A qualitative investigation of the positive and negative associations of luxury goods and luxury goods advertising: do women feel their image is damaged by not owning advertised luxury goods?
Citation
(2015) A qualitative investigation of the
positive and negative associations of
luxury goods and luxury goods
advertising: do women feel their
image is damaged by not owning
advertised luxury goods?, no. 93.
Abstract
Purpose and Rationale - The purpose of this dissertation was to find if women felt
their image was damaged by not owning luxury goods. A gap in the current literature
was identified whereby many articles were found that relate to body image, personal
debt, and materialism. However, no studies explored the reasons for women's
dissatisfaction and reasoning for purchasing luxury goods that links the
aforementioned into one study. In order to achieve this, the literature and research
explored the negative consequences of luxury good advertising and the positive
consequences of owning luxury goods to determine if this was the cause of women's
perception and behaviour. Therefore, the rationale of the study is to fill this gap in the
current literature and to determine whether women need luxury goods in order to
heighten their image.
Methodology/Approach - The literature review provided a multitude of reasons why
women buy luxury goods. These were categorised as Materialism, Sociological, and
Psychological. The reasoning and justification was provided in this chapter to aid the
Methodology.
After an analysis of the literature review, in comparison to the different research
methods, an interpretivism philosophy was chosen. The topic aimed to explore the
social phenomenon that is luxury goods advertising's effect on women. Whether that
be a positive or negative, as opposed to the amount of people who feel this way.
Therefore, a positivist paradigm was discounted as the author felt that this would not
aid in reaching the research objectives. A qualitative approach in the form of focus
groups and interviews was chosen as the method of research, as this would provide indepth
answers and give the participants an avenue for discussion due to the semistructured
nature of the questions that were posed.
Findings - The results and discussion chapter identified a loop of luxury, whereby
those that were materialistic felt more isolated and would buy products to make them
feel happier, which in turn created more isolation. Another idea that was suggested
was that luxury goods adverts portray a lifestyle that is highly desirable yet
unrealistic. Conversely, they can buy the item in the advert, which compensates for
not having the body image of the models. This chapter also discovered that the
younger the participant, the more likely they were to compare themselves to other
women, admit that they were materialistic and buy successive products to 'fit in'. The
older age categories reported that they were not concerned about what other women
thought, and advertising had little or no impact on what they bought or the way they
viewed their self- and body image.
Limitations - Future research is recommended for this topic. Firstly, a quantitative
approach should be used to allow for a larger sample to provide more generalisable
results that are representative of a larger population. Secondly, this study should be
replicated for men in order to interpret if this is a social phenomenon that has begun
to effect society as a whole as opposed to only focusing on women. Only a small
amount of literature used in the review focused on both genders and there is a large
gap regarding research on men. More specific examples of future research will be
discussed in chapter five, such as research relating to the benefits of having luxury
goods - are they real or imagined?