Marketing: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 We near the end of October, but in retrospect, it is the beginning of a new quarter

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 We near the end of October, but in retrospect, it is the beginning of a new quarter

Quotable

Victor Lebow an economist/retail analyst/author, 1955 paper, “Price Competition in 1955,” which was published in the Spring issue of the “Journal of Retailing.”

“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats, his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.

These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only “forced draft” consumption, but “expensive” consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. The home power tools and the whole “do-it-yourself” movement are excellent examples of “expensive” consumption.”