Ethical luxury: some consumption dilemmas of ethics and

sustainability

Questions and Answers:

1. How do models of consumer decision making take into account the
ethical concerns of consumers? Using traditional decision making models,
outline an ethical luxury consumers decision making process? How does
a consumers ethical decision making process compare with those
outlined in the discussion of consumer decision making?
- Consumer decision making models refers to different orientations and outlooks
with which he advances to the marketplace and why/how they act the way they
do. It explains the consumers overall purchase behaviour. There are a number of
models dercribing the buying behaviour of consumers: Middletons Stimulus
response model, Sheth- Newman gross model of consumption, Solomon model of
comparison process, Nicosia model, Howard-Sheth three level of decision making
model, Engel-Kollat-Blackwell model (Trivedi, 2014).
- An ethical consumer is the one who considers the public consequences of his/her
individual consumption or who strives to bring about environmental, social and
economic change by using his purchaing power (webster, 1975). Ethical
consumption is displayed when a person feels accountable towards the society
and demonstrates his feelings by his purchase behaviour (De Pelsmacker, Driesen
and Rayp 2005). These ethical concerns can be rendered by boycotting products
produced unethically or buying products that are only produced ethically.
- For instance, a person may be apprehensive about the child labour or the violence
of human rights in a foreign country, say Bangladesh. Then the companys
involvement in outsourcing or importing of goods from bangladesh would become
a influencing factor in his purchase decision making. Likewise, consumers
concerned about animal rights would take into account if the cosmetics or any
other products are tested on animals or not.
- Thus, ethical consumers are conscious of the aftermath of production,
consumption and disposal and therefore anticipate the companies to confront to
ethical standards. So basically, various factors that influence consumers ethical
concerns always impede at various stages of decision making process.
- For instance, if a person is the supporter of PETA, he would ignore all the products
made by killing animals in his consideration set and look for the alternatives to
fulfill his needs.
- Part 2: the traditional decision making model involves the following steps:
- Need recognition-- information search-- evaluation of alternatives-- purchase
decision-- post purchase behaviour.
- Each of these steps are influenced and shaped by external environmant (PESTEL),
marketing efforts (product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence) and
consumer characterisitics (motivations, memory, learning and perceptions) which
leads the consumer to purchase the goods and service.
- Motivations for the purchase of luxury goods can be:
- 1. High status: According to Mason (1981) status consumption is the process of
gaining status or social prestige from the acquisition and consumption of goods
that the individual and significant others perceive to be high in status
- 2. Uniqueness: only a few people around the world would have that particular
model or design
- 3. Conspicuous consumption: a behaviour inspired by the exhibition of self-identity
- 4. Symbolic motivation: which is desire to display social prestige. Symbolic
motivation can be due to consupicuos consumption, snob appeal and bandwagon
effect.
- 4. Hedonic motivation: it is the motivation to meet the inner feeling and desires-
exhilaration and enjoyment.
- 5. Instrumental motivation: motivation for good quality, where the quality is
assumed to he directly related to the price of the goods.
- These motivations are influenced by independent varilables like- materialism,
collectivism and social dominance.
- Again when it comes to perceptions, luxury brands are perceived to be of highest
quality, durable, original, latest trend initiator and unique. It usually appeals to
people who wish to try everything as soon as it is launched. However the degree of
perceptions may differ. For example, both cadillac and rolls royce are perceived to
be premium, but rolls royce is perceived to be more luxury than cadillac.
- When it comes to luxury goods, there are 8 Ps other than the original 7 Ps of
marketing that have effect the consumers luxury consumption. They are also
called as 8 pillars of luxury brand marketing.
- 1. Performance: it refers to the delivery or execution of the superior experience of
the brand both at product and experiential level.
- 2. Pedigree: a loy of luxury brands have a remarkable history and rich pedigree
that form an indivisible part of the brands charm. The fastination is generally build
around the brands founders or location.
- 3. Paucity: luxury brands usually try to maintain the perception that their goods
are scarce so that they dont dilute the luxury character of the brand. There can be
natural paucity which is due to scarce ingredients like diamonds, or that requires
special human skills to make. There can also be technological paucity due to R & D
and innovation and Tactical driven paucity which involves creating artifical
demands by having special series or limited edition goods etc.
- 4. Persona: it is due to the brand communication through the advertisement and
also its peculiar projection. The distinguished and consisitent synthetization of the
 identity is central to establishing the familiarity, visibility and identifiable brand
imagery.
- 5. Public figures: it is very important in luxury brand marketing as it garners
attention, credibility, and impact, trustworthiness and likelihood. The public figures
are usually the ones whose personality reflects as that of the brand.
- 6. Placement: the placement of the luxury product brands is all about amplifying
the customers brand experience and highlighting its aura. Things like store
location, sales person presentation, store servicescape, consumer touchpoints
have an impact in creating unique indulging experience.
- 7. Public relations: PR plays a crucial role in luxury brands image escalation.
Luxury brand is more about the consumers experience than the product itself, so
PR is usually used as a sophisticated branding machine to maintain continuous
dialogue with customers, create buzz, and appreciate its customers.
- 8. Pricing: consumers consciously or sub-consciously create a mental luxury image
with the price range of the brand. It is important to set the correct price as pricing
lower than the customers perceived price may harm the brands image and
similarly pricing higher may not give enough reasons to the customer to buy the
brand.
- Part 3: the term ethical is subjective in nature and open to interpretition if one
uses it as a synonym of morals, which is based on cultural norms and are different
across cultures. However, if the word ethics is used as the study of right or wrong,
it is objective in nature as it is based on how it affects the society. For instance, if
one does not pay taxes, it is unethical as the taxes paid would be used by the
government for the welfare of the society. In this case ethics is backed by a solid
evidence.
- When it comes to comparing the ethical decision making process with that of the
traditional process, at every stage of the traditional decision making process a
consumer may add ethical concerning questions before going to the next step.
- At need identification stage, he may ask if his need is actually a need which needs
to be fulfilled or would it waste the resource if I consume the good. For instance,
the ice bucket challenge, some people would find it necessary to complete as you
are being tagged by someone. But some people would consider it to be unethical
as it would lead to the wasteage of water.
- At information search, a person would find out all the information about all the
products and segregate the products on the basis of his consideration of ethicality.
What are the options available for acting ethically
- At evaluation of alternative stage, a peron may ask questions like: what option will
fulfill my desire and at the same time least harm the environment (the utilitarian
approach), what option respects the rights of the stakeholders (the rights
approach), what option would lead to trating of people equally (the justice
 approach), what option serves the community as a whole and not just an individual
(the common group approach), what option leads me to act the person I desire to
be (the virtue approach).
- At the purchase and post purchase stage, a person may ask if his decision to buy a
certain product made the ethical difference to the society? Or did it influence
others also to act ehically?

Webster, Frederick E., "Determining the Characteristics of the Socially Conscious

Consumer," Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 2 (December 1975), pp. 188-96.

De Pelsmacker, P., Driesen, L., & Rayp, G. (2005). Do consumers care about ethics?
Willingness to pay for fairtrade coffee. Journal of consumer affairs, 39(2), 363-385.

Trivedi, M. (2014). Consumer Decision Making Models. Slideshare.net. Retrieved 11

February 2017, from http://www.slideshare.net/mithileshtrivedi581/consumer-decision-
making-models

http://www.slideshare.net/rohit77/8-ps-of-luxury-branding-report-medres

http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4861&context=etd

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/consumer-behaviour-regarding-luxury-
product-consumption-marketing-essay.php?utm_expid=309629-
42.KXZ6CCs5RRCgVDyVYVWeng.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk
%2F

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2011/sep/16/luxury-brands-
ethical-environmental-fashion

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228344191_Measuring_consumers'_luxury_val
ue_perception_A_cross-cultural_framework

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franck_Vigneron/publication/31968013_Measuring_
perceptions_of_brand_luxury/links/5654c25608ae1ef92976dfe0.pdf

http://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=mktguht

http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/7422/volumes/v20/NA-20

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-
ethical-decision-making/

https://www.quora.com/Is-ethics-subjective-or-objective