Essay - Consumer Behavior - Branding the Importance of Branding, Labeling, and...

Consumer Behavior - Branding

The Importance of *****, Labeling, and Peer Pressure to Teenage ***** Other Consumers

Consumer purchases are made to satisfy a need: physic*****l or psychological; business-related or f***** pleasure; imaginary or real. While no consumer's purchasing needs ***** desires, or purchasing attitudes, priorities, or behaviors will ever likely be identical ***** those of any other consumer, it is nevertheless true that particular consumers will tend to *****have (and spend) similarly, based on demographic factors such as gender; household income; occupation; hobbies and interests; age group; image consciousness; susceptibility to peer pressure, etc. (Kanner & Kasser, October, 2003; Toynee, 2004; Grimaldi, 2005). Moreover, it is a s*****d fact of contemporary American life ***** so many of today's *****, ***** every age, increasingly believe that who they ***** has so much to do w*****h what ***** buy, own, and display to others. This, in a nutshell, is the underlying re*****son that br*****ing and labeling of consumer products ***** both so successful and ***** so **********. All of this, however, is actually a direct effect ***** consumer marketing, especially of ***** marketing targeted explicitly to those consumers most susceptible to its psychological effects and inflated promises: young people and teenagers.

Increasingly, moreover, textbooks; websites; classes; seminars; conferences; keynote speeches; panel discussions; symposiums; and magazine and trade journal articles devote themselves ***** detailed analysis of how to best encourage (or, more accurately, manipulate) consumers ***** buy (and buy ***** of) particular mass-marketed products. Also increasingly, many such endeavors are devoted to better underst*****ing, manipulating, and exploiting buying preferences, **********, and habits of teens in *****.

Weeks (Oc*****ber 28, 2004), reports for example, *****:

At the second annual "WHAT TEENS WANT: Marketing to Teens Using

Music, Movies and ***** Media," a two-day event held this week in Beverly

Hills, California on Tuesday, the hotel was filled with keynotes ***** dialogues with top executives, direct feedback from ***** and *****s, all tackling critical niche marketing issues. Hosted by AdWeek, Br*****Week, MediaWeek,

Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, the event attracted media ***** ***** executives hungry to understand ***** dynamic generation of current teens who last year spent over $170 billion.

Within ***** settings, one ***** that emerges again and ***** is that the labeling or branding of products ***** been proven ***** be especially effective with consumers of all ages, but teen purchasers in particular. Product ***** has also ***** proven to be ***** more effective at continually influencing ***** buying decisions than it ***** been at ***** influencing buying decisions ***** older consumer groups (Linn, May 2004; Kestering, June 2004; Grimaldi, *****).

***** likely, ***** is because teenagers in particular ***** in general far more susceptible than older *****s ***** the ***** and emotional effects of branding or labeling of products or services (e.g. designer clothes; cosmetics brands; cars; computers; music; food and drinks; appliances; Internet server subscriptions, etc., etc.) (Linn; Kestering). Teenagers as a group ********** also, in general, far ***** ********** than are other age groups in both fitt*****g in with