Actual Retail Price…
What makes a thing worth investing (time, money, effort, etc…) in? We typically call it “value.” But wtf is that? I could be wrong about this, but value may be whatever other people say it is, or at least that’s what makes a thing valuable to us—that what’s truly fundamentally valuable about most things is that they create social capital.
The Journal of Consumer Research recently published a study of the perceived efficacy of subtle signals within specific groups, looking at how very high-end, publicly visible brands (namely fashion brands) rely less on explicit logo placement and focus instead on creating markers of status that are not identifiable to the mainstream. The point is illustrated almost perfectly by these two numbers: 87% of sunglasses priced from $100—$200 have a visible logo or brand name, 28% of sunglasses priced at $600+ have no discernible logo or brand name.
Consumers at this level prefer not to publicly flaunt the price of their items. Instead, they opt for items with subtle clues that only other consumers of the same level will recognize and appreciate. It’s fashion as performance. To further support this theory, the researchers compared attitudes on non-public fashion items (underwear, socks, etc…) and found that there was no statistically significant difference between the “elite” consumers and the mainstream. The “value” in $600 sunglasses comes not from the UV protection they provide, but from creating social capital within a specific group.
While the JCR study focused solely on the subtle cues in high-end public consumption, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that all public consumption is based on a value proposition that is created socially.
Jonah Lehrer did a bit for Wired about valuing authenticity, which, much like luxury, seems to be rooted in perceived value. He cites a study in which researchers tricked kids into believing in a machine that could make an exact copy of any object. They placed a toy into the machine, some lights flash, some sounds happen and they pull the same toy back out and present it to the kids as a copy of the original toy.
When they did this with a toy to which the kids had no emotional attachment, the kids showed no predisposition to the “authentic original.” A majority of the kids actually preferred the “copy.”
The researchers also had the children bring in a favorite object of their own—a stuffed animal, blanket, etc… (If I’d been a part of this study, my “attachment object” would have been a stuffed sock monkey that looks pretty similar to this). When offered a “copy” of their object, the kids overwhelmingly rejected it. Some even refused to give up their favorite toy to be copied. They never viewed the copy as the equivalent of the original.
The original toy had history. It had a story behind it. And things like histories and backstories can frequently give objects more value because they give you more to discuss with others. You’re no longer limited to talking about the superficial aspects of an object, which means that you have more social capital because of the object.
Rory Sutherland gives an awesome TED presentation on perceived value, which, functionally, may be the same thing as social value.
That perceived value may be socially created doesn’t mean there is no such thing as inherent value. I’ve written about the power of inherent value before. Of course, you could easily argue that Daniel Pink’s concept of intrinsic value as a motivator for achievement is socially motivated (you don’t contribute to Wikipedia for the sake of contributing, instead you contribute to create an experience that will help you build connections to other people, i.e. social capital).
I actually think the summary of Sutherland’s presentation (which you really should spend 17 minutes watching) sums up advertising’s role in creating value perfectly: “Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself.”
It’s a big wall of text to explain how most things, aside from our basic survival needs, don’t have intrinsic value… unless you count their ability to create social capital as intrinsic, in which case they totally do. Either way, it seems sort of silly to distinguish between “perceived” value and “intrinsic” value. They both create real [social] value.
image via: Classic Television Showbiz
![Actual Retail Price…
What makes a thing worth investing (time, money, effort, etc…) in? We typically call it “value.” But wtf is that? I could be wrong about this, but value may be whatever other people say it is, or at least that’s what makes a thing valuable to us—that what’s truly fundamentally valuable about most things is that they create social capital.
The Journal of Consumer Research recently published a study of the perceived efficacy of subtle signals within specific groups, looking at how very high-end, publicly visible brands (namely fashion brands) rely less on explicit logo placement and focus instead on creating markers of status that are not identifiable to the mainstream. The point is illustrated almost perfectly by these two numbers: 87% of sunglasses priced from $100—$200 have a visible logo or brand name, 28% of sunglasses priced at $600+ have no discernible logo or brand name.
Consumers at this level prefer not to publicly flaunt the price of their items. Instead, they opt for items with subtle clues that only other consumers of the same level will recognize and appreciate. It’s fashion as performance. To further support this theory, the researchers compared attitudes on non-public fashion items (underwear, socks, etc…) and found that there was no statistically significant difference between the “elite” consumers and the mainstream. The “value” in $600 sunglasses comes not from the UV protection they provide, but from creating social capital within a specific group.
While the JCR study focused solely on the subtle cues in high-end public consumption, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that all public consumption is based on a value proposition that is created socially.
Jonah Lehrer did a bit for Wired about valuing authenticity, which, much like luxury, seems to be rooted in perceived value. He cites a study in which researchers tricked kids into believing in a machine that could make an exact copy of any object. They placed a toy into the machine, some lights flash, some sounds happen and they pull the same toy back out and present it to the kids as a copy of the original toy.
When they did this with a toy to which the kids had no emotional attachment, the kids showed no predisposition to the “authentic original.” A majority of the kids actually preferred the “copy.”
The researchers also had the children bring in a favorite object of their own—a stuffed animal, blanket, etc… (If I’d been a part of this study, my “attachment object” would have been a stuffed sock monkey that looks pretty similar to this). When offered a “copy” of their object, the kids overwhelmingly rejected it. Some even refused to give up their favorite toy to be copied. They never viewed the copy as the equivalent of the original.
The original toy had history. It had a story behind it. And things like histories and backstories can frequently give objects more value because they give you more to discuss with others. You’re no longer limited to talking about the superficial aspects of an object, which means that you have more social capital because of the object.
Rory Sutherland gives an awesome TED presentation on perceived value, which, functionally, may be the same thing as social value.
That perceived value may be socially created doesn’t mean there is no such thing as inherent value. I’ve written about the power of inherent value before. Of course, you could easily argue that Daniel Pink’s concept of intrinsic value as a motivator for achievement is socially motivated (you don’t contribute to Wikipedia for the sake of contributing, instead you contribute to create an experience that will help you build connections to other people, i.e. social capital).
I actually think the summary of Sutherland’s presentation (which you really should spend 17 minutes watching) sums up advertising’s role in creating value perfectly: “Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself.”
It’s a big wall of text to explain how most things, aside from our basic survival needs, don’t have intrinsic value… unless you count their ability to create social capital as intrinsic, in which case they totally do. Either way, it seems sort of silly to distinguish between “perceived” value and “intrinsic” value. They both create real [social] value.
image via: Classic Television Showbiz](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6pueaTlOI1qamzzro1_r2_400.jpg)
1 note |#