The duality of depersonalization in consumption

Abstract

Several marketing theories have highlighted the role of depersonalization in consumer behavior. Moving from “old” to “new” products, the consumer reduces the depersonalization generated by the excessive market diffusion of the product he has chosen and through which he searches for a social self-categorization. But this theoretical framework cannot justify in a convincing way those stable integrations of a community type around particular styles of consumption (for example, those that are called “neotribalisms”). On the basis of an empirical study, we argue that the depersonalization acts according to a duality neglected by marketing. On the one hand it can mean loss of the distinguishing characteristics, but on the other it can mean de-personalization in the sense of a translation of the “me” into a communal “us”. This second form of depersonalization does also exist in consumption and allows us to shed light on the apparent contradiction between the idea of several marketing theories according to which consumers can always achieve satisfaction through differentiation and the thesis of a “final dissatisfaction” of the consumer, advocated by much of contemporary theoretical sociology.

Key words: consumption, self-categorization theory, optimal distinctiveness theory, consumer dissatisfaction, neotribalism.