Everyone Wants To Get Into My Wallet
My wallet is growing and people are noticing. Late one night, as I was driving down the city, I looked up at a huge billboard advertising a jewellery brand featuring an aspirational lifestyle model/actress. I exclaimed,
“I really love that advertisement!”
My friend smiled and said,
“You would. It celebrates you, after all.”
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
My first luxury retail experience was an emotional one, one of self-awareness. I wear my diamonds with pride, a pride that comes not exactly from their aesthetic value but from the knowledge that I earned the power to buy them for myself.
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
A few years ago, I discovered something I think of as the Superwoman complex. I don’t know whether to be happy or not that it’s turning out to be prophetic. Take a minute to think about my words…
I am the center of a marketing model titled ‘High income single decision maker’.
I am the brief given to fashion houses when they design the new Prada suit.
I am described as ‘Joan of Arc meets Helen of Troy’.
We are indeed, the hot new consumer demographic. Urban women, financially self-sufficient with all the trappings of our successful professional status – the need for new status symbols combined with the ability to pay for them.
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
Our parents’ generation saw the upsurge of women at work and all the initial beginnings like the glass ceiling, women bosses et al. Our generation is the one that gets to enjoy it (and be taken advantage of). We’re prominent for our purchasing power and marketers have been quick to pick up on the need for our own set of status symbols and paraphernalia. I speak as the target group of a woman who earns and has the independence to spend. I also speak as a marketing professional, seeing the other side of it, so to speak.
Successful men with high incomes, have been well tapped into as a market and are induced to spend on everything from their own selves (personal gadgets, cars), social settings (restaurants, pubs, sports activities) and dating-related paraphernalia (presents for women, tokens of what makes them an ‘ideal partner’). What do the opposite numbers in our sex have?
We have shoes, clothes, bags, accessories, jewellery, make-up and personal grooming services. If the men-targeted products homed in on the traditional masculine need to be macho and an alpha male, we are being targeted for our vanity and need to be ‘the babe’.
The more expensive products are obviously affordable only to a certain type of woman – she has a career, she’s ambitious and wants to be respected for her intelligence, she doesn’t want to stand in anyone’s shadow, she has a personality of her own. Hence diamonds, super-expensive shoes and clothes come with the message that they respect your individuality, celebrate your independence and will take Visa as well as American Express.
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
I was invited to the premier showing of the big Hollywood release of ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’. I saw the movie with a group of girlfriends and all of us identified with the heroine. We would, she’s based on us after all. While the movie is meant to be a really light-hearted comedy, it points to something deeper.
I got to wondering about the phenomenon of shopaholism. Is it a reality that we’re likely to be facing very soon? All manner of excess is driven towards filling a need that hasn’t been satisfied earlier. So women who binge are thought to be unconsciously compensating for a lack of affection in their lives. What unmet need are we trying to plug with this excessive buying?
Becky Bloomwood in the movie nails it on the head when she explains her addiction,
– ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ film
True to all successful marketing strategies, this one also gives us a taste of what we like and then leaves us begging for more. Shinier hair! Higher heels! Bigger (and smaller) bags! Cooler sunglasses! Brighter make-up! Lotions, creams, gels, powders, liquid liners, sticks, brushes, concealers, colourants, rinses, crayons, cakes, gloss, sequins, beads, rhinestones, denim, silk, linen, velvet….the list never ends.
So for all our gloss and gorgeousness, we are nothing more than the product of a very successful marketing program designed to relieve us of our newly minted paychecks. ‘Fabulous’ is the bait they use to lure us in and the looming bill at the end of the month is the hook.
It used to be about too many people wanting to get into my pants. Now everyone wants to get into my wallet!!
So true! So true! I see advertising all day long that speaks to me! I try to practice restraint and discipline and ask myself “Do I really need that?” or “Where would I put that?” Having a smaller house has curbed a lot of my extraneous spending 🙂
@madelinelaughs: Having a tiny (empty) wallet has curbed a lot of my spending. 😀
Money can’t buy you happiness neither can it fill any void. But it sure can get you a great pair of skinny jeans… 🙂 And many other goodies!
@Lakshmi: 😀
“….diamonds, super-expensive shoes and clothes come with the messages that they respect your individuality, celebrate your independence and will take Visa as well as American Express.”- Quote of the day. It is kinda ironic though, isn’t it? Independence gets defined by a dependence on consumerism.
@Ashwini Mishra: My point exactly.