Counterfeit Consumption Among the Wealthy: Exploring Geographical, Social, and Materialistic Influences - Essay Sample

Geographical Factors

Our study on rich people's choice of counterfeit products was directed towards several areas and processes that involve groups of individuals who choose, buy, or use counterfeit/fake products, services, experiences, or ideas purposely to satisfy their needs and wishes. Geographical factors fundamentally affect rich people's choice of goods primarily from the aspect of the location. Generally, geographical location is an important indicator of how rich people want to experience, use, see, or have. Our findings confirm that the perception that individuals living in a specific locality (region or city) have the same wishes and needs which otherwise differ from the wishes and needs of people who live in other geographical locations is somehow true. For instance, in our interviews, we found that rich people concentrate in a given area while the poor also concentrate on a given area simply because that area defines their wishes and needs. Concerning why rich people prefer counterfeit products, our research revealed some fake products whose business can only thrive in the geographical locations characterized by rich people because the standards and regulatory agencies are not so strict in those areas; after all, the rich can easily bribe them.

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Value Consciousness

Value consciousness is essentially consumers’ concerns to pay relatively low prices and the propensity to purchase such products. This study found that rich consumers have a high likelihood of going for fake products if their luxurious attitudes that serve a value-adjustive function and that the counterfeit purchase is affected by counterfeiting only if the consumer's attitudes are left to serve the function of value-consciousness. The research further demonstrates that in the process of pursuing value consciousness as a reason why rich people choose counterfeit products, business people come up with a framework to read the consumers' attitudes. These three themes fundamentally have a positive influence on rich people's likelihood to go for counterfeit products, which eventually results in a buying intention.

Social Influence

The impact of counterfeit goods' availability on consumers' preferences for the original goods/services is solely dependent on social function. As much as the counterfeit product is believed to be satisfying the function of self-presentation, the more it impacts the original product/service in the market. This study further found that understanding rich people's social objectives and goals on luxurious products can influence how people go for counterfeit products. The methods used to create meaning for the luxurious counterfeit products through their ease of accessibility and advertised can influence people's desire to opt for counterfeit products/services rather than the original one.

Materialism

In this study, we found that materialism has a considerable impact on the rich people's indebtedness. At the same time, it is influenced by their impulsiveness, self-esteem, and attitude towards debts. Therefore, the research combines financial, psychological, and economic factors using credit cards and the demographic variables. As Kuldova (2016) puts it, materialism has significant implications on societies because it drives an attitude of personal consumption and economic growth. However, this study found that materialism creates a negative connection with rich people's well-being, personal relationships, strengths, and altruistic behavior. Sometimes, rich people just opt for counterfeit goods because they do not want to spend or because they have lost their connection with their well-being, and they only need to get going.

Implications of the Study

Counterfeiting Implications

Innovation and Investment Move Away: as demonstrated by the findings of this study, counterfeiting can be extremely hurting on foreign direct investment visions of a nation, and it is possible to develop and attract valuable innovation hubs. Foreign direct investment is a very important channel through which the emerging and advanced economies can unlock their output growth and productivity gains. This study's participants demonstrated beyond peradventure that the love for counterfeit products, especially by the rich customers, can harshly damage nations' capability to attract or retain foreign direct investment, especially in the sectors that require high innovations and investments such as pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.

Greater crime rate: according to the findings of this study, it can be pointed out that piracy and counterfeiting are both criminal activities in themselves, and to some extent, they aid larger criminality since it even funds illegal dealings. Counterfeiting becomes even worse when it is cherished by the rich in the society because they fund its production, distribution, and consumption. More funding unescapably strengthens unlawful organizations and complicates efforts to stem the worsening societal effect of their dealings. This effect may also include immeasurable security costs, loss of lives, along with emotional or physical consequences.

Loss of genuine economic activity: according to the findings of this study, it is clear that rich people who knowingly buy fake/counterfeit goods/services are not likely to have bought original equivalents and normally take this direction because the fake version of products is cheaper than the original equivalents. For this reason, legitimate corporations face competitors who otherwise have stolen their intellectual properties without complying with the quality standards and regulations or even paying taxes. As a result, such illegal and unfair competitions displace genuine business activities.

This study suffers a limitation of the poor definition of samples since we did not care about establishing the real meaning of "rich" and that we did not look at either side of the coin. Fundamentally, something with negative impacts must also be associated with some positive impacts, no matter how small they might be. Therefore, this study did not look into the positive impacts of counterfeit products in the market; neither did it consider their importance. Essentially, the power of research such as this lies in its ability to identify an effect in a case where there is one to be identified; however, this is highly dependent on the sample size because bigger effects may be easy to notice than small ones. Since we used a small sample size, this study could not avoid Type II errors, hence reducing the power of the study.

In the search for a good answer to our research question, it was necessary to use a wider sample size from diverse demographics. Be it as it may, this study can be of great help to marketers because it can considerably help provide sufficient information about their marketing efforts and how to manage unfair competition brought about by the production, distribution, and consumption of counterfeit goods/services. Since this study gathered information and feedback from rich customers, marketers can use this study to measure and evaluate customer-awareness and their reactions to marketing activities and campaigns.

Discussion

According to the findings of this research, it is clear that he wishes and needs that rich people would choose to satisfy first is the needs of belonging followed rather than the needs of quality. Fundamentally, the most dependable source of information regarding counterfeit goods is personal sources; however, economic propaganda becomes an essential information source when it comes to marketing resources. While weighing between rich people and poor people's goods choices, the rich would always want to maintain their social status no matter what it takes. Rich people view expensive products/services as the conduits of social status in the society (the function of self-presentation) and have a high likelihood of purchasing counterfeit goods/services compared to the consumers who otherwise view them as personality reflection (a function of self-expression) (Hennigs et al., 2012). This study demonstrates that the undesirable moral standards and beliefs about counterfeiting per se reduce the probability of buying counterfeit products/services, especially if they are meant to serve the function of self-expression rather than the function of self-presentation. Rich people purchase counterfeit products because there are readily available, attractive, and somehow cheaper than the original products.

It has been demonstrated by this study that decreasing the consumption of counterfeit goods means that the marketers of luxurious products must determine the equilibrium between the reduction of the product’s function of self-presentation and putting more emphasis on the function of self-expression in its design and advertisements without necessarily reducing the demand for the original products/services (Leng, & Zhang, 2013). Advertisers can adapt their communications following whether the rich consumers target buying luxurious products for self-expression or self-presentation.

Finally, this study confirms the credibility of a study conducted by Smith et al. (2013), which found that rich consumers with the motive of self-presentation may not be many inclines into purchasing luxurious counterfeit products soon after they get a glance at the advertisements showing the negative effects of counterfeit goods/services consumption on the consumer's social standings such as the loss of friends' valuable opinions or simply a rejection from very important reference groups of the society. As a result, rich consumers with self-expression motives may not be so much willing to go for the counterfeit products/services after seeing advertisements containing ethical issues associated with counterfeit products, including; human trafficking, links to narcotics, and worst of all, links to terrorism (Visconti, 2010). Moreover, this study found that media has a fundamental role to play in this matter. Essentially, media houses that diffuse such campaigns ought to be chosen based on their predominant appeal to value-expressive or social-adjustive audiences.

References

Botsman, R. (2017). Who can you trust? How technology brought us together–and why it could drive us apart. Penguin UK. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Can-You-Trust-Technology/dp/1541773675

Chaucer, G. (2016). Brands, Buying Process, and Product Development. Consumer Economics: Issues and Behaviors, 199. Retrieved from: http://www.hs.iastate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HDFS239.pdf

Hennigs, N., Wiedmann, K. P., Klarmann, C., & Taro, K. (2012). What is the value of luxury? A crosscultural consumer perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 29(12), 1018-1034. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/download/43047655/What_is_the_Value_of_Luxury_A_Cross-Cult20160225-18625-6oty0h.pdf

Leng, J., & Zhang, T. (2013). The influencing factors of customer trust in great discount online shops: Based on the Chinese Market. Retrieved from: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:641233/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Smith, Maguire, J., & Hu, D. (2013). Not a simple coffee shop: Local, global, and glocal dimensions of the consumption of Starbucks in China. Social Identities, 19(5), 670-684. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2013.835509

Kuldova, T. (2016). Fatalist luxuries: Of inequality, wasting, and the antiwork ethic in India. Cultural Politics, 12(1), 110-129. https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/53639/4/Cultural-Politics-Tereza-Kuldova-150904.pdf

Visconti, L. M. (2010). Authentic brand narratives: co-constructed Mediterraneaness for l’Occitane brand. Research in Consumer Behavior, 12(1), 231-260.