Essential Reading for Marketing & Business ProfessionalsTuesday May 20th 2008Insights in this issue:
* Conspicuous Consumption
* The best marketing ideas..
* 5Th UK Privacy and CRM Conference, London, 24/25 June 2008

We've all heard the term "conspicuous
consumption" - but did you know it tellingly
refers to low-income members of society too?
According to new research they spend
proportionally more on visible signs of
success than the successful do!
You can
pick up a great deal in bars - even great
marketing ideas, find out what what we found
in one London bar.
And, finally, there is
a great conference next month on Data Privacy
and CRM that is SPECIFICALLY designed for
marketers. If you are going to book for any
conferences over the next month, book into
this one!

James Pearson - Editor

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Conspicuous Consumption

The term was coined by Norwegian-american
Thorstein Veblen in the 19th Century.
Valuable possessions, visible to all, are a
signal of one's wealth, success and status,
Veblen said. Today, most people recognize
that spending decisions are influenced by the
desire to "keep up with the Joneses." The
question is, how far down the socio-economic
strata does this effect extend?

Recent research by Nickolai Roussanov of
Wharton University into spending patterns
suggests that even among the poorer sections
of society the same is true. The poor spend
more on visible goods if they live in poor
communities, because such spending gives them
more status relative to others in the
community. But the poor living among
wealthier people do not devote extra portions
of income to visible expenditures, since they
are too far behind to get more status from
the extra spending they can afford.

A low-income person in inner city Liverpool,
for example, is likely to spend more on
visible goods than a low-income person in
Westminster. That's because white people are
generally poorer in Liverpool; in
Westminster, spending more on visible goods
is a waste of money, since it does not boost
status. But what makes this research most
interesting is that low-income people do it
by diverting expenditure from other areas.

In the current economic environment then this
suggests that marketers will need to pay ever
more close attention to demographics when
targeting marketing activity - whether the
brand is a aspirational one or not!

Click here to read the full article

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The best marketing ideas..

.. can sometimes be found in a Bar - in this
case the Las Iguanas bar on London's South
Bank. It is one of a chain of 18 across the
UK and they have come up with a very neat and
clever way to gather email addresses and
other information about their customers.

With every bill you get a feedback card,
inviting you to rate your experience. Nothing
unusual in that. What makes this one so
clever is that it offers a prize draw to get
your house number and postcode AND offers a
"treat" in return for your birthdate and
email address. The precise wording is "Let us
know your email address and birthday and
we'll send you a treat every year". It then
goes on "but if you don't want to join our
mailing list to get news, offers & treats,
please tick".

So by this simple mechanism they now know who
you are, where you live and your age. From
this it is possible to build a very detailed
profile of their clientele and indulge in
some very sophisticated email
marketing.
The trick Las Iguanas have
learned, which few others have, is that to
get permission to market to someone you HAVE
to market the benefits of being marketed to.
This card does it, in our view, in a very
neat, friendly and inviting way. And the food
in the Bar is pretty good too!

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5Th UK Privacy and CRM Conference, London, 24/25 June 2008

This year's conference is split over two
days, with the first day being devoted to the
more lawyerly issues and the second more
targeted at marketers. Serious Data Privacy
professionals may wish to attend both days.
But for marketers Day two looks to be a very
useful conference indeed with much practical
experience on offer. With the Information
Commissioner now having new powers and
attitudes hardening ever more in relation to
data privacy we think this is one conference
you really should attend.

To find out more and to register for this
conference, please click on the link below.

Click here for the full agenda