Chapter 16

• Products, special possessions, and consumption activities gain symbolic meaning and this meaning is conveyed from one consumer to another.
• Marketing Implications for Gift Giving Promoting products/services as gifts Technology and gift shopping Alternatives to traditional gifts
• Marketers can influence or make use of the symbolic meaning that consumption may have for consumers.
• The distinction between sacred and profane entities is important for marketing strategy.
• The process of gift giving can be described and marketers can use knowledge of this process to market more effectively.
• Symbolic Meaning is derived from culture through cultural categories, which are groupings of objects that reflect one's culture.
• Cultural principles are ideas or values that specify how aspects of one's culture are organized.
• Frame switching: Stimulated by language cues.
• Types of Special Possessions: Pets, memory-laden objects, achievement symbols, and collections.
• Emblematic Function: Use of products to symbolize membership in social groups, including geographic, ethnic, social class, gender, and reference group.
• Role Acquisition Function: Offerings that help one feel more comfortable in new roles, including phases of separation, transition, and incorporation.
• Development of Consumer Self-Concepts: Product and brand fit with self-concept; product fit with multiple self-concepts; and advertising fit with self-concept.
• Symbolic Functions: Connectedness, the use of products as symbols of one’s personal connections to significant people, events, or experiences; Expressiveness, the use of products as symbols to demonstrate one’s uniqueness; and Multiple functions, including the definition and maintenance of self-concept, identity schemas, and actual and ideal.
• Symbolic Meaning is also derived from the consumer through individual meanings developed through associations.
• Individual meanings can define a consumer as a member of a group or as a unique individual.
• Transfer of Meaning from the Culture to the Product and to the Consumer involves the process of products, special possessions, and consumption activities gaining symbolic meaning and this meaning being conveyed from one consumer to another.
• Sacred entities are people, things, and places that are set apart and treated with great respect.
• Consumer characteristics include social class, mobility, gender, and age.
• Grooming rituals bring out or maintain the best in special products.
• Gift-giving occasions are culturally determined and timed, and some occur at a time that is specific to each individual.
• Possession rituals enable consumers to claim personal possession of new goods.
• Reasons for possessions taking on special meaning include symbolic value, mood-altering properties, and instrumental importance.
• Sacred meanings involve mystery or myth, and are maintained by scarcity and exclusivity.
• Profane things are ordinary with no special powers.
• Divestment rituals are designed to wipe away all traces of personal meaning in a product.
• The gift-giving process involves selecting a gift, wrapping it, and presenting it to the recipient.