Service Marketing Case Studies

New dynamics of social status and distinction

There is a trend of change between the generations, the of young adults are a generation with limited economic resources, who is less interested in ownership and less focused on materialisation. Stability, which used to be one of the main goals and a status factor, for example a stabile job, a regular income, a house and a car, is in today’s generation of young adults not as valued. It is more important for the generations to collect experiences and to have access to what you earlier used to own, for example car sharing. Having access instead of owning is to assure to stay flexible. There is a shift in consumer behaviour going from solid consumption to liquid consumption, where liquid consumption defines as an ephemeral, access based and dematerialised way of consuming.  Ephemeral implies to how the expiration date of value of a product or service is increasingly shortening, for example there is always something new arriving on the market which makes the earlier versions value decrease. Access based refers to how transactions are being made but the ownership does not change, booking an accommodation via Airbnb for example, and dematerialisation indicates the possibility to reach the same level of functionality with no or fewer materials. The change of consumption is not only to be seen in the urban cities but also as a general trend in the global consumption, this all is possible thanks to shared economy, digital technology, the trend of service economy in the west and the fast production in the east which all leads to a short product life cycle.

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If the trend in consuming is changing and the generation before has received the status through owning what gives the next generation status? According to Eckhardt & Bardhi (2019) is there two new resources that gives a person status, flexibility and attention. Flexibility, as the names states, is always to embrace and adapt to new possibilities, focus on short-term instead of long-term and has become a strategy for status making. Attention is a social differentiator which gives status and has increased through social media. The attention capital is measured in quantity of likes, followers or shares and could be converted into social capital or economic capital, which has made social media attention a higher valued status symbol then offline wealth. Through usage of # and brands does the person form “self-branding” and “construct” a more likable self to gain more attention. Liquid consumption gives a trend of inconspicuous wastefulness where the aim for any kind of wastefulness or status symbols is towards a smaller group and not the mass, only to a group where the message can be de-coded, for example how drinking almond milk and grocery shopping with a reusable bag can be more status symbol within a certain group of people and mean nothing to an other group. This leads to a challenge because the value of a brand is changing, it is no longer about the brand itself it is more focus on what the brand stands for.  Due to the consumption mentality of young adults has experiences become more a status symbol then the solid possession and status increases if it is connected to work or self-improvement projects. Authenticity gives a value to the experience but very much depending on the context, for example the cheapest brand of beer has the most status within certain lifestyle communities in difference to other contexts where it is more about the type of beer, a craft beer for example in craft beer community. Liquid consumption has become a status marker itself and according to Eckhardt & Bardhi (2019) state that the social hierarchy still exists but how to move up or down in it has changed.

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The trend liquid consumption could have a positive impact on service marketing as it is more to have access to instead of owning. The possibilities to market a service, which offers the customer to consume or gain access is in the right time. To take into consideration though, is the importance of the experience and authenticity, the service has to offer more than just the basics and it needs to be implemented as close as possible to the ‘real’ situation. As the status is gained through communities or smaller groups is mass marketing not necessarily the right way to approach the target group, as it might have more of influence if it comes from someone with high social status in a certain community. Authenticity also plays a large role in the social media channel, that the chosen influencer and the service has to match is obvious, but the followers also need to have the feeling that the influencer sincerely believe in the service and not ‘only’ because there is a partnership.

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Eckhardt, G. M., & Bardhi, F. (2019). New dynamics of social status and distinction. Marketing Theory, 20(1), pp. 85-102.