A conversation with Priya Raghubir
David Brandon Geeting for More or Less
Priya Raghubir is a professor in marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, with teaching interests in marketing research, consumer behavior, and marketing strategy. I was interested in speaking with Professor Raghubir about why marketing within fashion is so effective. I hold certain assumptions about how advertising plays on consumer's vulnerability and how marketing messages are frequently linked to self-worth and identity, so I was intrigued to explore whether these conjectures are correct and, if so, why, and how it works.
Focusing on her research specialism in consumer psychology, including survey methods, psychological aspects of prices and money; risk perceptions; and visual information processing, the conversation covers topics such as the importance of maintaining the value of luxury goods, why it is so attractive to purchase numerous fast-fashion pieces, instead of saving up for one luxury item, and how material goods are tied to our understanding of ourselves.
Shonagh Marshall: A year ago, mainstream media started to talk about how the climate was in "crisis," changing the language used to highlight the severity of the issue humanity faced. How do you think this crisis will impact the way brands market to consumers in the future?
Priya Raghubir: Sustainable fashion will become a much more significant theme in the future, particularly with millennials, who will drive that entire movement. They have a much greater consciousness about sustainability, compared to the baby boomers. The question I have is that there's very little information about a brand's practice, in the media, and their marketing unless there is a scandal. Unless we hear that somebody is not paying their workers in Bangladesh properly or negatively sourcing their materials, we don't hear about the larger brands' practices.
Take Nike, for example; it claims to be throwing its weight behind the Black Lives Matter movement, in the messages in their current advertising and on social media. However, at the same time, we know that a lot of their sourcing is exploitative, and their labor practices are exploitative. These things only come to the fore in the mainstream when there is a crisis. I don't hear enough stories in marketing where brands talk about how clothes are produced and the amount of waste. How would they compare on any of the metrics of sustainability, in fashion, for example, with other brands? What is an industry average for waste, and how do wage rates at different brands compare? All of us have some idea in our head what is exploitative and what is not, but we are not being presented the information in the brands messaging.
Currently, we have the COVID crisis. We have an economic crisis. We have the Black Lives Matter social unrest crisis. Then embedded within all of those things, we have an international relation, geopolitical crisis--the planet crisis. As you said, a little over a year ago, the media started using the word crisis for it. But in my opinion, the George Floyd moment of reckoning hasn't happened yet with the climate.
Shonagh: Really?!
Priya: Yes. That one event so that everybody can agree that climate change is not fiction. We are not protesting in the streets. We are not identifying with the brands that we buy. We are not demanding to know how they were manufactured. We are not asking how much the children in Bangladesh were paid. What kinds of materials were used, and which ones were wasted? How much pollution was caused in the production process?
I believe there will have to be some catalyst event, which will allow the entire movement to gain momentum. It is an ugly thought but, I don't know; maybe a glacier falls onto a cruise ship and kills everyone. It would get the world's attention. Something that says this is catastrophic and unless everybody acts now, we are dooming our children and grandchildren to an unlivable planet.
Shonagh: The messaging that brands employ in advertising is very far from engaging in the apocalyptic future we face. For example, many use tactics of fantasy in the semiotics they employ. This afternoon I received a marketing email from a luxury New York department store titled 'Because you need a bag for all of your things.' I opened it up, and it was selling bags, in large caps type it reassured me that they had 'Everything in Hand.' An image of a Saint Laurent bag was displayed, alongside eight thumbnails of bags from other luxury designers. The bags ranged from $4980 for a tote by Bottega Venetta, to $830 for one by Stella McCartney, which ironically poses the least cost to the environment too. The copy in the email stated, "Whether you're headed to the farmer's market or a picnic in the park, a luxe tote can carry you through any occasion." Why did they use this technique to sell these bags?
Priya: It is a good tactic. When I see a bag advertised in and of itself, I might say, "I've got enough bags, I don't need to buy another." But if somebody makes me think about a specific type of occasion, I might begin to imagine myself in that situation and say, "that would be the perfect bag for the picnic." Another example could be shoes, I may delete the email, but if somebody said these are the perfect pair of sandals to wear at a beach. That's it; I think, "Oh yeah, I could be going to a beach someday, maybe I should check those out." You begin to take the situations that are prompted, that you may not have thought of, and this allows you to think about where you would use that particular item. The marketing is positioning you in that place.
David Brandon Geeting for Buffalo Zine
Shonagh: There is something almost sinister about the language used. We are living through a global pandemic, and the subtext asserts that everything is going to be ok if you only bought a new bag. I am interested in how these advertising and marketing messages play into people's vulnerabilities. I have been thinking a lot about the lack of awareness of shopping addiction within our society, which affects around 18 million people in America and 8 million people in the UK. Why do you think there isn't the awareness around shopping addiction that substance abuse has, for example?
Priya: Excellent question. Recognition of these addictions is relatively new, and shopping addiction for one has not entered the DSM-5, the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). There was a lot of debate about Internet or television addiction, which you will agree is an addiction but it is also not in the DSM. Gambling, alcohol, smoking, drugs are all listed.
When you're trying to diagnose yourself as to whether you are an addict, there are different ways you can self select yourself out of the addict group through the questions you ask. The first time I studied internet addiction, I considered it in the context of depression. Depression has nine symptoms, of which eight are relatively ambiguous, such as bad moods, and trouble sleeping. But the ninth symptom is very specific, do you have thoughts of death or suicide? Now in terms of the DSM, that ninth symptom is no more diagnostic than the eight other symptoms. But the presence in the inventory allows people to say; I haven't thought of killing myself or anybody else today; I'm not depressed, which led to a lot of under-diagnosis. Internet addiction also has eight symptoms, of which three are unambiguous—like have you risked a job? Five are ambiguous, such as do you stay on the internet longer than intended? So the likelihood of people assessing themselves as Internet addicts varies so much upon whether you first asked them about their addiction level, then ask them about their symptoms, or vice versa. This suggests that this judgment can be moved around, it is not sound judgement.
Translating this research for your question about shopping addiction. Shopping for many people is fun, and it seems to be also socially highly acceptable. The only negative associated with it is that you may overspend, you may become a hoarder, or you may end up returning a lot, which is very costly for the retailer. Those costs are less visible, so when we first come to overspend, there is a continuum along which people fall, tightwads, and spendthrift. Spendthrifts are more likely to be shopaholics than tightwads because tightwads don't like spending money. All spendthrifts, of course, are not shopaholics. Shopaholics are those who get pleasure from shopping, and they want to spend time on it, shopping as a form of entertainment. They enjoy it, and so long as they're not overspending, hoarding, or returning all these products, they aren't doing themselves any harm. But if someone is doing any one of these things, then really they need to be educated about the costs associated with the shopping.
David Brandon Geeting for NicOtiNe
Shonagh: It can also be linked to low self-esteem, engaging in buying something in the hope it will make you feel better. Do you think that marketing in fashion plays on insecurities? It strikes me how fashion has linked itself so closely to our identity, in that clothes have come to define us within society.
Priya: This is why cigarette advertising has been banned because it led to people thinking that smoking is cool. But alcohol advertising has not been banned despite alcoholism, casinos still advertise despite gambling being a severe addiction in the US. There is something called an addictive personality. I haven't explicitly studied shopping, but I just did an experiment on addictive personality and Internet addiction. I asked people their likelihood of also being addicted to a number of other substances, gambling, food, and television, etc. I found there to be very, very strong correlations between all these addictions. Mainly, from a statistical point of view, they all loaded onto a single factor, they were either addicted or not addicted, in terms of personality. I did not study shopping addiction, so I can't speak to that, but my conjecture, aside from addiction, is that people who like to shop a lot may be bored. They're looking for entertainment, and they find shopping entertaining. Going to the mall is something to do, like going to the beach or going for a hike.
Shonagh: But it may be that once you buy the garment or accessory that you do not feel the joy you had hoped, and it can leave you feeling numb.
Priya: It's actionable, and it's utilitarian, whereas, for some people, shopping is a hedonic pleasure. The goal is to find something precise and spend hours doing so; however, it would be a complete waste of time for some people.
Shonagh: There is a vast void between people who will spend high amounts of money on clothing and people who buy cheap clothes. Why do you think certain people invest more in clothing than others?
Priya: I think it comes down to self-image and how you feel about yourself. I'll use myself as an example because I fall into both ends of the spectrum. I buy items for $5 and others for $1,000. Some things are practical for me. Take a simple cotton top, which I'm going to wear underneath a jacket. I don't care where it's from, so long as it fits, but the jacket on top has to be nice. I don't spend that much money on Western clothes because it's not part of my self-image. For these Western clothes, I don't care about the style, the brand, and price; I only care about the colour. However, when it comes to saris, which define me, and are part of my identity—I am from India—I would spend so much time and money doing that type of shopping. I would perhaps go to look at 100 saris, then bring it down to 10, then narrow it down to three. I think it's a question of your self-image, which derives a lot from what you look like. Whether it is your hair, your face, or your clothes, shoes, bags, you're more attentive to those things.
David Brandon Geeting for M.A.C. Cosmetics
Shonagh: The importance put on those things, and how they are linked to defining us perhaps is why fashion has escaped the scrutiny that other industries, such as fossil fuels, have had into their impact on the environment. For example, in pieces such as 'Sweatpants Forever: How the fashion industry collapsed' in the The New York Times Magazine, there seems to be a growing contemporary interest in the mechanics of the fashion industry. However, this article does not mention the climate crisis; it doesn't link waste with the impact that the fashion industry has had on the environment. A journalist writing for the same newspaper would never cover the oil industry with a nostalgic. The piece claims that the fashion industry as it once operated is no more. Outlining the value of fashion, both financially and culturally, it states that the reason for its demise is that many brands have devalued their product by having it arrive long before the time it is designed to be worn. Then when it doesn’t sell they put it on sale ahead of that season. How important is it for a premium luxury product to maintain its expensive price tag?
Priya: I'm curious as to why it works that way. Do you have any insight into why they are marking down their products early?
Shonagh: It began during The Great Recession in 2008, and after that, it became the norm.
Priya: Any brand, it doesn't matter if it's a retail brand or any other kind of consumer brand that consistently has sales, is training its consumers to be disloyal. All the deal does is ensure lower profitability for the brand. They don't learn, and they keep having sales year after year. A sale gives the consumer a short term incentive to buy; it doesn't make you loyal to the brand.
Shonagh: The other side of this is the British brand Burberry admitting in 2018 to burning $37 million of clothing and cosmetics at the end of the season because they couldn't sell them. Why did they do that?
Priya: I was so angry when I read that, although it was beneficial for the brand's value, it was so wasteful, all of those clothes could have been donated and not have done the brand any harm. They could have given it to people who needed clothes and Burberry could have made that into a great marketing campaign about how they were good corporate citizens. In my opinion, to burn them was scandalous.
Shonagh: Why did they burn them?
Priya: They did not want their products to go on sale for exactly the reasons that I just talked about, which I think is very smart. If the product is not selling at full price and the warehouses are completely full, there is a cost associated with storing them, and landfill is another problem. So what led them to burn thousands of items was to prevent them from having to sell them at a discount. I agree that they should not discount their product, but they could have easily donated those goods.
Shonagh: I find the idea of value interesting when looking at the two ends of the fashion industry: luxury fashion and fast fashion. I was reading about your research into fungibility, which means another identical item can replace something. Your inquiry is about the fungibility of money. Could we apply this research to fast fashion, are these clothes so appealing because they are at such a low cost, is it equivalent to paying for something, for example, from a vending machine? I am also interested in why people are so motivated to buy so many different low-cost fast fashion items instead of saving up over time for something more expensive and well made?
Priya: That's interesting. There is a paper that just got accepted that shows when the price of a product exactly matches the denomination I have in my wallet, I'm more likely to buy that product. So say I have a $10 bill in my pocket or ten $10 bills in my pocket, and I see something for $50, I won't be interested. But say I see something for ten bucks, I will bring out a $10 note and buy it. Whereas if I have two $50 bills, I won't spend them on a $10 item, I'll spend it on an item priced at $50.
Thinking about why people buy more garments, there is pleasure in variety; it is a form of variety seeking. People think I will get five tops for $12 each. The tops in and of themselves wouldn't matter. These days we pay for everything by credit card service anyway, so nothing is very painful.
David Brandon Geeting for Buffalo Zine
Shonagh: Yes, because you have the impression that by paying with a credit card, you are not really spending money. My final question is about greenwashing. Why do brands employ greenwashing tactics, and why do they work?
Priya: Everybody wants to jump onto the bandwagon of being a "good brand." You saw this with the messaging they employed when COVID-19 hit. Suddenly, brands told us that they cared about us. I thought, who are you? Why do you care about me? It was so transparent. Greenwashing is the same thing; brands present themselves to appear to be environmentally friendly. Some brands are genuinely environmentally friendly, and they will tell you exactly how they are. But others are throwing something out there hoping to convince the consumer who does not pay careful attention that they are indeed doing good things for the planet. When consumers see through it, it backfires. Usually, they are exposed by another consumer who cares, is paying attention, and is motivated. If you are not motivated, then you're going to believe the claim at face value.
Shonagh: How would you suggest the consumer safeguarding themselves from falling for these messages? Are there any checks we can do?
Priya: This has to be government-mandated because it's deceptive advertising. Perhaps the deceptive advertising rules need to examine claims, which they believe are erroneous or overstate the extent of a brand's commitment to the planet in their production practices or any other type of claim that has been made. To do this, you'll need a watchdog agency; these could be consumer agencies, government watchdog agencies, or international watchdog agencies, but you need some watchdog agency and regulation. These things are currently not in place.
