is a kind of social action that manipulates cultural meanings for purposes of collective and individual communication and categorization

Ritual affirms, evokes, assigns and revises the conventional symbols and meanings of the cultural order

Eg. rite of passage moves one person from one cultural category to another

Gives ups symbols of one state eg. child for those of another e.g. adult

Initiation scars

There are four types of ritual that are used to transfer cultural meaning from goods to individuals

1. Exchange

2. Possession rituals

3. Grooming

4. divestment rituals

ExchangeEg. Christmas and birthdays

Often a gift is chosen because it possesses the meaningful properties the gift giver wishes to see transferred to the receiver

e.g. if a woman gets a particular kind of dress as a gift she is also receiving a particular concept of herself as a woman ( e.g. Ashburton’s gifts)

The dress contains this concept and the giver invites the her to define herself in its terms

The gifts to children often contain symbolic properties that the parent would have the child absorb

Consumers as gift givers are agents of meaning transfer

Consumers selectively distribute goods with specific properties to individuals who may or may not have chosen them otherwise

When we give a gift to a person we are saying that that person is a particular sort of person.

When we receive a gift, we are also receiving that symbolic representation of ourselves

In one sense then, who we are, is very much influenced by the gifts we have received (and have accepted)

So, when we give a gift, we are giving not only the object itself, but also something symbolic

If you were to Receive a “see-thru” print dress, which were all the rage in Japan a few years ago, what is the giver saying about you

What is the meaning of the dress

To you

To the gift giver

To young Japanese girls?

Why didn’t they catch on in North America?

Possession RitualsConsumers spend a lot of time cleaning, disposing, comparing, reflecting, showing off and even photographing their possessions

Housewarming is often a chance to display possessions,

These events have an overt function but they also have a more subtle function i.e. to assert ownershipShowing to the community their possessions and along with them the meanings.

Possession rituals allow the consumer to take possession of the meaning of the consumer good.

Goods can mark time, space occasion, status, gender, age, occupation etc. e.g. Tea ceremony What sort of a person lives here?

Eg. making preparations for going out in public.

We want to look our best, sometimes, say on an evening out or to attend some function, We put makeup on, fix our hair or dress to make an impression.

Grooming Rituals

We want to be seen as a certain kind of person when there will be public scrutiny

When we go out grooming rituals often give us a feeling of being, glamorous, exalted, self-confident,

These meaningful properties exist in our best consumer goods

In grooming rituals the meaning moves from consumer goods to the consumer

We all go through private grooming rituals

The shower is seen as a sacred, cleansing ritual.

In these rituals women reaffirm the value placed by their culture on personal beauty.

Divestment RitualsOften we come to view goods in personal terms, associating goods with their own personal meanings and values

When we buy a second a second hand car or an older house a ritual is used to erase the meaning associated with the previous owner

the cleaning and redecorating of a newly purchased home for e.g. may be seen as an effort to remove the meaning created by its previous owner

The new owner is now able to free up the meaning properties of the possessions claiming them for him or herself.

Second type is when planning on giving something away or selling it.

Garage sales are culturally acceptable way of getting rid of objects

Many of the objects are full of memories

goods must be cleansed of meaning before they are handed on

The consumer will attempt to erase the meaning that has been invested in the good by association with it

We rationalize that the things no longer represent who we were – We can get rid of the ugly lamp that we once thought was beautiful.

Or we may feel strange about someone else wearing your clothes

(1) Standardization: food, interior design, layout etc.

(2) Initially presented itself as uncompromising American food

- no Chinese name at first

- transliteration later

- no Chinese food

(3) Standard of cleanliness: clean washrooms in restaurants

(4) Customer discipline: line up for food

(5) Idea of a regular meal: (a) exotic to ordinary; (b) snacks versus meals [customers: middle-class, like exotic American culture all ages, all social classes, look for a simple meal]

McDonald’s /Hong Kong

Local?(1) Resistance of McDonald’s? Involve in community

activities – hard to attack(2) Local choice of food: fish burger and plain

hamburgers rather than Big Mac as favorite, other local favorites e.g. shogan burger, chicken wings …

(3) Consumer discipline: service w/ a smile, busing own tables, hovering, napkin wars

(4) Fast food restaurant? US: customers stay no more than 20 minutes on average; HK: study room for high school students, gathering place for senior people

• McDonald’s opened its first store in Beijing in 1992• McDonald’s enjoyed tremendous success• Chinese attempts to imitate McDonald’s, but failed

McDonald’s /China

Who go to McDonald’s and why?

(1) Young professionals: a mark of “middle-class” status (in 1992), feeling of connection to the world …

(2) “Single” women: morally suspect in traditional restaurants. Greater equality in McDonald’s : order own food, no fear of being dominated in conversations

(3) Young couples: clean, soft music, romantic, a place for courtship

(4) Parents with young children: children’s choice of restaurants