Winter 1997

Master's Paper

3 March 1997

Mineo Hattori

Master of Art Program

in the Humanities - Japan

INTRODUCTION

Two contradicting approaches are prominent in the analysis of consumerism today. One is a subjective approach; this approach treats consumers and industry separately, and studies the decision-making processes of either consumers or companies in a given environment. For example, marketers plan to introduce products which, they hope, cater to consumers' tastes, not knowing what consumers really want, or consumers buy products based on their rational decisions, without regard to where the information underpinning their decisions comes from. In general, this school of thought portrays consumers as free agents in a marketplace, and welcomes consumer activism; there are many articles and stories about consumers finally being freed from industrial control and about the advent of consumer-led society⁽¹⁾. The Hakuhodo report⁽²⁾ illustrates the consumption patterns of the Japanese youth; they carefully examine the quality and price of products when they decide to buy. They calculate the cost and effect when they encounter what they like, and get them. The report asserts that the consumers regard consumption not as a mode of cultural activity, but rather as a rationalized process of fulfilling their desires⁽³⁾. The report, then, concludes that the image of the young consumers is a consumption specialist⁽⁴⁾.

According to the same report⁽⁵⁾, 'identity' seems to be a key word for today's youth consumers in Japan. More than half of young consumers who had answered believe that the products they buy represent in some way their identities. They answered that their identities are expressed in a variety of products such as shoes, compact discs, clothes, cosmetics, underwear, movies, etc.⁽⁶⁾ Even seemingly trivial things are supposed to express their lifestyles; 36 percent of young males answer that their choices of telephone equipment represent in some way their identities, and 63 percent of young females think of their choices of hair salon as one of the representations of their identities⁽⁷⁾. This trend, however, is not peculiar to Japanese young consumers⁽⁸⁾. British sociologist Robert Bocock points out the relation between consumers' identities and products:

The construction of a sense of identity can be seen as a process which may make use of items of consumption such as clothing, footwear, popular music or sporting activities, including being a supporter of particular music groups, singers or soccer clubs. Such consumption patterns could be used as a central means of defining who was a member and who was outside a specific group. [Bocock, 28]

The other approach emphasizes the interaction between consumers and industry, based on the premise that consumers' identities are formulated through the interaction. There are two types of style to express self-identity through commodities. One is argued in Dick Hebdige's concept of subculture. He characterizes subcultures as styles of resistance against the dominant culture. The expressive form of identity subcultural groups employ is, in a word, differentiation; the denial of the myth of consensus concerning the meanings of the dominant culture. Along with the denial and appropriation of meanings, one of the strategies taken by deviant groups is to endow commodities with "secret" meanings; for example, punks use safety pins as an accessory. By doing so, they can deny the consensus regarding the use of safety pins, and their identities as a punk can be expressed. The other case is that consumers are given their identities by industry, and internalize or integrate the 'given' identities. Unlike the resistant style of a punk subculture, what consumers do is to borrow commodities' identities in the expression of their self-identities. No matter how vocally consumers express their identities through commodities, these commodities are provided by the manufacturers through the mass market, and the identities the consumers try to let commodities represent instead of themselves is identical not with the self-identities of the consumers, but with the 'given' identities that other social groups intentionally project into the commodities. In the case of punk subculture as well, their identities are eventually accommodated into the capitalist system. The punk revival of the 1990s was welcomed by the media and audience throughout the world; in the 1990s, the resistant styles of punk have already lost the original meanings perhaps because the punk culture was recognized as an established genre by the dominant culture. In this respect, consumers cannot escape from the systematic constraint of capitalism insofar as they depend upon commodities in the expression of their self-identities. This is a sharp contrast with the subjectivist observation because this approach undermines the commonly held belief that consumers are free agents in the market.

My purpose in this paper is to explore the socio-economic aspects of consumerism today. I would like to focus particularly on the relationship between consumers' creation of self-identity and the symbolic significance of commodities. A brand is a powerful tool for industry to associate commodities with consumers because it symbolizes various elements of commodities so that consumers have relative liberty in finding the association between their identities and commodities. In this sense, I will examine the functional aspect of commodities as a communicative tool. At the same time, I would like to shed light on the power relation in consumerism as a system. Although consumers are allowed to have the relative freedom of choices, industry tries to manage the communication with consumers by allocating appropriate resources to appropriate places. We can see Coke brands where young people gather, but we rarely see these symbols, for example, on TV programs for the elderly people. In the capitalist society, the power relation between industry and consumers is very complicated; their relations are ostensibly flexible and friendly. Sometimes consumers are allowed to interpret industry's messages to their own uses. Sometimes industry encourages consumers to actively participate in the interaction. It is industry, however, that dominates the communicative processes, and even though it may be possible for consumers to formulate their own identities through commodities, their freedom is eventually accommodated into the capitalist system.

In this paper, I mainly examine Japanese and American societies, although consumerism is a global trend. As for the American consumerism, I would like to turn to the literature by leading American marketers. Their observations do not necessarily reflect the social reality because they are all strategists, rather than practitioners. But my purpose is to illustrate how industry tries to forge a 'perfect communication' with consumers by forming marketing strategies. As for the Japanese society, I would like to present more concrete cases. I will try to avoid over-generalization, but I would like to present some of the general socio-economic traits of Japanese consumers because, like any nation, Japan has a unique social class system. The disparity of income is remarkably small compared with other countries, and approximately 80 percent of the Japanese people identify themselves as middle-class. Despite sexual discrimination, the opportunities for education and jobs are relatively open to every individual. Because of the organized education system, even the poorest can enter the best college, which promises a certain level of position in the corporate ladder. In comparison with European countries, the Japanese class system may be hard to detect, but this does not mean the categorical distinction among the Japanese people does not exist. Instead, the most significant distinctions are peer groups, generations, educational backgrounds, academic cliques, and sexes, and these are workable categorizations to group consumer behaviors⁽⁹⁾.

The second point I have to qualify before entering the discussion is that we have to make a distinction between types of commodities⁽¹⁰⁾. When consumers choose products, they do not necessarily refer to their self-identities. Suppose different persons buy the same product, some may think of the price as a determinant factor, and some others may demand functional benefits of the product. Consumers are likely to choose such commodities as food, detergents, toothpaste, cleaners, etc. based on functions and prices⁽¹¹⁾. In many cases, they do not see these commodities as a representation of their identities. My main interests are those commodities which are produced to differentiate themselves from other competing products in order to appeal the differentiation to the self-image of consumers. In this sense, industry adds extra values to the exchange values by way of 'differentiation'.

A SUBJECTIVIST PERSPECTIVE: FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND IDENTITY

As the examples of Hakuhodo's report and punk subcultures respectively show, identity is one of the determinant factors of consumers' attitudes. Safety pins represent punks' resistant attitude against the dominant culture. In the introduction, I indicated that the identity of punks and that of consumers are different. I will return to the punk subculture case later, and here, I would like to start with the following question; how can consumers come to perceive commodities as a form of the representation of their identities? Since consumers do not invent commodities, they have to find a plausible justification to connect their identities and commodities. I think the answer lies in the statements which Hakuhodo's report illustrates as the characteristic mentality of young consumers⁽¹²⁾; "I do not care about what other people choose (my emphasis)," "I think of design as a important consideration when I choose things," and "My choices of commodities express a part of my personality." These statements underline the widespread belief that the freedom of choice by consumers leads to the expression of their identities, as I showed in the introduction. Young consumers may respond, "Since it is my own choice that makes me wear this particular pair of shoes, this particular pair represents the identity of this particular individual who makes this particular decision." They seem to think that the representative form of their self-identities derives from the individual level; individual consumers make a decision by themselves to buy things in order to express their own identities.

Japanese literature critic Masakazu Yamazaki justifies the correlation between the satisfaction of individual consumers and the free choices of commodities. He uniquely divides 'consumption' into two processes, maintaining that individual consumers can attain two types of satisfaction through this activity. The first type is the consumption which directly satisfies the immediate needs of consumers. He, then, claims the second type of satisfaction; consumers can attain satisfaction from the 'prolongation of consumption' (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 144-146). Using analogy of detective stories and manners at a dinner table⁽¹³⁾, he concludes that people have an inclination to prolong the fulfillment of their desires, and that this prolongation, or "the consumption of time" [Yamazaki 1984, 149], is also the pleasure of consumption. In other words, consumers can derive their satisfaction not only from material acquisition but also from the process of consumption as an activity, which includes a free choice by consumers. He also maintains that a ritualistic consumption gives consumers what he calls 'aesthetic' kind of satisfaction (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 187-190). This view is, however, highly problematic from the standpoint of symbolic meanings⁽¹⁴⁾. One simple counterargument is that it is hard to believe that consumers are motivated by such aesthetic values, especially in a society where traditional values including aesthetics are vanishing⁽¹⁵⁾. When someone purchases at exorbitant prices the works of art by Van Gogh or Picasso based on his own aesthetic values, as some Japanese billionaires actually did in the 1980s, if his hidden purpose is to receive a tax relief, then he is by no means motivated by the aesthetic values.

Yamazaki also advocates the view that consumers can take the initiative in the relation with industry. With the development of post-industrial society, people are unfettered from the constraints of traditions and relatively large social units such as a nation, a company, and a family. As a result, he maintains, people are required to act as individual agents, the needs of individuals are diversified, and industry comes to have no choice but to diversify product lines to meet the diversified needs. He, then, claims that the diversification of products is the best evidence for the manufacturers' effort to cater to the diversified needs of consumers (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 152-154), and implies that consumers can express their identities by making a choice from a wide range of product lines. Throughout the argument, his focus is on 'free individual consumers', and behind his optimistic views lies his unconditional praise for super-individuals, independent of any traditional value and social influence, and the arrival of consumer-led society (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 162-163)⁽¹⁶⁾.

Yamazaki may be right in the sense that 'consumption' as an activity is by nature ambivalent (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 183-186). Needs, satisfactions and desires are difficult concepts to pin down. Yet, his arguments are full of contradictions, and the crucial mistake is his repeated emphasis on individuals. He thinks that individual needs, generated by the diversified identities of consumers, are directly incorporated into the industrial system; in this sense the direction of fit is from consumers to industry. In reality, however, even though consumers have the relative freedom of choices, the whole range of products is provided by industry. Consumers' individual identities are not their own, and industry provides such a wide range of products that consumers may feel as if their individual tastes would be reflected on the commodities. Jean Baudrillard criticizes industry's generous attitudes toward consumers by giving them the freedom of choices as a trick of capitalism:

Our freedom to choose causes us to participate in a cultural system willy-nilly. It follows that the choice in question is a specious one: to experience it as freedom is simply to be less sensible of the fact that it is imposed upon us as such, and that through it society as a whole is likewise imposed upon us. Choosing one car over another may perhaps personalize your choice, but the most important thing about the fact of choosing is that it assigns you a place in the overall economic order. [Baudrillard 1996, 141]

In Baudrillard's account, the capitalist system allows consumers a certain degree of freedom, and this generous attitude toward a free individual consumer makes the capitalist system more attractive and effective. When an executive decides to buy a car, he has multiple choices ranging from Plexus, Mercedes, Cedilla to Volvo and Lincoln. These brands, however, pre-determine the potential consumers, and based on the brand strategy, companies try to differentiate products so that the executive can find the best car in light of his self-identity. He may feel as if the car would represent his status as a successful executive, but he would not think that his status could be expressed only by the differentiation of products.

In the real business world, industry treats consumers as groups, such as status groups, age groups, value groups, sex groups, etc., based on industry's categorizations, namely the intended markets. Products are produced and marketed collectively, no matter how seriously industry tries to diversify product lines. What I would like to argue here is that consumers are incorporated into the capitalist system, not by the compulsive exercise of power by industry, but as a result of the interaction with industry. In other words, consumers can make their decisions through the interaction with industry by way of commodities, and in this interaction, categorization works as a determinant factor. In many sense, categorization imposes some restricting power on the intended consumers because it defines the intended markets and consumers. The identity of product, such as an executive car, is also constructed to penetrate the intended markets. On the other hand, consumers tend to refer to the 'given' categorization when they choose commodities. An executive may choose a car from the 'executive car' market. This is the effort by consumers to try to locate themselves in the intended market. In this respect, the action 'buying something' is the movement by consumers to refer themselves to the intended market, and therefore, this is the opposite direction of consumers' intentions to express themselves through commodities. But this does not derive from industry's exercise of the power to restrict consumers' behaviors, either.

OTHER-DIRECTEDNESS AND THE REFERENTIALITY OF SELF

Under the capitalist system, industry exercises the dominant power over consumers as long as consumers express their self-identities through commodities. At the same time, consumers have the relative freedom of choices in their consumption activities, which give them an opportunity to refer themselves to the categorized identities, e.g. a successful executive, an urban middle class mother, a sports loving high school student, a daughter of an affluent family. Such identities are important for both consumers and industry because through the categorizations, the communication between consumers and industry in the market becomes possible. But this communication is not necessarily mutual; the categorization is drawn by industry, not consumers, simply because industry monopolizes the symbolic power (Bourdieu 1987, pp. 137-139)⁽¹⁷⁾, the power to make the categorization. I will come back to the issue of the structural domination of industry over consumers later, and here I would like to address the following question: why do consumers accept such categorization? Given the relative freedom in choosing commodities, consumers are free not to react to the given categories. They may be able to create a new symbolic meaning in order to express their own identities, like a punk subcultural group. Why do they refer to the given categories in order to express their own identities?

David Riesman denies the myth that individuals create their own identities, and indicates that consumers rely on the external criteria such as the mass media and other people when they organize their own identities. According to him, the fundamental motive of consumption is anxiety; consumption is not a pleasant experience for consumers, but rather a cathartic experience to ease their psychological anxiety to 'keep up with the Joneses'. Riesman describes a characteristic of other-directed people:

[The] society of incipient population decline develops in its typical members a social character whose conformity is insured by their tendency to be sensitized to the expectations and preferences of others. These I shall term other-directed people and the society in which they live one dependent on other-direction. [Riesman 1961, 8]

He divides society into three developmental stages, the society of high growth potential, of transitional population growth, and of incipient population decline, trying to relate social stages to a social character⁽¹⁸⁾. In the last stage of society, traditions, customs and parental guidance lose the power to impose normative restrictions upon individuals⁽¹⁹⁾. Instead, individuals seek out their normative criteria from other people. When the other-directed people act, they tend to follow other people; the criteria of their judgment stem from not themselves, because they do not have normative criteria of their own, but from other external sources by way of friends and the mass media.

Even though they rely on other people for their normative criteria, this does not necessarily mean that they have no individual motive to act. What constitutes their attitudes, according to Riesman, are anxiety. Because of the lack of conventional normative criteria, parents do not know what they should teach to children. They cannot give their kids an obvious goal in life, so they rely on other people and the media for advice in raising their children (Riesman 1961, p. 46). As a result, children also rely on other people for normative judgments.

[P]arents in the groups depending on other-direction install in their children something like a psychological radar set . . . . . the parents influence the children's character only insofar as (a) their own signals mingle with others over the radar, (b) they can locate children in a certain social environment in order to alter to a very limited degree what signals they will receive, (c) they take the risks of a very partial and precarious censorship of incoming messages. Thus the parental role diminishes in importance. . . . . [Riesman 1961, 55]

In a other-directed society, instead of parents, peer groups provide normative criteria. But these criteria are not absolute. Riesman compares the role of peer groups to jury trial (Riesman 1961, pp. 71-82). Even though the judgments of others by peer groups are matters of 'taste', members cannot simply ignore these judgments because all the morality is the groups' (Riesman 1961, p. 73), not individual members'. In this respect, the norm of judgment resides in the consensus of group members. What individual members want most is the approval from other peer members because they fear breaching the consensus. According to Riesman, however, this approval is usually achieved as a result of the antagonistic cooperation of the peer group members (Riesman 1961, p. 73). Basically, the relationship among peer members, Riesman claims, is competitive⁽²⁰⁾; they tend to compete with each other in order to be approved by other members, like the one in a popularity contest. But the competition is not obvious enough to break the myth of consensus among group members. In Riesman's account, what each member does, therefore, is differentiate himself from other members in such a manner that they do not impair the consensus. And this type of marginal differentiation is considered as a representation of their individualities.

SOCIAL SPACE; SELF-REFERENTIALITY AND SELF-IDENTITY

According to Riesman, consumption is not an activity to satisfy the needs of consumers but to ease the anxiety, and for this reason marginal differences are important. However, his approach has its limitations: since he concentrates solely on the psychological aspect of individuals and social groups around them, he does not seem to address how the identities of peer groups as well as individuals are incorporated into the capitalist system. Consumer society is, rather, a social reality which is constituted as a result of power relationships among various social agents such as industry, the media, and people involved (Yoshimi, p. 207). Now, I would like to consider the connection between industry and consumers. Pierre Bourdieu's concepts, 'social space' and 'habitus', give us some keys to understanding the relation between the two major agents in modern consumerism.

Bourdieu explains how people obtain both subjective and objective criteria of their identities by referring to their positions in the social world. He claims that in the social world the closer social groups come, the more similar properties they tend to share in comparison with other distant groups⁽²¹⁾. For example, the two persons of the same class are likely to show similar mental structures which are often represented by their political views, lifestyle, habits, etc. Their perceptions of the world are an objective side of the definition of 'habitus'(Bourdieu 1987, p. 126). Social space is an objective criterion to measure one's position in the social world. To illustrate this case, someone in a higher position in social space may be strategically denied the spatial distance when she is said "You are unaffected, for a duchess," or "You are not so highbrow, for a university professor," etc. Or, someone in the lower status may be said "You look like a millionaire with such a luxurious car." These statements imply that both speakers and listeners recognize the social distance. We tend to associate other people including ourselves with a certain social characteristic common to their status group, and this kind of collective characterization works as an objective criterion in judging people. Habitus, thus, is a collective objectification when we perceive 'people'.

According to Bourdieu, the perception of social reality is comprised of both individual and social levels; the perception as the representation of individual mental states, and cognitive structures which are socially constructed. On the individual level, habitus has both subjective and objective sides to it; it is the schemata, or common-sense knowledge, of 'practicing', a taken-for-granted guideline for individuals when they act, and the schemata of 'perceiving', individuals' reference of their own image to their positions in the social world. Here we see the connection between subjectivity and objectivity on the one hand, and individuals and society, on the other hand. Habitus is the result of the internalization of the structures of the social world, and based on this criterion, people acquire both the perception of their positions and the schemata of practice in the social world.

Let me introduce another typical example to illustrate the previous claim. We sometimes say of a piece of clothing, shoes, or a book "that's intellectual," or "that's professional." Such a judgment presupposes two conditions. First, habitus represents an objective criterion. A consumer buys an 'intellectual book', not a comic nor a dime novel possibly because she considers herself up to an objective criterion as an intellectual. She classifies herself, or exposes herself to classification, by choosing, in conformity with her taste, different attributes (clothes, types of food, drinks, sports, friends) that suit her position (Bourdieu 1987, 131). She refers to the social classification in finding her own place (an intellectual), and this objective reflection gives her the schemata of welcomed practice for her place (to buy an intellectual book). Second, the statement "that's intellectual" presupposes that both speakers and listeners have a tacit agreement on what intellectuals should be like in terms of social personality, social action, and social role. Both of them are capable of perceiving the relation between practices or representations and positions in social space just as when they guess a person's social position from her accent (Bourdieu 1987, p. 131). In this sense, habitus is common-sense knowledge, and it provides us with the perceptions of the social world.

Habitus, thus, represents not only the schemata of perception and of practice on the individual level, but also normative criteria on the collective level⁽²²⁾. It provides people with common sense knowledge, an ideological constraint which regulates the mentality and practices of them. Now, the question is; where does habitus come from? What makes people comply with the common sense? Bourdieu suggests a hierarchical model in which common sense is created, reproduced, and maintained by the dominant social institutions (Bourdieu 1987, p. 127). Bourdieu defines symbolic power as a power of 'world making', and claims that the power to make common-sense knowledge is under monopoly by social institutions as a result of symbolic struggles (Bourdieu 1987, p. 133). In other words, habitus is the result of the power struggle for common sense knowledge. He, then, maintains that the possession of symbolic capital such as economic, cultural, and social capitals is a crucial factor in possessing symbolic power. Since symbolic capital is in general monopolized by social institutions, individuals cannot formulate habitus on their own.

IDENTITY-CREATION AND MARKETING STRATEGIES

Bourdieu explains the relationship between individuals and symbolic representations, and between individual identity and collective criteria. With his approach, we can shift our attention from merely subjectivist perspectives to more comprehensive analyses of social reality. Once again, since social reality is constituted as a result of power relations among various social agents, a subjectivist approach has its limitations in picturing the dynamics of consumer society. In order to show this point more clearly, let me go back to Riesman's concept of other-directed people. He concludes that the basic motivation of consumption is anxiety. In "Career and Consumer Behavior", Riesman implies that material standards replace conventional norms, and he calls these materials the 'standard package' (Riesman and Roseborough 1955, pp. 119-120).

In Riesman's account, once young workers reach a certain income level, they accumulate the full package of commodities they have learned to consider basic, such as electric shaver, car, washing machine and dryer, etc. In Japan, during the 1960s when its economy recorded rapid economic growth⁽²³⁾, 'modern urban life' was characterized by three electric appliances; an electric washing machine, a television set, and a refrigerator. Many young workers were recruited from the countryside, and they, in general, dreamed of modern life; they bought these commodities in order to integrate what these commodities symbolically represented into their own lifestyle. It is hard to determine, however, that they bought these things just to keep up with the Joneses because most of them were new comers and did not have opportunity to know what urban life was like when they were in their home countries. These workers were recruited from all across the nation at a large scale, so their standard of living started from almost the same level. They might not have to worry about the judgments of their peers very much because their levels of life were quite similar. Besides, their ties were weaker than those of 'purely' peer groups. The groups of young workers did not have the absolute power to impose the standard package on every new-comer⁽²⁴⁾. It is safe to say, therefore, that the standard package was given by industry or the media, and it was not the creation by peer group members⁽²⁵⁾. Considering the widespread appearance of the standard package in individual young workers' homes, an educated guess tells us there must have been a larger power involved in this uniform phenomenon by young workers at that time.

Young workers seemed to believe that the standard package was the representation of their identity as an urban resident. At the same time, in order to identify themselves as a qualified urban dweller, they had to place themselves into the categorized definition of what a modern urban dweller should be like. Their identities were expressed through the commodities which were, in this case, characterized as the standard package. And the standard package was a perfect categorization for both the young workers and industry because it was accepted by the workers who, it was felt, should share the identity of these commodities, and industry succeeded in making them believe in the identity, namely an urban dweller, which the standard package symbolically represented. In general, when industry attempts to communicate with consumers through commodities, its communication works so perfectly that consumers do not notice that they are assorted by the classification of industry. And since the categorization is well tuned into the ideology of consumers, no one doubts their idiosyncrasies including propensity and personality are treated as a group. Here, I would like to examine some typical strategies taken by industry to forge 'perfect' communication with consumers.

The term 'marketing' has many definitions. Recently, many marketers began to emphasize interactions between customers and other parties such as companies, non-profit organizations, political institutions, and educational institutions⁽²⁶⁾, through 'market'. Philip Kotler defines⁽²⁷⁾ 'marketing' as "a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others [Kotler 1994, P. 6]." He seems to think of commodities as objects which facilitate the communication between individuals and groups, and other parties including industry. Commodities are not the only tool to facilitate communication. Many companies use images and services as a vehicle to communicate with customers. Advertisement is no doubt the most powerful mode of communication, and companies continue to communicate with consumers by offering after-sale services. In this paper, I would like to use the term 'brand' to refer to commodities, images, and services because it is often the case that 'brand' comes to represent properties of commodity, images, services, intended markets, and even the properties of manufacturers. A brand is a comprehensive symbol that consumers draw a relatively vivid association with the characteristics above.

David A. Aaker defines the role of brand in the relationship with consumers:

A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods or services from those of competitors. A brand thus signals to the customer the source of the product, and protects both the customer and the producer from competitors who attempt to provide products that appear to be identical. [Aaker 1991, 7]

He claims that the identification of the goods and services and the differentiation from the other products are key functions of brands. Based on the perceptions like this, marketers develop brand strategies. A brand represents various factors such as attributes, benefits, values, culture, personality, user, etc. (Aaker 1991, p. 7, Upshaw, pp. 11-17). The most important thing, however, is that a brand is one type of categorization; it is composed of common elements in terms of properties, images, services, and markets. And through this categorized symbols, consumers perceive products and services, and industry plans the strategies to reach the intended customers.

Why do marketers have to build the identity of the brand? The answer is to make the communication with consumers easier (Aaker 1995, p. 68, Upshaw, pp. 11-12). The brand, as a symbol, is expected to represent the identity of a product, of an organization, and, according to Aaker and Upshaw, of a personality. Brand identity expresses attributes, quality, value, the attributes of the producer, and consumers have a certain image of company, e.g. Coca Cola is an energetic company, and Sony is a technology-driven company. It also symbolizes the characteristics of products like genuine, energetic, rugged, etc., visual imagery, brand heritage, and so on; Diet Coke is energetic, yet sophisticated, and Walkman is a good quality (Aaker 1995, pp. 68-106). Together with functional aspects of products, non-functional aspects like personality and visual imagery are also important because they affect the reception of consumers. Aaker proposes that brand should have a personality⁽²⁸⁾, and Upshaw discusses the humanization of brand identity⁽²⁹⁾. By doing so, they think, consumers will have an emotional association with the brand, which, they claim, generates more profits for companies. In both cases, they argue that successful companies re-categorize the identity of the brand in order to personalize it, and based on the new identity, companies redefine the target audience and market more concretely.

By strictly defining the identity of the brand, it becomes easier for companies to reach the intended customers. With the development of segmented media and physical distribution systems, commodities can be rationally distributed to the intended markets⁽³⁰⁾. And the brand identity is developed in a way that is geared to the idiosyncrasy of the intended consumers, the consumers can internalize the symbolic identity into their identities without much hesitation. As we have seen, the main concern of marketers is how to establish and maintain a good relation with consumers⁽³¹⁾, and by building the identity of the brand they try to win the heart of consumers⁽³²⁾. The brand is a categorization of both commodities and markets, and based on the categorization, industry tries to stay closer to consumers.

Most products explicitly or implicitly restrict potential consumers: this toy is for a child up to three years old; these earrings are for sophisticated women; this shirt is for a would-be executive. The same is true to brands. Both in the United States and Japan, the Gap is a brand for casual and chic youngsters, Honda Acura Integra is for Generation Xers, or McDonald's is a fun place for happy family, etc. (Aaker 1995, Upshaw). Industry, in general, has an advantage; it virtually monopolizes the symbolic power and economic resources by which it stamps these categorizations on consumers. For industry, there are many ways to reach the intended customers. With the development and segmentation of the media, industry now establishes relatively direct channels to contact potential customers through TV programs. For example, in Japan Nike sponsors several sport-related programs for teenagers⁽³³⁾ where Nike brand and NBA logos are dramatically 'visualized', so viewers may feel as if they themselves had to wear Nike when they do sports. Through these programs Nike can construct the identity of Nike brand, and viewers tend to associate the brand with their own activities⁽³⁴⁾. It may be hard, however, for some categories of person such as executives, seniors, and housewives, to have an access to Nike products because these people are excluded from the places they gather, according to the company's marketing strategies⁽³⁵⁾. The distributions of the products are so intentionally designed that potential customers find these products at the places they frequent while the markets of other people tend to be intentionally ignored in terms of communication and distribution of both products and images. It is, therefore, the categorization of customers that drives industry to reach the target market.

It is hard, however, to think that industries impose brands of their own making upon consumers with the absolute exercise of symbolic power. There is an interaction between industry and consumers through brands, and the more active consumers become in the interaction process, the more they are incorporated into the system of society. Now, what kind of relationships do industry and consumers forge through interactions? Here, I would like to suggest three types of symbolic interaction. First, the identity of consumers allegedly agrees with that of commodities. Consumers identify their own values and lifestyles with the identity that commodities allegedly symbolize, by internalizing the symbolic meanings of commodities into their own values and lifestyles. This movement involves consumers' active interpretation of the symbols. In the second case, commodities help develop consumers' identity. In this type of interaction, consumers are "given" their values and lifestyles by commodities. They are usually a passive receiver of messages generated through the symbolic interaction. In the third case, consumers help develop the identity of commodities through the interaction between consumers and industry. The last type of the relationship may sound mutually reciprocal; this type involves the active participation of both consumers and industry in the meaning-creation process. But we should note that this relation is based on the exchange of symbols, and no matter what form the relation takes, the operation of the relation takes place only within the system of capitalism. For modern consumers, as far as they rely on commodities for the expression of their identity, it is hard to free themselves from the intervention of industry.

INTERACTION MODEL (1): AN IDENTICAL RELATION

Let me examine the first case in which the identity of consumers and that of commodities seemingly coincide. A good example is 'Harley-Davidson lovers'. I see Harley lovers in both Japan and the United States who devote both their values and lifestyles into this particular genre of image and product. According to Aaker, Harley owners see the Harley brand as an important part of their lifestyles and self-identities. Its style is universal: an 'Easy Rider' type. Many of them tattoo Harley logos on their shoulders or chest. Both in Japan and the United States, they create a Harley community; according to one estimate, in the United States alone, over 250,000 of them belong to the Harley Owners Group. When Harley lovers gather, a newcomer may be easily welcomed if he demonstrates his devotion to 'Harley' (Aaker 1995, pp. 138-142).

In Aaker's account, Harley lovers share three core values (Aaker 1995, pp. 138-142). The main value is personal freedom. Based on the result of anonymous research (Aaker 1995, p. 138), he concludes that the Harley-Davidson eagle logo is a symbol of freedom, including freedom from mainstream values and social structures. A second value is patriotism. Harley is the archetypal made-in-the-USA product; at Harley rallies the American flag and pro-USA messages abound. A third value is 'being macho, inspired in part by the outlaw bikers in The Wild Ones, the Marlon Brando picture of the 1950s'. There is an abundance of black leather, heavy boots, weaponry, and other signals of manliness at Harley rallies. The imagery may also involve heavy beards, long hair, cowboy boots, and tattoo. Aaker believes that since a brand has a personality, it can be internalized as a part of self-identity: "the ultimate personality expression occurs when a brand becomes an extension or an integral part of the self . . . the bike and the person become impossible to disentangle [Aaker 1995, p. 156]." He also stresses the effectiveness of the symbolic meaning of powerfully 'personalized' brand in the relation with the ideology of consumers; "brands that become a part of one's extended self (1) are central to one's identity, (2) have a deep emotional attachment to the self, and (3) are somewhat 'controlled' by the individual [Aaker 1995, p. 157]." Of course, commodities do not have a real personality, but if we think that such 'symbolic' personality is strategically constructed in correspondence with the categorization of commodities and markets, then it seems to make sense that products embrace some kind of identity in order for a 'personalized' and 'friendly' relationship to take place between brands and customers. Putting the argument of the brand identity first or the individual identity first aside, this case illustrates that consumers can forge a deeply emotional relation with commodities if they internalize the symbolic message of the brand.

In this type of interaction, consumers' choices of commodities are supposed to reflect the recognition of their places in social space, in Bourdieu's term, and of the symbolic identity of the brand. These Harley lovers regard Harley as the representation of their identities and values such as wild, free, and patriotic. Harley Davidson will retain the brand identity as long as the company does not change the marketing strategy. By referring to the identity of the Harley brand, Harley lovers construct their lifestyles. They may join the Harley community, go riding to the wilderness, try to act wild, or show their patriotism. They interpret the symbolic meanings that the Harley brand represents, internalize them as their own values, or compare the symbolic identity with their own values, and take actions accordingly. For them, the Harley brand is both the representation of their identities and the schemata of action.

INTERACTION MODEL (2): COMMODITY-DRIVEN IDENTITY

The second case is best exemplified by Japanese psychoanalyst Ken Oh-hira (Yoshimi, pp. 205-206). Some of his patients had difficulty in talking about themselves and their personal relationships with others. But when it came to their belongings, leisure, and food, they suddenly began to talk eloquently. They could talk about not only their own shoes and bags but also other persons' shoes and bags by way of the criteria they used to describe their own identities. In other words, they would use brands as measurements to characterize everything including their lifestyles and personal relationships, and only through brands could they identify other people as well as their own identities. Shunya Yoshimi characterizes the persons of this type:

[These people] like to build a smooth relationship between themselves and other people, or between their goal of life and their identity, by replacing human relationships with material-oriented relationships. More than that, they are likely to see objectively their own body as if it were a part of material-being, and to strive to maintain the condition of the part as perfectly as possible. To put it simply, the world in which they are living is the one whose ideology is that human relationships are recognized only by way of commodities. They like to catalog their own possessions, but this catalog is a plan of their lifestyle, and their lifestyle, in this sense, is nothing more than their own capacity to collect and organize these commodities. [Yoshimi, 206]

These persons try to express their identities by borrowing the identity of commodities⁽³⁶⁾. In this sense, their identities are given by industry and their attitudes toward commodities are passive in comparison with the first case. For them, brands represent objective criteria to measure both themselves and other people, and it is brands that organize their self-identities.

Let me go back to the Harley example. There are many Japanese Harley lovers who seem to believe that the Harley brand represents American values, as American Harley lovers do. Japanese owners enjoy sharing the values represented in this product and image. They show their preference for American values by riding Harley, wearing Levi's and Hanes' T shirts, using a Zippor lighter and smoking Marlboro. For them, these 'American' commodities symbolize an Americanness, and by use of these American products they try to internalize what they think is American values into their own lifestyles. But they themselves are not American; it is virtually impossible for them to internalize real American values. What they get from 'American brands' is a symbol of 'Americanness', and such 'Americanness' is constructed by James Dean's endorsement on Levi jeans, an American macho actor's image of 'Marlboro country', the image of American service personnel wearing Hanes' T shirt, etc. Only by borrowing these images, these self-proclaimed America-lovers integrate their identities.

How do they end up in having such passive attitudes toward the relationship between commodities and their own identities? Looking from a different angle, Riesman's notion of the 'standard package' may be useful in answering this question. He defines the standard package as a normative framework of lifestyle, which is comprised of commodities and services such as furniture, electric appliances, food, and clothes. He maintains that consumers constitute this framework within their future plans. Let me go back to the example of Japanese consumers in the 1960s. The criteria of 'modern urban life' were comprised of three electric appliances. These criteria were organized not by individuals but by society, and as a collective standard of living, they had influence on individual identities. In this sense, the standard package was the objective criterion of their lifestyles, and their lifestyles were measured not by individual identities but by the identities represented in the commodities. In other words, they had to rely on the external criteria. The standard package was a convenient criterion because it was considered as a promise to represent a certain type of social values. Consumers were given their identities through the process of referring to the external criteria. Japanese Harley lovers borrow symbolic values and identities which are expressed in Harley brands and other American commodities in hopes that they can internalize Americanness into their own lifestyles. They seem to believe these American commodities help develop the schemata of practice for them, but their desires cannot be realized insofar as they try to internalize the symbolic identities because there is a irreducible gap between the symbolic identities and their positions in social space. In this case, the identities of consumers are constructed by symbols, but the gap between the symbolic identities and their position in social spaces may estrange the 'given' identities from the reality of consumers' lives.

These cases illustrate that individuals' actions based on 'habitus' does not necessarily match their social statuses. There is a gap between consumers' images of the symbolic positions and their real positions in the social world, and in order to fill the gap, consumers may want to relentlessly pursue the symbolic identities represented by brands. In order to fulfill their desire for Americanness, Japanese Harley lovers tend to buy other American commodities which, they think, are supposed to give them another version of American identity. In these cases, it is commodities that lead the formulation of consumers' identities. The identities of commodities provide consumers with 'strategies of action' in Ann Swidler's terms (Swidler, pp. 276-278); according to the identities of commodities, consumers organize action that might allow them to reach their goals. In this respect, theoretically, consumers have a freedom to position themselves in the social space and to organize their lifestyles accordingly. But, as far as they rely on commodities for the organization of their identities, their identities are provided according to the symbolic identities produced by industry.

INTERACTION MODEL (3): A CONSUMER-LED RELATION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

In the third type of interaction, consumers play an active role in building the brand identity. It is virtually impossible for industry to totally control consumers' behaviors because sometimes a certain kind of consumer-led interaction takes place. This process may be similar to the relation between the dominant culture and subcultures in the sense that consumers' lead is eventually taken over by industry-led communication. Consumers may be able to create a certain symbolic meaning in commodities. But once consumers begin to interact with industry, in most cases industry accommodates the new meaning and re-categorize the market. In this sense, the symbolic power always resides within industry. As a result, the identities of the consumers lose their original luster.

There are many cases in which consumers find a new use for commodities that manufacturers and suppliers do not even think of. Sportswear is used for inner-house clothing and young males wear earrings. In Japan, a beeper was first introduced in the business-use market, but it was not successful. Then, teenagers redefined the use of beeper and made it a huge hit. They discovered that a beeper could be used as a communication tool among friends. They created secret number codes among friends, and communicated with these codes which were displayed on the beeper screen. A beeper matches their demand, for it is small and light to carry, receives messages within relatively wide ranges, sends messages whenever they like, and it is cheap. Teenagers first discovered a product called 'beeper' in the business-use market. Then, they redefined the product identity as a communication tool among friends. Industry accommodated the changed category of beeper, and redefined the market. Now, the identity of beeper is recognized as a communication tool among friends, whose use is different from the original intention of industry.

This case suggests the fluidity of the categorization and the subsequent accommodation of the new symbolic meaning by industry. Industry defines the brand identities, and based on the marketing strategy, tries to reach the intended consumers. The intended consumers can simply ignore the products. In reality, most of the new products end up in failure in two to three months after the introduction, which forces companies to retreat from the market. Sometimes, they succeed in winning the intended consumers. But sometimes, their success does not come from the intended market; consumers interpret commodities in favor of their own uses, as in the case of beepers and sportswear. It may be possible for industry to ban the 'illegitimate' uses of commodities, saying that these users are not their intended customers. Generally, however, industry accepts the change, and redefine the brand identities so that the new identities can win more consumers. According to the new marketing strategies, products are designed to appeal to the tastes of new consumers. In this type of interaction, the gap between the brand identities and social reality prompts industry to redefine the brand identities and the markets.

SYMBOLIC POWER AND RESOURCE

The last case might give you the impression that consumers have some determinant power in the power relation with industry because they can somehow reflect their voices back into the process of product-making. And the categorization by industry is fluid, so consumers can enjoy relative freedom by dodging the constraint of industry. Marketers and economists proclaim the triumph of consumers because they think consumers can finally choose the products which are produced to represent consumers' identities. They say that they are convinced of the coming of consumer-led society more than ever with the rapid promotion of Internet marketing. The fact is, however, that even though consumers may be able to invent new symbolic meanings by borrowing and redefining the conventional meanings, industry has the means and resources to accommodate the invention to their own uses and, in the end, takes control of the interaction processes.

Hebdige shows how the dominant group accommodated subcultures through commercialization and re-categorization. 'Secret' codes which subcultural groups created and shared with members were encoded by the dominant group in such a way that ordinary people could understand and have access to them through the market. The fashion industry commercialized the 'secret' styles of punk as a new ornament. At the same time, the dominant group redefined subcultural groups by incorporating them into the dominant ideology. As an example, Hebdige cites the 'discovery' of the 'human' side of punks by the mass media. The initial reaction by the dominant group was rejection, but eventually the dominant group accommodated the idiosyncrasies of subcultures by rearranging them in the map of meanings. Through these processes, ideology is reproduced and transformed (Hebdige, pp. 73-99). The conflict of identity of subcultural groups is, therefore, a conflict over the symbolic power, the power to make common-sense knowledge. It is the struggle within ideology, and the resistant style of subcultures is possible only within the dominant ideology.

Symbolic meanings are fluid by nature⁽³⁷⁾. Consumers have a certain degree of liberty in interpreting 'the official categorization' by industry. Young consumers interpreted a 'beeper' differently from the intention of industry, and discovered a new use for a beeper to fulfill their personal needs. The dominant culture including industry and the mass media discovered the new use of the beeper, and re-categorize the identity of beeper. Beeper makers switched the target from the business market to the youth market, by reappropriating the new meaning of the beeper. According to the new categorization, the companies launched a series of campaigns such as establishing a booth where students gather, sponsoring sports events, and casting their favorite celebrities in advertising messages. So far their commitment to the new market resulted in more consumers. Beeper communications come to be accepted as an established fact by the dominant culture including industry, the mass media, and parents, and now beeper companies compete each other only by way of the differentiation of products such as designs and sounds, to supposedly appeal to the tastes of consumers⁽³⁸⁾.

I have examined three types of interaction between industry and consumers. In any case, the interaction is conducted by way of the categorized markets, and consumption is a social activity to interpret symbolic meanings which are represented in commodities. Industry tries to reach consumers by identifying the target markets, and consumers in return buy commodities with reference to the categories made by industry. These categories are not naturally 'given' but socially organized, and cannot be simply imposed upon consumers by capitalist companies advertising their products. In this respect, categorization is the result of the power relation between consumers and industry. These categories have to tune in with consumers' own ways of life if they are to be effective (Bocock, p. 54), and based on brand strategies, companies try to make the brand identities fit into consumers' ways of life. It is industry that dominates the symbolic interaction with the consumers. First of all, the categorization is made by industry. Second, industry provides the schemata of practices for consumers in the name of brand identities. Third, industry has the power to accommodate a new symbolic meaning and to redefine it to its own use. Industry has an advantage in these fields, and all of these fields are important factors in the creation of symbolic meanings. In the end, the monopoly of symbolic power by industry in these fields places the symbolic interaction under the initiative by industry.

CONCLUSION

Now, what possibilities can we think of as the result of the symbolic interaction which is dominated by industry? Of course, we can think of many consequences. Certainly, some consumers enjoy the freedom of choices. Some consumers pretend to internalize the 'given' identity, to add more color to their existing identities⁽³⁹⁾. In any event, consumption, as we have seen, plays a central role in the process of constructing self-identity. It is a process by which consumers symbolically construct both collective and individual identities. With the development of consumer society, they came to rely for their identities not on conventions, family, other members of the same social group, ethnicity, or gender but on symbolic identities represented by brands. In other words, commodities replace both conventions and primary groups in providing individuals with both the perception of their positions in the social world and the schemata of actions.

As I illustrated in the example of Japanese Harley lovers, in some cases there is an irreducible gap between consumers' desired image of social positions and their actual positions in social space. Since consumers have relative freedom in interpreting the identities of brands, they may have a sense of unfittedness in their real life as a result of the misinterpretation of their positions in social place. In the 1970s, there was a myth in Japan that cultured persons should at least have a piano at home because a piano was considered as a symbolic representation of 'cultural' life. But the gap between the symbolic identity of piano and their actual lifestyles in 'rabbit hut' (which is a typical characterization of Japanese townhouse)" were irreducible. In order to fill this gap, these people continued to buy commodities which they hoped would satisfy their desires (Yoshimi, p. 216). For modern consumers, consumption is one of the activities to characterize and construct their positions. Bourdieu thinks that consumers buy commodities which match their tastes and status. Bocock, on the other hand, maintains that consumers also buy commodities in hopes that commodities fulfill their desire to internalize the symbolic identities of the commodities. According to him, consumers like to become the being they desire to be by consuming the items that they imagine will help create and sustain their idea of themselves, their image, and their identity (Bocock, p. 68). It is possible for consumers to have a desire to become the being that does not match their positions in social space, and to pursue the image of the desired being through consumption. As a result, consumers who take a wrong positioning in social space may have to seek for the material compensation to fill the gap until their desire exhausts them.

The mispositioning in social space by consumers may also be interpreted as consumers' symbolic resistance against the dominant ideology. They seemingly refused to accept their real status as a non-cultural person, and by acquiring 'cultured' commodities, they might try to escape from the status that they were given. As for the power relation between the dominant ideology and popular culture, John Fiske claims that popular culture gives people the pleasures⁽⁴⁰⁾ to unleash themselves from the constraints of the dominant ideology. According to him, popular pleasures arise from the social allegiances formed by subordinate people and must exist in some relationship of opposition of power that attempts to discipline and control them (Fiske, p.49). In a sense, the self-proclaimed cultured people (mostly middle-class mothers and daughters) tried to escape from their position as a middle-class suburban family. They knew that it was impossible to make their dream life come true. Since a piano symbolized a cultured and sophisticated life they dreamed of, by obtaining it, they could bring about a rupture between their social position and the symbolic representation of the cultured life. They might enjoy the rupture; they could symbolically dodge the social category the dominant group imposed upon them.

We can see the confrontations between the dominant ideology and subordinate ideologies which are represented in other commodities. Harley Davidson represents freedom from the dominant ideology, Honda Acura Integra is designed to satisfy the tastes of Generation Xers, who are often grouped as 'the lost generation'. Nike targets at the youth market in Japan, and Marlboro is for a macho man. Unlike the symbolic representation of piano, these commodities specifically target at subordinate groups like 'easy riders', Generation Xers, teens, and 'real men'. In the highly commercialized society, therefore, even the identities of the subordinate groups are also given by the dominant group. As we have seen, both Aaker and Upshaw emphasize the personality of brands. By identifying 'brand personalities', marketers can specify the target markets and to reach the intended consumers becomes easier. Consumers, on the other hand, can create an association between their lifestyles and the identities of brands more easily because the identities of brands are designed so meticulously that consumers feel as if brands are there to satisfy their individual tastes. In reality, however, the images of Harley brands, such as personal freedom from the social constraints, are carefully sustained by industry. The company does not change models or explore the new market under Harley brands. Both the company and Harley lovers agree the brands are for the subordinate people, and Harleys have been and will be produced to satisfy their idiosyncrasies. This case implies the separable relation between the commodities and the identities of the subordinate groups. The symbolic power of the dominant group is so flexibly exercised that industry can even provide the identities of the subordinate groups, whose existence, according to Hebdige and Fiske, relies heavily on the negation of the dominant ideology⁽⁴¹⁾. Here is a paradox; the evasion of the subordinate groups is sometimes designed by the institution that they are escaping from. If Harley Davidson changes the identities of Harley brands, Harley lovers will lose the core of their own identities.

Oh-hira's patients also exemplify that consumers thinks of their lifestyles and brands as inseparable. For many consumers, brands are convenient categorizations because brands give them objective grounds for their actions and perceptions. Unaware of their own self-identities, consumers can perceive and construct their position in society with reference to the identities of brands. At the same time, they can rely for their judgments on brands. By doing so, consumers can minimize the risks of misjudgment in human relationships and social experiences. Perhaps this is the reason the same peer group members tend to possess the same brands. I sometimes see in the streets of Tokyo a group of young women who all have Tiffany accessories. In most cases, they wear similar clothes, and talk and act similarly. Their differences can be expressed marginally; whether they have Tiffany earrings, Tiffany pierces, Tiffany pendants, or Tiffany rings. Brands seem to attract peers of similar tastes and habits, and these peers tend to form a group. It seems that they presuppose brands represent individual tastes and habits.

From the cradle to the grave, consumers live with brands. With the development of communication systems, parents become learned in the trivial differences of baby diapers. Parents listen to experts' advice and choose 'appropriate' toys for kids. And parents choose schools for kids by referring to the standardized rating system that the educational industry provides. Children get accustomed with the objective standards for their judgments and try to avoid mistakes made by their subjective judgments. Eventually, following their parents, they find brands as a convenient tool for objectified criteria and they use brands to measure social significance such as social positions, social status, personalities and tastes, lifestyles, values, etc. In other words, from a relatively early stage of life, consumers are trained to accept, and, in some degrees, to rely on external criteria for their judgments, and through the contacts with commodities, they come to unconditionally accept the identities of brands. At every crucial moment, consumers will encounter new brands which symbolically represent the new stage of life. Newspaper companies will come when one enters a collage, and credit companies will wait for his graduations. Automobile dealers and insurance salespersons will want to exchange friendly conversation when his income reaches a certain level, and stock companies will call him to discuss the good operation of money when he retires. At the same time, consumers seem to believe that they have to read newspapers when they are in collage⁽⁴²⁾, and that, when they have a family, they have to upgrade insurance policies to protect family members. They tend to connect their social positions and status with the symbolic representation of commodities, realize their own identities, and take actions.

I have examined how deeply the lives of consumers and commodities are intertwined. At any level of the relations between industry and consumers, consumers firmly believe in the symbolic representation of commodities, which indicates how successfully the capitalist system is operated. The identities of brands can exist only insofar as consumers believe in the myth of brands. Since brands are mere symbols which are produced by industry, without the active interpretation of consumers, brands cease to function; they cannot show consumers the differences from other competing brands. In modern society, however, consumers are, in general, active. They demand more information from industry, enjoy ads, and think of brands as convenient criteria. They do not seem to doubt the very concept of brand identities. Rather than producing their own meanings or trying to escape from the ideological constraints, consumers enjoy applying brand identities into their own lifestyles and by utilizing brand identities they construct their own self-identities. The myth of capitalism is widespread and still transparent, which shows how deeply the capitalist ideology penetrates into every aspect of consumers' lives.

Notes:

(1) I quote this generalized view of Japanese consumers' behavior from Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994) by Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living. Many newspapers and magazines show similar appreciation of the arrival of the consumer-led society.

(2) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994)

(3) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994), p. 136

(4) The similar view is expressed by the report of Dentsu Institute of Human Studies (p. 81) and by Yamazaki (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 144-193).

(5) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994), p. 144

(6) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994), pp. 140-141

(7) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994), p. 144

(8) Dentsu Institute for Human Studies did an interesting survey on young people's attitudes toward consumption. The institute asked 66 youths from seven nations to take pictures of what they like. All of them took pictures of commodities, but in the case of Japanese youths, the report revealed that commodities dominated their interests. In comparison with young people from the other nations, there are fewer pictures in which a person appears, and some of the Japanese youths indicated the existence of their parents only by the pictures of commodities they were given as a present from their parents. This case and other pictures give us the reality of Oh-hira's account, which will be discussed later.

(9) I do not intend to overly distinguish consumerism in Japan from in other nations. The globalization of consumerism is a fact, and global companies often take similar approaches to penetrate local markets. With the globalization of the media, consumers' attitudes toward commodities become similar all around the world. The reason I mention the Japanese consumerism is just for my convenience; this is the field with which I am familiar. But please notice that my approach focuses on consumerism within the context of capitalism. I try to explore the universal aspects underpinning the capitalist system. Examples I use are the manifestation of capitalist ideology, which I think is a universal phenomenon.

(10) Kotler classifies commodities into four categories. Convenience goods are the ones that the customer usually purchases frequently, immediately, and with a minimum of effort, such as tobacco products, soaps, and newspapers. Shopping goods are furniture, clothing, used car, and major appliances. The customer characteristically compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price, and style. Specialty goods are ones with unique characteristics and/or brand identification for which a significant group of buyers are habitually willing to make a special purchasing effort. Examples are specific brands and types of fancy goods, cars, stereo components, and men's suits. Lastly, unsought goods are ones that the consumer does not know about or knows about but does not normally think of buying. The classic examples are life insurance, cemetery plots, gravestones, and encyclopedias (Kotler 1994, p. 436). According to this classification, I will discuss the third type of commodities.

(11) I am interested in, however, such products as Coke, Pepsi, Nescafe, Florida Orange, Tide, Gillette, etc., whose symbols including brands and company names add extra values to exchange values.

(12) Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, Wakamono: Masatsu Kaihi Sedai (Report on Youth Consumption Trend in 1994), pp. 136-144

(13) Yamazaki makes an analogy between the satisfaction of consumption and the satisfaction attained by a formal dinner on the one hand, and by the reading of a detective novel on the other. He maintains that people can attain satisfaction not only from dishes but also rituals, and that readers of a detective novel enjoy reading not knowing how the ending turns out to be. He thinks that both cases demonstrate that satisfaction stems from the consumption of time by the agent. Likewise, he argues that people can enjoy the process of material consumption, a different kind of consumption derived from the consumption of time.

(14) As for the analogy of a formal dinner, he insists that people enjoy waiting for dishes even though ritualistic conversations and manners are bothersome for them. According to him, they can get satisfaction not only from dishes but also from the consumption of time. It is debatable, however, that they can satisfy themselves if they wait for hours but nothing comes out. It seems to me what they enjoy is rituals. Rituals are in general organized socially for the purpose of imposing social norms on individuals. It is hard to imagine, therefore, that social norms satisfy individual desires. In the case of reading a detective novel, he claims that people enjoy reading detective novels, guessing who the murderer is, not reading the conclusion first. And he argues that a truly rational person must read the conclusion first, to save time. He just ignores the function of reading as a human activity. The important difference between these cases and material consumption is, however, that consumers are not convinced of their own desires. It is questionable that under such unstable mentality consumers can enjoy wasting time in consumption. On the contrary, guests expect dishes to be served and readers expect a murderer to appear in the end, so their mentality is more stable.

(15) The problem of Yamazaki's approach is that he firmly believes that the aesthetic criteria reside in subjectivity. He thinks, therefore, that self-identity is constituted by aesthetic values. But it is obvious that such values are organized socially, and in a society where cultural values lose significance, individuals tend to look to material values, just as Benjamin once pointed out in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"(Benjamin, pp. 220-224).

(16) I have criticized Yamazaki's observations. Obviously his views are full of contradictions. Yet, I cannot simply ignore him. He is one of the influential intellectual in Japan, and his books are read by many people, ranging from business executives to students of literature major. In his "Yawarakai Kojin no Jidai", which features his dialogues with nine Japanese intellectuals, all of them including a well-known Marxist basically agree with his concept of consumption. It may be possible to say, then, that the concept of consumption is different in Japan; the capitalist ideology has already been prevailed so widely that no one doubts its mechanism. Or, Japan may be operated with a different rule of capitalism. In any case, I need more research in determining how Japanese people in general perceive the capitalism.

(17) As an example of the domination of the symbolic power by industry, Baudrillard criticizes the functions of the media and advertisement (Baudrillard 1975). But I think the domination is not by the absolute exercise of power by industry, but rather through the consensus among social agents including manufacturers, the mass media, distributors, advertising agencies, and individual consumers. Based on this standpoint, we should take into consideration the educational system and working practices as a major constituent of the capitalist society. Through the education by both family and schools and working practices, individuals learn common-sense knowledge, and the domination of symbolic power is most effective when the domination is taken for granted by members of society (Hebdige, pp. 11-15).

(18) Riesman characterizes these social characters based on the changes on population trends, but, in this paper, more important things are the phases of economic development and social values and ideologies underpinning these phases.

(19) Riesman's distinctions on these social characters are based on where normative criteria come from. Tradition-directed people rely on traditions and conventions. Inner-directed persons derive them from guidance by parents and other small groups.

(20) Yamazaki argues that consumption is a pleasure for consumers. He agrees with Riesman in the sense that the judgments of peer groups affect consumer behaviors. But he claims that consumers buy things because they want to be recognized for their "good taste" by the peer groups. And even though there is a competition among peer groups, the peer competition does not arouse anxiety because they want to be respected for their good taste by their peers. He then concludes that Riesman's analyses are too pessimistic (Yamazaki 1984, pp. 107-128). His focus on an independent consumer seems to simply ignore the ideological constraint on individual consumers.

(21) Bourdieu stresses that the social distinction he uses is not a real class stratification. His purpose is to group common propensities of certain social groups, in hopes that this categorization reveals the ideological formation of each social group. He emphasizes that social groups are 'made', not social reality (Bourdieu 1987, p. 129).

(22) On the collective level, we also have a subjective criterion. We often hear, after a charge of bribery cases or scandals reveal, an executive saying, "We (as a company) do not have any intention to engage in this illegal transaction. This transaction was operated by the judgment of an individual branch manager, and we as a business entity have nothing to do with this illegal conduct." This type of excuse by Japanese commercial bank executives was reiterated after a series of illegal business conducts came into the light in 1996.

(23) This was a period during which Japan experienced serious labor shortage and population explosion. According to Reisman's classification, this would have been a transitional period from inner-directed society to other-directed society. Behind the demographic shift, I suppose there was a transition in the Japanese mentality from tradition-directedness to other-directedness, and it is said that democratic education highly contributed this mental shift.

(24) It is true that labor unions and other voluntary groups were relatively powerful during this period, but they were not powerful enough to impose normative criteria on every individual worker.

(25) Riesman seems to be equivocal on whether group mentality exists independently of the influence of the media. He maintains that parents rely on the media and other people in teaching children moral judgments, and implies that the moral judgments of children reside in the judgments of peer groups. In reality, these judgments are fluid depending upon the power relation among group members. He seems to think that, whatever groups they are in, moral judgments primarily come from individuals, though they are influenced by the media. Bourdieu thinks, on the other hand, that the foundation of moral judgment both in groups and individuals are given by the media and other social institutions because of the domination of symbolic power by these institutions.

(26) In 1969, Kotler and Levy proposed the concept of marketing be applied to non-business sectors. They named government organizations, schools, and hospitals as a area that would require more efforts to form closer relationships with customers, and maintained that, by adopting the marketing concept, these organizations could offer better satisfaction to customers, which in turn would generate more profits to the organizations.

(27) I need to be cautious about Kotler's rhetoric. According to his definition, the communication is facilitated with the management by industry. While emphasizing the respect for consumers' satisfaction, he does not advocate the mutual relationship between industry and consumers.

(28) Marketers seems to agree that brand has a human-like personality. Aaker uses the term 'personality' to group similar attributes of brands as a symbol. For example, according to him, a bank or insurance company as a non-personal entity tends to assume a stereotypical 'banker' personality. He maintains that by managing brand images it is possible to change the stereotypical image. A bank as a symbol can be personalized by redefining the identity of symbol in a sense that the symbol represents more human-like characters such as friendliness and sophistication.

(29) Upshaw argues that with the 'humanization' of an otherwise inanimate object or service, a company can enjoy an advantageous position over its competitors because consumers have a more concrete image on, and an association of, brands.

(30) It is often cited by marketers that they have easier access to the intended audience through the segmented media. As a number of TV channel increased, there emerged channels which are specialized in a certain genre of program, like CNN, MTV, Sports Channel, etc. So if a company wants to appeal to American youths, marketers might think of how to increase the exposure of the product in MTV. When a brewery manufacturer plans to sell a beer brand, chances are high that the intended consumers may watch the image of the brand if marketers increase the display of the brand in a popular sport event because the intended audience will watch the event on TV while the company does not pay money to TV stations for the exposure of the brand. It is widely believed among marketers that these strategies are more efficient than just showing commercial messages in the national TVs because the specialized channels limit the audience and the costs are lower.

(31) For marketers, consumers' complaints are considered as shame, for their communication efforts are considered not enough. More generous Kotler suggests marketers learn from complaints in order to create better and more personal communication with consumers (Kotler 1972, p. 109). In any case, marketers are supposed to relentlessly pursue 'better' communication with consumers.

(32) No matter how fragmented brands are, it is virtually impossible for industry to offer a variety of brands to meet the taste of every consumer. With the development of direct mails and Internet, the media and marketers overly stress the new concept 'one-to-one marketing'. This concept, however, is used to signify the individualized communication by industry, not the fragmentation of brands to an individual level. This is simply because too much fragmentation impairs the fundamental law of business; efficiency.

(33) The most popular program is "NBA First Break" by TV Asahi. The program made a substantial contribution to the promotion of NBA in Japan.

(34) A decade ago, Japanese people associated basketball shoes with the 'Converse' brand. Thanks to NBA superstars and NBA First Break, the association is beginning to be replaced by Nike brand.

(35) NBA First Break is on the air on Monday mornings, 0:30-1:00. This is one of the slowest TV watching times when an ordinary audience seldom watch. Another consideration we should make is that, unlike in the United States, sportswear is not casually worn by ordinary people in Japan. The target of Nike brand is exclusively teenagers, and the distribution of Nike products is concentrated on where they gather. Even the same sports lovers, we do not see Nike brand where Sumo wrestling gains ground.

(36) If they could measure a person with an objective criteria like brands, they would not have to rely on their subjective judgment, which sometimes turns to be a source of conflicts in human relationships. By relying on brands for their rationale of judgment, they could be able to have a 'peaceful' relation with other people.

(37) When I examined this case, I referred to Yamakawa's paper, articles of Japanese newspapers, and personal information from a Japanese telecommunication company. There is no analysis by scholars about this emerging market, so my observations are mainly based on my perceptions. One thing which is certain is that Japanese marketers still struggle to assess the 'misinterpretation' by consumers. According to Yamakawa, marketers sometimes lament that consumers cannot recognize the messages the company tries to get across. Since the concept of symbolic interaction is not yet introduced to the Japanese marketing circle to full extents, it seems they can not figure out why the intention of industry and the interpretation of consumers are sometimes different. Hoshino suggests that in order to grasp the interpretive mechanism of consumers, marketers should gather more specific and concrete data and create more exact models that feature detailed consumption habits and cognitive models of consumption processes (Hoshino pp. 52-57). My basic position is that symbolic meanings (the new use of beepers) are developed through the interaction between consumers and commodities, and, therefore, the symbolic meanings are defined by consumers as they interact with the commodities.

(38) Hebdige maintains that since the official discourse is constituted by consensus of social agents, not with the exercise of the absolute power, he calls it a moving equilibrium. This is another implication of fluidity.

(39) Yamazaki argues that the diversification of commodities has a positive effect on consumers' aesthetic tastes. He says that consumers can construct their identities by commodities, being aware of the fact that their identities are given. With the development of information society, consumers are now capable of pretending to be a 'given' identity, he claims.

(40) Fiske's definition of pleasures is opposite to that of Yamazaki's. Fiske views the relationship between consumers and industry as confrontational, and thinks that consumers can attain pleasures by either evading from the constraints of the dominant ideology or producing meanings for their own uses. He also stresses that popular culture is made by people, which implies popular pleasures have to do with the meaning creation activity by consumers, as we see in the beeper case (the meaning creation by school students). For Yamazaki, on the other hand, the pleasures of consumption derive from the freedom of choice and the gratification of consumers' needs. Therefore, if a would-be cultured person had bought a piano out of her needs, her desire would have been satisfied. As Yoshimi argues, the history proves that she was not satisfied (Yoshimi, p. 213): she continued to buy luxurious commodities, and her small house was filled with 'cultured commodities' such as accessories, designers' clothes, luxurious cars, audio sets, etc. Dentsu's report show us a glimpse of the gap between the symbolic representations of cultural life and consumers' real life (e.g., tea ceremony and flute versus comic books and an old, unsophisticated bathroom). We cannot tell from the report how much satisfaction they could gain from tea ceremony and playing flute, but their seemingly erratic consumption behaviors (Why flute and comic books?) suggest consumers do not understand their own needs and desires, or their image of cultured life does not stem from their cultural tastes and habits. In either case, if consumers do understand their 'true needs', as Yamazaki insists, I suppose their buying behaviors show a certain degree of consistency.

(41) The punk revival of the 1990s is an interesting case to consider. Hebdige claims that in order for the punk subculture to survive, punks have to continue to produce new meanings; otherwise they will be incorporated into the dominant ideology. He thinks, or thought in the 1970s, that the core identity of punks is the meaning-creation process. But the recent revival obviously suggests that the symbolic meanings of punks changed. In 1995, the Sex Pistols reunited and went to Japan for concerts. It was obvious they went to Far East for money. The media reported the concerts with a sense of nostalgia, remembering 'Good Old 70s'. In retrospect, it seems Hebdige underestimated the symbolic power of the dominant culture; he thought the punk subculture would survive because the nature of punk subculture does not agree with the dominant culture. But the dominant culture can produce the counter-culture whose existence depends on the total negation of the dominant culture.

(42) There is a custom in Japan; college seniors start reading the Nikkei Shimbun, a newspaper specialized in economic news, like the Wall Street Journal. Many of them believe in the myth that companies hire Nikkei readers more than non-readers. In reality, companies rarely ask job applicants about their reading habits, perhaps because they all point to the same paper. But the myth and the symbolic meaning of the newspaper still exist.

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