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Introduction
Consumption is never a personal matter but a matter "relative" to others.
Where there are people, there is struggle, and no group is an exception.
Take office politics, for example. Many newcomers to the workplace often feel frustrated:
Why do they exclude me? What benefit do they get from suppressing me? I've been so devoted to them, so why do they betray me? Why, oh why...
Let me tell a well-known joke.
Two people are playing in a forest when a bear suddenly appears. One person quickly puts on running shoes. The other says, "You idiot, even with running shoes you can't outrun a bear." The first replies, "I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you."
This joke is thought-provoking: Instinctively, we often see those around us as our greatest enemies.
Back to the distant East African savannah: those who run slower than others in the group, not slower than the beasts, are always the first to be eaten; those who lack overall advantage in the group may not even have the chance to reproduce. Millions of years of group evolution have implanted a terrifying instinct in humans: competition and comparison—I must be better than those around me, or I'm doomed.
Behavioral scientists call this the "social comparison mechanism."
We don't pursue becoming better, but being better than others; not self-success, but success relative to others. Competition, comparison, and intra-group struggle are inevitable.
For example, many who suffer from office politics often naively say that when they become leaders or bosses, they will never allow company infighting. In fact, this is impossible. Where there are people, there is intrigue; you can only guide it, not eliminate it.
Many chicken-soup-for-the-soul articles tell us: people should pursue inner peace and self-satisfaction. Does that resonate? Does it sound like Professor Yu?
But it's useless—knowing many truths doesn't guarantee a good life: single people still can't stand others showing off their love, those who can't afford houses still can't bear seeing others buy houses one after another, and other people's children are always the best.
This is a social instinct even stronger than physiological instinct. "Unequal distribution is worse than scarcity." The social comparison mechanism is the greatest force driving social development and the most powerful energy driving consumer behavior.
The internet amplifies this social instinct. Originally, our comparison targets were only colleagues, classmates, neighbors, relatives, and fellow villagers, but now we receive more information, expanding the scope of comparison, making us more prone to dissatisfaction.
Consumption is never a personal matter but a matter "relative" to others' consumption. Every "unfavorable comparison" creates psychological "harm" and generates an impulse to eliminate that "unfavorable comparison," thereby boosting consumption desire.
On one hand, this comparison and competition can expand domestic demand and promote social development; on the other hand, this instinctive desire can be infinitely amplified, making people spend more and more while feeling poorer and poorer.
Physiological needs are limited, but psychological needs are a bottomless pit.
The application of social instinct in business is increasingly widespread. Anything can become a status symbol, a personal label, a symbol for consumers to express their social standing.
These days, white-collar workers have their standard gear, and the wealthy have their attire: watches are not just for telling time, cars are not just for transportation, phones are not just for communication, houses are not just for living, and travel is not just for leisure. Eating a traditional breakfast of fried dough and soy milk is traditional, while bread and milk is modern living; even drinking imported mineral water can showcase taste.
Drinking coffee seems more refined than eating garlic; eating Häagen-Dazs after a breakup better conveys sadness than eating spicy crayfish.
There's a saying in the internet social product industry, not serious but classic: "It starts with hookups, thrives on showing off."
The hidden truth is: use physiological instincts to pry open the market, and use social instincts to develop the market.
Many products have been crafted as symbols of status, taste, quality, and living standards, collectively known in internet slang as "show-off artifacts."
Showing off is a technical skill: advertising master Ogilvy's greatest pleasure was driving his Rolls-Royce around New York, especially on Madison Avenue, wherever the crowds were. This is the "looking down on the world" style of showing off, with the subtext: "I'm not targeting anyone in particular, but all you advertising folks are rubbish."
Jack Ma's "I regret founding Alibaba," Liu Qiangdong's "I don't see Liu Qiangdong's wife as pretty," and Wang Jianlin's "a small goal of 100 million" can all be classified as this style.
This style is hard for ordinary people to pull off. The common ways for ordinary people to show off are "labeling" and the "chain of contempt."
They label themselves with symbols representing the social status and taste they desire, wait for others' admiration, and derive pleasure from it. Then they express disdain for those below them to consolidate their position.
Contempt is passed down level by level. Almost everyone despises others and is despised by others. Most people feel deeply hurt and believe that only consumption—consumption of higher-level status symbols—can relieve this anxiety.
A saying: "A beggar never envies a billionaire, only a beggar who earns more than him." The reverse is also true: a billionaire doesn't despise a beggar; it's always the beggars who earn more who despise other beggars.
So, those who just came from the countryside are more likely to despise rural people; the middle class tends to despise white-collar workers; movie-goers despise TV series watchers; theater-goers despise movie-goers. Among movie-goers, those who watch art films despise those who watch Hollywood, and those who watch Hollywood despise those who watch domestic films, and so on. We live in a complex web of contempt chains.
The lifestyles shown in marketing are often those of the upper-middle class or even the wealthy, but they are presented as ordinary people's lifestyles.
Through marketing, consumers' perception of "what is a normal standard of living" is invisibly raised. Why do we spend more but feel poorer? Because the consumption level of the comparison target is constantly rising, and the comparer can never catch up with the speed at which the compared person's wealth and consumption increase.
To maintain the desired lifestyle and level, we must keep earning and spending. This seems like an irrational cycle, but it is the inevitable result of social instincts.
What is marketing? Marketing is about talking feelings with the rich and talking money with the poor. Without comparison, there's no harm; without harm, there's no consumption motivation?