How I have the biggest role in what I buy

Lifestyle and personality are important topics we touched on in class recently, discussing how who you are is used and manipulated by marketers to influence your purchasing. Many brands and product lines are well aware of where their largest target market lies, and thus try to appeal to such groups by replicating their personalities and lifestyles in their own advertisements.

Shortly after discussing this topic, I started to take note of how true this really is in virtually any advertisement or marketing effort. A particular example of this being true with a product I purchased, was Carleton's Ski and Board club organizing the annual Tremblant trip 'Snow Butter'. Although the organizers and advertisers of this event aren't marketing students or business professionals at all, they were right in line with targeting their audience through their consumers' lifestyles. 

Had this been a simple advertisement for a weekend ski trip at Tremblant with Carleton, I probably would not have been interested and not have spent my money on it. However, the executives of this Carleton University club amped up the trip so much, in so many ways it really got me excited to go and sign up. The students advertising this event knew exactly what group would want to go to this trip and exactly how to get us there. They posted videos of previous years at Snow Butter, gave loose agendas of how time would be spent, talked about all the night life and parties that go on after the skiing or boarding, and generally got a large crowd excited about something many of us knew little about. 

This particular Tremblant Snow Butter trip could be classified as a consumption constellation, which is a set of products used by consumers to define, communication and perform social roles. (SWD, p.168) How this trip can be classified as a consumption constellation is it gives those who purchase their trip the opportunity to show others who they are. The particular social role given from this trip is the "laid back" individual or "partier". It not only reflects on the consumer's lifestyle choices (skiing/snowboarding, partying) but their personality traits too. 

The trip advertisers replicated the personalities and lifestyles of those they had suspected would have interest, and incorporated it into the publication of the event. They used Facebook to post about the event, which could also be a cue of them coinciding with our lifestyles.