Lifestyle has an enormous implication on the behavior of consumers as well as brand preferences. Most of the times the consumers will tend to prefer brands that are considered suitable for the self-image (Wipperfurth, 2005). Consequently, companies will try their best to position their products to fit into the lifestyles of their consumers. Apart from expressing their identity through the everyday choices, consumers will at times seek new ways in which their personal identities may be revealed. As a result, users of a particular product may use that brand as a suitable means of self-expression and lifestyle (Catalin & Andreea, 2014). Social identity with groups such as avocation, religion, gender or even family appear to factor quite heavily into the purchasing patterns of consumers, and subsequently into the marketing efforts of advertisers.
The Coca-Cola Company has made its name relevant worldwide by selling, in essence, fun. Even though their advertisements have not focused on a particular aspect of life, they always major to make a ‘slice’. For instance, friends are hanging out in parks during summer vacations, or a family out in the beach together, or lovers at a movie. The bottom line in all three scenarios is that the people involved are having a Coke. These ads prove that Coca-Cola is perfect for all people despite their different ages and income levels (Moye, 2013). One of the major reasons why Coca-Cola has been tremendously successful is that it created a drinking culture through marketing a fun lifestyle that everyone is after. This emotional-cognitive development incessantly cognizant by the advancement of the consumer’s self-identity, which triggers their insentient purchase calculus.
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Apple is another successful company in the marketing of a lifestyle. Its target market is people who want simplistic yet perfect designs are not forgetting highly functional devices (Cook, n.d.). Furthermore, it sells to people who would like to be considered trendsetters in the society – those who always have the latest devices in the market. As we speak, people usually line very early in the morning to buy the company’s new devices once they are released. The current times of societal stress demand that marketers such as Apple comprehend the authentic experiences of their consumers, which includes innocent desires, sillogical preferences, messy assumptions, as well as new deductions. People who use Apple products as deemed as cool affluent and trendy as Apple products are not usually inexpensive. Also, people want to be well off finance-wise but still aesthetically cool. However, Apple started out as a selling a lifestyle of acceptance to people who were seen as alternative thinkers – the people who wanted a computer that was not anything similar to the ones in the market. Their consumers, at first, were people heavily involved in technology. Understanding the transition process requires a shift in perception from seeing customers as data points to valuing each and every one of them as important people. Therefore, the brand must easily fit into the people’s lives.
To add to the list, Lululemon is also a successful company in the selling of lifestyle. Even though the brand major sells yoga outfits and equipment and it’s most famous for its yoga pants, many people who do not practice yoga buy their products (Lululemon, n.d.). It is more expensive than other athletic clothing from the store and moreover, it is only manufactured in some sizes. Also, the mere fact that it is sold in boutiques that are not dissimilar to high-end brand sin fashion makes Lululemon outfits the number one choice for people – mostly women – who to be perceived trendy, highly-fashionable, relatively thin, and somewhat wealthy. The brand does very well most probably because many women in the country would not mind being deemed as rich, fashionable, and skinny.
In conclusion, all of the above brands implement campaigns to appeal to their target market by creating settings where their aspirational consumer might be. Through the creation of symbolic preference formation, companies can establish more persuasive and efficient advertising. Coca-Cola gets advertised virtually everywhere, Apple releases its new products at massive press events, and Lululemon heavily advertises at yoga studios and gyms in upper-class as well as middle-class neighborhoods. All in all, when creating a brand, a company must develop an extension to fit into the lifestyle of the target audience.
