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New research finds consumers go cheap when they search for meaning. How does that affect marketing?鈥� 鈥嬧��

Feeling buyer鈥檚 remorse as the credit card bills come in? It might have more to do with what you bought, as opposed to how much you spent.听

New research from Lawrence Williams indicates that, when consumers are shopping for something meaningful, they tend to do so on the cheap, rather than consider that the product or service they are buying could itself be a source of significance.

鈥淵ou might think of a Rolex watch as an indulgence,鈥� said Williams, a marketing expert at the Leeds School of Business. 鈥淏ut it could last in your family for years, and be the sort of thing that gets passed down through generations. There are other things you could do with the money for a Rolex, but you might rob yourself of an opportunity to own something that becomes part of yourself and your legacy鈥攅xactly the sort of thing we tend to think of as meaningful.鈥澨�

Williams and his co-author discovered that consumers, when looking at the difference between cheaper and more durable goods, tend to focus on what they could do with the money saved on the purchase鈥攆or instance, opt for a cheaper vacation, then donate the difference in cost to a charity or invest it in a child鈥檚 college fund.

鈥淲e started off expecting the opposite鈥攑eople value meaning, so we expected to see people would want to spend more on things they think are meaningful,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淏ut then all of the data鈥攔epeatedly, each study we did鈥攃ame in and found the opposite.鈥澨�

The findings from his research are something marketing professionals are going to want to think carefully about. There seems to be a heightened sense of consumer skepticism around campaigns that make a play for meaning, so you鈥檙e adding a layer of complexity to your sales pitch.

鈥淯sually in marketing, the challenge is convincing your buyer that the product adds value to your life,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淲ith a meaningful purchase, you鈥檙e also saying this product adds meaning to your life鈥攂e that through aligning with your goals and being purposeful, or helping you connect with the people or things in your life that you've already determined are meaningful to you.

鈥淏ut as consumers, we have this prior intuition that the most meaningful things are the ones we don鈥檛 pay money for.鈥�

Other costs of going cheap

Skewing cheap, unfortunately, comes with significant drawbacks, such as the climate impact of poorly made items, imported from afar, that don鈥檛 last鈥攖hink fast fashion or cheap smartphones. But consumers are extremely price conscious, and it鈥檚 difficult to nudge them toward something more durable, or that might have more meaning, over a disposable alternative.听

鈥淎s a company, you really need to think about not just an awareness campaign, but a communication strategy designed to alter the way people are thinking about the products,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more realistic, more persuasive, to highlight ways in which you can help people find meaning, as opposed to positioning a product as being meaningful on its own.鈥�

Few brands have truly mastered this kind of authenticity, but Williams pointed out Apple and Coca-Cola鈥攅specially its holiday campaigns鈥攁s companies that focus on how their products help customers come together with family, document family traditions and so on. Patagonia is another one.

鈥淔or a long time, Patagonia鈥檚 messaging has been about repairing and reusing their products, as opposed to discarding them鈥攚hich comes at a cost to their business,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 part of their brand, but also part of a story of how they help people do the things that are meaningful, while reflecting their concerns about conservation and the outdoors.鈥�

For shoppers, meanwhile, the takeaway might be that less isn鈥檛 always more.听

鈥淭he time we put into thinking about the value of goods might be better spent thinking about how this product or experience can give us meaning,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淪o, maybe thinking less about how much you鈥檙e spending, or saving, and more about what you鈥檙e actually buying.听

鈥淭he Pursuit of Meaning and the Preference for Less Expensive Options鈥� was published in the . The paper was co-authored by Williams and Nicole Mead, of the Schulich School of Business at York University.

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