Conspicuous consumption and the rising importance of experiential purchases

Fred Bonner and Robert de Hoog

More than 100 years ago, the term conspicuous consumption was coined. In the economist tradition, emphasis was always on the demonstration of wealth, income, and status by material purchases.

Introduction

Even more than 100 years ago, Veblen (1899) coined and popularized the term conspicuous consumption in The Theory of the Leisure Class. His idea was that people can be "signaling-by-consuming." Crouch (2013) describes how the ostentatious parties during La Belle Epoque in France were the source of inspiration for Veblen. Based on this classic idea, different forms of signaling-by-consuming were subjects of research. Included in the conspicuous consumption theory and empirical research were different household expenditure categories (Kamakura & Du, 2012), different goods or products (Heffetz, 2011), different identity-creating brands (O'Cass & McEwen, 2004; Tsai, 2005), and...

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