Tag Archives: capital

Trucks, Women and Unexpected Markets

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The pickup truck has become an essential part of Western culture.  Even though trucks are needed and valued for their usefulness in farming, ranching and blue collar occupations, decorative additions are often made to trucks and these additions don’t always follow utilitarian functions.  Indeed, many truck owners do precious little in the way of physical labor – spend a few hours driving through the pricier suburbs of Houston and it become quickly clear that the truck is as much a fashion statement as it is a tool.  Perhaps more so.  Rather, pickups help negotiate and present group membership, notions of masculinity and femininity, and associations with class structure.  However, trucks don’t always present a seamless image, nor are the images always interpreted monolithically by those who own and decorate pickup trucks. There are a range of meanings associated with trucks and subcultures within the larger cultural framework.  But what is most important to this discussion is that trucks are far more than they seem.

Truck owners spend a considerable amount of money on customizing their trucks, with 45 percent spending at least $1,000 and 17 percent spending at least $3,000. The most common components customized are wheels and tires (36 percent), audio and video (29 percent), exterior trim (29 percent) and exhaust systems (19 percent). The high value that pickup truck owners place on their trucks and the amount of money that they spend in aftermarket products makes sense when you consider the fact that 64 percent consider their truck as an extension of their personalities.

As an example, when I was doing fieldwork with women who owned trucks, only one of them owned a truck as a function of her occupation.  Some used it as a means of establishing a sense of identity that said to the world, “I’m not a girlie girl.” Some used it as a way of asserting a sense of strength on the highway.  Some used it as a way of maintaining a connection with their past rural (or semi-rural) lives.  The point is that the truck became a symbol, an extension of themselves and utility played a minor role in the underlying reasons they chose it over a car or an SUV.

So why does it matter? It matters because it speaks to the fact that the products we own and use, whether they are thought of by their manufacturers and retailers as utilitarian or extravagances, are reinterpreted and redefined by their owners and that is a huge opportunity for marketers and designers. The truck is a fashion piece. It is a mobile living room.  It is a toy.  It is many things, and those things become apparent from doing deep fieldwork, not through surveys and interviews.  And just as trucks have a range of unexpected meanings, so to do laptops, beer brands, eye glasses, etc.  Regardless of your product or service, understanding people on a deeper level gives you a significant advantage over your competitors. That means getting out there and doing the kind of rich, immersive research that uncovers real insights, not just the low-hanging fruit.

It’s Not Just Price: The Role of Cultural Capital in Marketing

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It’s not always about the money.  Yes, the economy has driven people to be more thoughtful about how they spend their money, but it has equally driven people to think about how their purchases reflect on themselves, how they interact with the world and how positive experiences during the shopping act help them preference one location over another.  This isn’t always conscious – indeed, it rarely is.  People seek cultural and social capital when shopping and returning to our old friend Bourdieu can provides an interesting framework for our design decisions.

So what did Bourdieu have to say about these two concepts?  At the risk of being labeled a reductionist, the overarching themes are these: Cultural capital makes up the forms of knowledge, skills, jobs, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society. It can also be argued that the things we possess and the places we buy those things provide a form of material cultural capital.

Social capital are the non-tangible resources we possess based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support. Bourdieu described social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”

In a nutshell, then, not all capital stems from economics and systems of direct exchange.  The car we drive, the stores we shop at, etc. provide a means by which we project and exchange social and cultural influence. In one context, Levis are a sign of middle class stability, in another they become a sign of blue collar chic for the wealthy.  So while economics, traditional economics, plays a part in the overall pattern of shopping, it is not as simple as unit price.

Cultural capital has three subtypes: embodied, objectified and institutionalized.

  • Embodied cultural capital consists of both the consciously acquired and the passively “inherited” properties of one’s self (with “inherit[ance]” here used not in the genetic sense but in the sense of receipt over time). Cultural capital is not transmissible instantaneously like a gift or bequest; rather, it is acquired over time as it impresses itself upon one’s character and way of thinking.
  • Objectified cultural capital consists of physical objects that are owned, such as our cars, works of art, or even our groceries. These cultural goods can be transmitted both for economic profit (as by buying and selling them with regard only to others’ willingness to pay) and for the purpose of “symbolically” conveying the cultural capital whose acquisition they facilitate. However, while one can possess objectified cultural capital by owning an object; one can “consume” the car, the painting and the groceries (understand its cultural meaning) only if one has the proper foundation of conceptually and/or historically prior cultural capital, whose transmission does not accompany the sale of the object.
  • Institutionalized cultural capital consists of institutional recognition, most often in the form of academic credentials or qualifications, of the cultural capital held by an individual. The institutional recognition process eases the conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by serving as a experience-based model that sellers can use to describe their capital and buyers can use to describe their needs.

It is typically the objectified cultural capital that is the focus of many retailers, and it is perhaps the easiest for them to identify. However, embodied and institutionalized cultural capital are equally important because they reach the intangible.  They reach those depths of the human experience that are the most enduring.

Resource Flow Analysis: Cool Tools

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We often find ourselves talking about symbols and emotions in fieldwork rather than digging into some of the more basic structures of life. How do basic elements of survival interact with and shape world view? How does that influence or shape buying patterns? In an age of what appears to be long-term economic distress, understanding how and why resources move in daily life can shed significant light on how we market and design. So let’s take a few minutes to wax nerdy and talk about resource flow analysis.

Traditionally, resource flow analysis has aimed to quantify the flow of resources, in terms of mass, within a defined geographical area or industry sector over a set period of time. What comes in, what goes out, how does it shape behavior and action. But the application of a resource flow analysis model can extend well beyond the industrial setting and be used to better understand daily life. It is yet another marvelous tool to add to the ethnographic tool kit.

The study of the complex issues around how resources are attained, used, repurposed and disposed of within a household or community is called resource flow. In essence, it is a process by which people or companies catalog the purchase journey. Statistically, humans are alone only a small percentage of their lives. We exist in family units, social webs, neighborhoods, work structures and other organizations. All resource input (salary, crops, material goods, other capital) will inevitably be filtered directly or indirectly by multiple individuals, including pets. This is true even for those who live alone, except in extreme cases. For ethnography in a business context, you should rarely concept resource flow in a 1:1 ratio.

Generally speaking, resources can be defined as materials or products. Raw materials are extracted from nature and consumed as they are or combined with other materials to produce finished products. The consumption of materials and products creates waste which can be disposed of or repurposed. Resource flows also identify hidden flows, which are materials extracted from nature but not consumed or incorporated into final materials and products. Therefore, to complete a resource flow analysis of a geographical area it is necessary to qualify: • Household material imports. • Household material production.

• Modes of acquisition.

• Waste disposal and repurposing.

• Hidden income flows.

• Means of attaining capital.

• “Hidden” capital.

• Implicit and explicit users.

• Power structures of use.

• Decision patterns for use and disposal.

A good way to start is to ask an individual in the group to draw representations of those things in the home, office or community that bring in money or goods. Next, have them do the same – but focus on those things that take out money or goods. There will be debate about these representations from other members of the group (in public and in private). The goal is to get people talking about how the process works and the factors influencing it. Make sure to document observations and diagram the resource flow. Try to keep any and all participants actively engaged through discussion and cooperative diagraming.