亚文化对消费者行为的影响

The effect of popular culture on the consumer behavior of the generation after 80s on ChinaAbstractIn 1930s, subculture became a study subject in areas of sociology, politics and culturology. Subculture is divided into ethnic subculture, age subculture and ecology subculture. Age subculture can be divided into youth subculture and old subculture. In youth subculture, popular culture is considered to be subject to universal love and follow and its main function is entertainment. In 1980s, Chinese society had undergone fundamental changes. The implementation of reform and opening up and one-child policy caused special psychological, behavioral and consumer values of the generation after 80s. They grew up together with popular culture and their consumer behaviors were profoundly impacted by popular culture. Whether the currently spending power, or the potential for future consumption of this group are very worthy of attention. In this paper, the theory of consumer behavior was used to analyze the impact of popular culture on consumer behaviors the generation after 80s in China mainland.IntroductionAmerican scholar David Popenoe (1983) defined subculture in his authoritative textbook "Sociology" as the following: "Broadly speaking, the subculture is usually defined as a sub-group of the broader culture. This group forms a lifestyle which not only includes certain characteristics of sub-culture, but also includes some cultural elements that other groups do not include". In addition, expert on the history of subculture, Australian scholar Gelder (1997) in its edited version of "The Subcultures Reader" also made a similar definition on subculture: "Subcultures is a group of people in a non-normal state (non-normative) and/or edge state of certain areas with their unique interests and habits, their identities, what they do and the places they do things". From the definition of the two famous scholars, the English word “subculture” includes at least two meanings. First, it refers to values and behaviors which areopposite to dominant culture, while it is included in the dominant culture but tries to distinguish it from dominant culture and is shared by a certain group. Second, it refers to a group of people or community sharing some subcultures. Both of the two meanings showed that subculture had characteristics of group self-identity and being excluded by mainstream society. That is that when a group formed a lifestyle with cultural identity different from dominant culture and cultural elements other groups do not, the group culture will be called subculture. From the above analysis, the sub-culture can refer to special behaviors of a group of people, and it can also mean a special lifestyle. From sociological point of view, subculture group is a group of people marked by mainstream society. They often are in the non-mainstream and subordinate position in society. They have many obvious features (such as deviation, marginal or even challenge) and special lifestyle different from other groups (especially dominant groups).In this paper, the youth subculture was defined as the unity of the concept and behavior of young people’s lives. It has some gaps from adult culture and adapts to the need of youth. The popular culture is the expression of youth subculture. Giddens (2000) had defined popular culture. It referred to the entertainment that were watched, read or participated in by hundreds of thousands of or millions of people. Popular culture is the artifacts which are commonly available to anyone, like films, tapes, CD or VCD, fashion, television programs, the mode of communication and exchange, etc." (Hebdige, 1993, p 361). When the meaning of modern consumption is beyond the basic survival but has the connotation of enjoyment, development, self-expression, etc. consumption in the eyes of young people has a special social significance. Many young people in modern society no longer see consumption just as survival needs, but as a show of self-innovation capability. So, the generation after 80s in China mainland becomes a special group of subculture.Consumer behavior of the generation after 80sFor the generation after 80s, they grew up together with popular culture. Open societyhas brought a lot of information, which make their vision broad and thinking quickly. In term of accessing to information, learning knowledge and even entertainment, they are deeply affected by the mass media. Campbell et al. (2011) investigated the channels for them to get the newest information. The results showed that movies, television, radio and newspapers were the top four. Some researchers used the "sensibility of pursuing aesthetic" to describe the generation after 80s, because they were more inclined to accept visually interesting information, such as attractive advertisements of various media, which increased the affinity and credibility of information, and were easily to make this generation produce identity to the goods (Guang-mei, 2010, p 16). Therefore, they have unique consumer behaviors.Individual consumptionYoung consumers seek different in rich shopping environment. Watches, handbags and various small accessories have become carriers for the young generation to express their unique styles. They generally agree that wearing must have their own personality, and they will consume and live in accordance with their own ideas. Customization is another consumption style for young consumers to pursue personalized. Young consumers no longer regard spending as an activity of mere trading or services, and no longer passively accept unilateral corporate marketing (Belleau et al., 2007, p 248). They demand as participants together with enterprise to research and develop their unique style of personalized products and services. They ask each product must be customized according to their preferences and needs and each service should be provided separately according to their requirements.Symbolic consumptionIn today's society, the replacement of popular culture such as 3G mobile phones, fashion, luxury goods, etc. is getting faster and faster. Affected by new things as well as their own sense of curiosity, the generation after 80s begins to pursue material enjoyment and famous brands. Because of being affected by the psychology of synchronous consumption, the generation after 80s advocates vogue and follows thefashion to show that they do not fall behind in the pursuit of fashion (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009, p 192). They pursue petty bourgeoisie, even tattoos, bungee jumping and other extreme sports. Meanwhile, young consumers seek communication object during the consumption. They like to go to coffee shops like Starbucks to find like-minded people. At the same time to be recognized by others, they experience the pleasure of consumption.Consumption for developmentContemporary youths are willing to pay for their health for future development. They think that they have health but not necessarily have everything, while once they lost health they will lost everything. Traditional skin care and beauty gradually lost their appeal to youth. Instead sanitarian activities which help detoxify and regulate physical and mental health are popular, such as SPA, lymphatic drainage, the capsule and foot massage. Yoga, kickboxing and other fitness activities are also increasingly popular in young generation. In health club with annual fee of several thousand dollars, many youths can be seen. Subscription of various health magazines is performance of consumption of the generation after 80s for the development of their health.Hedonic consumptionThe generation after 80s stresses enjoying life. Enjoying life is a distinctive feature of the current youth consumption. It is two main performances. Firstly, experiencing consumption with the purpose of enjoyment and new experience is becoming a mainstream in youth consumption behavior. Tourism spending as an example, in the last year, the number of outbound Chinese people reached 98 million, with an increase of nearly forty percent over the previous year (China National Tourism Administration, 2014). Another way of enjoyment is to purchase new technological products and information. They purchase new products and obtain various types of information about their everyday lives and learning, such as news, entertainment, tourism transport, health, education services and so on. Reading e-newspapers is an example of a new consumption to enjoy life. Secondly, leisure consumption places increased.Cafe house, comic houses, bars, wholesale KTV, large playground, three-dimensional cinema, etc. become enjoyment places for the youth.Strong brand awareness and low brand loyaltyBecause of the psychology of symbolic consumption, young consumers gradually enter a new stage of symbolic consumption. The typical symbolic consumption is the brand consumption. Different from previous generations, the generation after 80s has strong brand awareness, but they have low brand loyalty.Easy and convenient consumptionThe younger generation creates relaxed consumption patterns to ease tensions in study and work. Style of clothing is towards to leisure. They no longer follow the traditional dress etiquette, but stress comfortable and relaxed feeling of the wearing. Even casual suit is towards to leisure. In addition, adult toys and cartoons are prevalent. In the fast-paced life and work, the youth is in the state of fierce competition, so they go to relax by adult toys and cartoons. A survey showed that more than half of young people said that they would consider buying for their own toys, where about one-third of young people thought they liked and were willing to buy toys. They also like to buy cartoons and comics to make people feel good, so as to achieve the purpose of relaxation (Tsun, 2012). Moreover, young generation looks for quick and easy consumption patterns to simplify their lives. They change their shopping mode. They like staying at home to consume, such as mailing letters using courier companies, ordering merchandise through telephone, shopping online, etc. Contrary to traditional thrift, young consumers would rather pay more to reduce the waste of time and effort. They are willing to 24 hours shopping. In order to be able to shop at any time, young people would rather pay a higher price to a 24-hour convenience store. They also change the way of meal. Young people are accustomed to eating at restaurants. Ordering meal by telephone is instead of the traditional home cooking.Significantly conspicuous consumptionThe generation after 80s grew under the social context of emphasizing on capacity, money and status. Materialistic characteristics of this generation are more obvious than their parents. They pay more attention to self-realization and have more intense desire to succeed. Successful people instead of the hero become life model. They never deny yearning for wealth and tend to evaluate personal values and social status based on the wealth of the people. They also like to show off. Communist Youth League Central Propaganda Department, in June-July 2002, conducted a survey about the best fancy factor for buying something among the generation after 80s and their parents. In the options of brand, quality, style, price and several other options, the youth were more fancy “style” (49.1%), parents w ere more fancy "quality" (57.9%). Intense pursuit of style indicates conspicuous consumption characteristics of this generation. Conspicuous consumption is not compared with the wealth of the rich, but with their own taste and the ability to pursue fashion (Podoshen et al., 2011, p 19). 4.2% of respondents said their clothing was mainly showed to others to avoid being looked down upon. 19% respondents said their clothing was mainly for them to feel happy.20.7% respondents said their clothing was both for others to see and to feel happy for themselves. 36.8 % respondents thought that famous brand was representative of good quality and durableness, and also had a face. A total of 80.7% of young people regarded showing off as a factor for consumption.Popular culture’s effect on consumer behaviorGrowing young people is the largest society group for consumption. When the meaning of modern consumption is beyond the basic survival and has the connotation of enjoyment, development, self-expression, etc., consumption in the eyes of young people has a special social significance. Many young people in modern society no longer just consider consumption as the survival needs, but as a big stage to show their innovation capability, so that young people's consumption behaviors have features of restless pursuit of the avant-garde and innovative (Wang, 2012). Being pioneer and advocator of fashion and leading the trend of the social consumption with its own unique consumption culture and taste become the most prominent features ofconsumption behaviors of modern youth consumers. With the socio-economic and cultural development, and the improvement of income levels, the quality of innovation and consumption ability, the characteristics of initiative and leading main activities of the youth in popular culture will become increasingly prominent. Their dominant position will become increasingly visible and important. In the past two decades, several consumption popular cultures with great impact in the world were closely related to the main characteristics of consumer behaviors of the youth. For example, yuppie fashion of attention to brands and advocating luxury consumer goods rose in Europe and America in 1980s. The frugal environmentally friendly fashion of advocating less energy consumption, reducing pollution and natural regression appeared in 1990s. Both the advocators and practitioners were the youth.In addition to innovation of avant-garde young people, popular culture of consumption in modern society is largely stimulated by new products to market and consumption advertising of the manufacturers, such as three-dimensional advertising when manufacturers put new products into market, the showing of popular consumption styles and consumption goods from developed countries through the mass media. But these new consumption goods and styles on advertising are not identified, accepted and practiced by the youth at the beginning. Youth’s idea is emancipated. They are curious and most easy to find and accept new things, new ideas and new behaviors, and thus are always the testers of new products and new models and active promoters of new consumption patterns. Early 1980s, when Souba pants, jeans and tights went into China, they were braved all kinds of criticism and disapproval. The youth wore them with the contempt attitudes for convention. It was their demonstration effect that these clothing called "bourgeois fancy dress" was extended to the rest of society at different levels of ages, and ultimately got the community's identity and following. Now, it is still the cowboy fashion. Premium sound, DVD players, mobile phones, computers and internet appeared in 1990s were also the first to be accepted and enjoyed by the youth, thus forming the spectacular high-tech appliances fashion. It there were no keen perception, acceptance andpositive demonstration of new consumption products and styles of the youth, the new consumption products and styles would be difficult to go public and form consumption popular cultures to change consumers’ a ttitudes and behaviors one after another. Youth groups’ behavior characteristics of positive demonstration of new consumption products and styles bring convenience for manufacturers to promote their new business and services. Manufacturers’ advertisements are always targeting to youth. They use emotional expression and language which youth prefers and use teen idols as advertising model to attract the attention of young people to their new products (Bingqing, 2011, p 192). They make young people get recognition and acceptance, and then their products can be spread to all sectors of society under the first demonstration in youth, thus forming influential popular culture consumption. The leading consumption behaviors of youth when they face new products and new advertising have become indispensable stimulus strength to increase and expand costumers' demands in modern society.Youth’s conformity consumption behaviors become the main characteristic of popular culture consumption. For the whole youth groups, the youth who play the role of pioneers in consumer popular culture are the minority, and the number of youth as fuglemen and demonstrators is also limited (Yu, 2010, p 7). As pioneers and demonstrators of popular culture, they need a strong quality of autonomy, independence and innovative. In addition, they also need for more adequate leisure time with strong spending power. For the youth with relatively poor autonomy, busy academic and work and limited spending power, their main consumption behaviors are to chase popular culture. This part of youth yearns for each consumption popular culture. They are envious of the advocators who express their own unique fashion by their clothing, food, shelter, and other daily consumptions. They are also envious of life styles and dress of various famous stars that frequently appear on mass media. They think that only like them, they can show their youthful vigor. Thus they are always scrambling to emulate their idols’ consumption patterns. They believe that what is popular is good and beautiful and they can choose and follow it withoutthinking. Since 1980s, the appearance of consumption popular culture such as star craze, dancing craze, fashion craze, luxury wedding craze, wedding color photo craze, home improvement craze, high-tech appliances craze, and so on created huge consumer forces after the formation of consumption popular culture through many youth’s comparisons and chases. Youth’s consumer behavior characteristics of following, conformity and comparisons of consumption popular culture on the one hand play a role of stimulating and pulling the social consumption demands, increasing consumption of the whole society and promoting economic development (Ren, 2012, p 354). On the other hand, some of the youth are naïve with poor independent, strong herd, blind credulity and like comparisons, so they are easy to be injured by bad consumption culture. In this regard, youth consumer behavior has the obvious features of passivity in popular culture consumption. Therefore, it specially needs community to strengthen their education of consumption attitudes and guide their consumer behaviors to enhance the ability of identify and resilience to adverse consumption of popular culture.ConclusionSince the subculture directly affects social psychosocial environment for people to live, its influence is often greater than the dominant culture. It can give people particular spirit and temperament belonging to a group or collective to identify the identities. Generally speaking, youth subcultures reflect the adult cultures, but in particular, the youth subculture is unique. Although the proportion of the generation after 80s in the total national population is small (less than 15%), as an important force in the future of Chinese society, they are increasingly becoming the focus of the entire community. They have optimistic expectations of future income and there is a huge contrast between their consumer values and traditional forms of consumption. Their huge consumption potential heralds the arrival of a new wave of consumption and rapidly becoming the new main consumers of China. This generation grew up with Chinese popular culture and their consumption psychology was impacted by the popular culture. The correlation between the characteristics of youth consumerbehavior and modern popular culture of consumption is the result of conjunction of contemporary youth’s unique social and psychological characteristics and the intrinsic nature of popular culture of consumption. This natural conjunction strengthens the interaction between popular culture of consumption and young people. On one hand, popular culture of consumption must meet youth’s needs of consumption, tastes and values to make youth culture traits affect or even lead the changing content and trend of popular culture of consumption to some extent. 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