Lifestyle is described as “a way of life of an individual, group, community, or a culture that reflects respective values, attitudes, world view or viewpoint.”Lifestyle can also be defined as the interests and opinions, behaviours and behavioural inclination of an individual, community, or culture.
Lifestyle Meaning and History
The concept “lifestyle” was first propounded in a book “The Case of Miss R.” by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. In his book Alfred Adler proposed that lifestyle is “a person’s basic character as established early in childhood.” However, lifestyle as “a way of life or the style of living” was not documented until 1960. Today, the meaning of lifestyle is not just “a way of life or the style of living,” it is a metric to determine tangible and intangible factors. Tangible factors are related to the demographic variables (demography of a community or an individual), where as intangible factors are the variables like values, preferences, behaviour, and viewpoint. Lifestyle of a person is the way he lives and perceptions he holds. Things like education, income, religion, politics, relationship, location shape up a lifestyle of a person or community.
An individual’s lifestyle is not limited to just himself, or his close circle, it can even pass into generations. For example, children will always adopt their parents’ lifestyle. They are likely to do what their parents have done, they are likely to believe what their parents have believed.
How Businesses and Brands Promote Lifestyle Values to Generate Sales
Today, lifestyle is interpreted in a broader sense. The term covers everything from your social position, life pattern, shopping behaviour, health issues, to political and religious inclination, sexual orientation etc. Lifestyle gives an identity to an individual or community. Your lifestyle defines who you are, what you do, what you think, how you live etc. Businesses and brands truly understand how important it is to understand the lifestyle f the target audience in order to sell their products. They understand the lifestyle of their target audience and create a marketing plan according. For a product to sell, businesses and brands need to understand the social position, perception, and living style of the target consumer.
Since the early time, discussion on lifestyle, by and large, has been focused on the analysis of social structure and the position of a person inside this social structure. Based on their lifestyle, people have been classified as superior or inferior. Even today, lifestyle is the most visible manifestation of social differentiation.
When Alfred Adler conceptualized lifestyle, he was basically interpreting lifestyle as a style of personality defined by his/her perception. This early principle of lifestyle has influenced the later discussion on lifestyle. Interests and opinions are fundamental components of lifestyle.
The later discussions on lifestyle primarily focus on consumer behaviour. The products you buy and consume define your lifestyle. You construct your self-image through the products you acquire and use.
Today, lifestyle is primarily defined by businesses and media. A company launches a new mobile phone and it promotes the handset as must have lifestyle product. That’s how a commodity becomes lifestyle. Media constantly feeds us what we should eat, what we should wear, where we should go, what we should do. Media shapes up our lifestyle.
Lifestyle Marketing: Selling Lifestyle Not the Products
The lifestyle is the way of life of an individual, group or community and it does not only include the style of life but also perception, attitude, behavioural inclination, identity etc. The way of life, interests, behavior, viewpoints, and preferences are entirely different between the people living in rural areas and urban areas. Even within the rural or urban space, these metrics differ according to the neighborhood where the person is living or his/her income, education, and upbringing. Geography, culture, and environment are very important metrics while determining the lifestyle of a person or community. People living in coastal areas have an entirely different lifestyle compared to the people living in the mountains. Therefore, lifestyle is an identity, cultural symbol, behavioral inclination, preferences, and viewpoint of a person or community. Sometimes lifestyle is also identified with the consumption behavior of people. Those who consume less resource have “green lifestyle,” those who buy a lot of goods for life improvement have “consumerist lifestyle.”
The lifestyle brand is the brand that incorporates values and aspirations of people or group that they can identity as their own.
The lifestyle products are the products that consumers believe can fortify their image or self realization of who they are. The lifestyle brands hit on the emotional and psychological chords of consumers to market their lifestyle products.
So, what exactly is lifestyle marketing?
When you look at the advertorials of Harley Davidson, what kind of impression do you get? Well, Harley Davidson portrays adventure, freedom, carefree life. How could Harley Davidson, just a bike become a symbol of adventure, freedom, carefree life for people around the world? The answer is Harley Davidson marketed adventure, freedom, carefree life and not the bike itself.
Let’s take another example. Dove is a toiletry and cosmetic brand with a range of products like soap, shampoo, hair conditioner etc. Dove uses real women in its ad campaigns in the form of experiments. By using women from everyday life, Dove has successfully hit the chord of common women. Unlike other brands that use celebrities to endorse their brands, Dove ambassadors are common women. A lot of people understand celebrities are plastic beauty. Dove has been able to cash on this idea of real beauty by endorsing its products using common women.
The lifestyle marketing does not center on the product. It does not endorse products as having this and that benefit, it rather focus on the kind of life the target consumers want. By using psychographics in their marketing campaign, lifestyle brands promote their products as something that will help the consumer redefine or enhance his/her identity. Lifestyle marketing centers on the thought that by using this product, the consumer will be able to live a kind of life they always wanted.
The lifestyle marketing focuses on two basic things, one interest, perception, attitude, behavioural inclination of the consumer; two, the content that will attract consumers (marketing materials).
Keeping customers’ interests and their day-to-day life in mind, the lifestyle brands create content that are related to the consumers, the kind of content that consumers can identity and associate. The lifestyle marketing does not necessarily sell a product or a service directly, it rather creates content that portrays the lifestyle that the consumers want.
The lifestyle marketing focuses less on features and benefits of the product, and more on the content that talks about the experience and lifestyle that actually matter to the customers.
Let’s take an example of Red Bull. There are a lot of energy drinks like Red Bull, however, Red Bull is the brand that the mass recognizes. Red Bull has been able to capture the mass through lifestyle marketing campaigns that portrays adrenaline rush (their marketing campaign clearly says Red Bull gives you wings). Red Bull promotes adventure, fun, and risk-taking behaviour through its content.
There was a time when marketing campaign specifically focused on the features and benefits of the product. However, these days, instead of selling a product by highlighting features and benefits, lifestyle brands use lifestyle content to market the products. Lifestyle brands create content that promotes the kind of life the consumers actually want. The content portraits aesthetics, ideals, and aspirations of the target audience. These days you don’t see ads that highlights the benefits of the product or pitches the features of the product, instead the ads focuses on presenting a lifestyle that the target consumers dream of. When businesses are using celebrities or influencers to market their product, they are not actually promoting the product, they are creating a vision in the consumers’ mind of life that particular celebrity or influencer represents.
Lifestyle Meaning and History
The concept “lifestyle” was first propounded in a book “The Case of Miss R.” by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. In his book Alfred Adler proposed that lifestyle is “a person’s basic character as established early in childhood.” However, lifestyle as “a way of life or the style of living” was not documented until 1960. Today, the meaning of lifestyle is not just “a way of life or the style of living,” it is a metric to determine tangible and intangible factors. Tangible factors are related to the demographic variables (demography of a community or an individual), where as intangible factors are the variables like values, preferences, behaviour, and viewpoint. Lifestyle of a person is the way he lives and perceptions he holds. Things like education, income, religion, politics, relationship, location shape up a lifestyle of a person or community.
An individual’s lifestyle is not limited to just himself, or his close circle, it can even pass into generations. For example, children will always adopt their parents’ lifestyle. They are likely to do what their parents have done, they are likely to believe what their parents have believed.
How Businesses and Brands Promote Lifestyle Values to Generate Sales
Today, lifestyle is interpreted in a broader sense. The term covers everything from your social position, life pattern, shopping behaviour, health issues, to political and religious inclination, sexual orientation etc. Lifestyle gives an identity to an individual or community. Your lifestyle defines who you are, what you do, what you think, how you live etc. Businesses and brands truly understand how important it is to understand the lifestyle f the target audience in order to sell their products. They understand the lifestyle of their target audience and create a marketing plan according. For a product to sell, businesses and brands need to understand the social position, perception, and living style of the target consumer.
- Lifestyle defines social position
Since the early time, discussion on lifestyle, by and large, has been focused on the analysis of social structure and the position of a person inside this social structure. Based on their lifestyle, people have been classified as superior or inferior. Even today, lifestyle is the most visible manifestation of social differentiation.
- Lifestyles define perception
When Alfred Adler conceptualized lifestyle, he was basically interpreting lifestyle as a style of personality defined by his/her perception. This early principle of lifestyle has influenced the later discussion on lifestyle. Interests and opinions are fundamental components of lifestyle.
- Lifestyles is style of action
The later discussions on lifestyle primarily focus on consumer behaviour. The products you buy and consume define your lifestyle. You construct your self-image through the products you acquire and use.
- Lifestyle in the context of consumerism
Today, lifestyle is primarily defined by businesses and media. A company launches a new mobile phone and it promotes the handset as must have lifestyle product. That’s how a commodity becomes lifestyle. Media constantly feeds us what we should eat, what we should wear, where we should go, what we should do. Media shapes up our lifestyle.
Lifestyle Marketing: Selling Lifestyle Not the Products
The lifestyle is the way of life of an individual, group or community and it does not only include the style of life but also perception, attitude, behavioural inclination, identity etc. The way of life, interests, behavior, viewpoints, and preferences are entirely different between the people living in rural areas and urban areas. Even within the rural or urban space, these metrics differ according to the neighborhood where the person is living or his/her income, education, and upbringing. Geography, culture, and environment are very important metrics while determining the lifestyle of a person or community. People living in coastal areas have an entirely different lifestyle compared to the people living in the mountains. Therefore, lifestyle is an identity, cultural symbol, behavioral inclination, preferences, and viewpoint of a person or community. Sometimes lifestyle is also identified with the consumption behavior of people. Those who consume less resource have “green lifestyle,” those who buy a lot of goods for life improvement have “consumerist lifestyle.”
- Lifestyle brand and lifestyle products
The lifestyle brand is the brand that incorporates values and aspirations of people or group that they can identity as their own.
The lifestyle products are the products that consumers believe can fortify their image or self realization of who they are. The lifestyle brands hit on the emotional and psychological chords of consumers to market their lifestyle products.
So, what exactly is lifestyle marketing?
- What is lifestyle marketing?
When you look at the advertorials of Harley Davidson, what kind of impression do you get? Well, Harley Davidson portrays adventure, freedom, carefree life. How could Harley Davidson, just a bike become a symbol of adventure, freedom, carefree life for people around the world? The answer is Harley Davidson marketed adventure, freedom, carefree life and not the bike itself.
Let’s take another example. Dove is a toiletry and cosmetic brand with a range of products like soap, shampoo, hair conditioner etc. Dove uses real women in its ad campaigns in the form of experiments. By using women from everyday life, Dove has successfully hit the chord of common women. Unlike other brands that use celebrities to endorse their brands, Dove ambassadors are common women. A lot of people understand celebrities are plastic beauty. Dove has been able to cash on this idea of real beauty by endorsing its products using common women.
The lifestyle marketing does not center on the product. It does not endorse products as having this and that benefit, it rather focus on the kind of life the target consumers want. By using psychographics in their marketing campaign, lifestyle brands promote their products as something that will help the consumer redefine or enhance his/her identity. Lifestyle marketing centers on the thought that by using this product, the consumer will be able to live a kind of life they always wanted.
- How is lifestyle marketing done?
The lifestyle marketing focuses on two basic things, one interest, perception, attitude, behavioural inclination of the consumer; two, the content that will attract consumers (marketing materials).
Keeping customers’ interests and their day-to-day life in mind, the lifestyle brands create content that are related to the consumers, the kind of content that consumers can identity and associate. The lifestyle marketing does not necessarily sell a product or a service directly, it rather creates content that portrays the lifestyle that the consumers want.
The lifestyle marketing focuses less on features and benefits of the product, and more on the content that talks about the experience and lifestyle that actually matter to the customers.
Let’s take an example of Red Bull. There are a lot of energy drinks like Red Bull, however, Red Bull is the brand that the mass recognizes. Red Bull has been able to capture the mass through lifestyle marketing campaigns that portrays adrenaline rush (their marketing campaign clearly says Red Bull gives you wings). Red Bull promotes adventure, fun, and risk-taking behaviour through its content.
- Using lifestyle content for marketing
There was a time when marketing campaign specifically focused on the features and benefits of the product. However, these days, instead of selling a product by highlighting features and benefits, lifestyle brands use lifestyle content to market the products. Lifestyle brands create content that promotes the kind of life the consumers actually want. The content portraits aesthetics, ideals, and aspirations of the target audience. These days you don’t see ads that highlights the benefits of the product or pitches the features of the product, instead the ads focuses on presenting a lifestyle that the target consumers dream of. When businesses are using celebrities or influencers to market their product, they are not actually promoting the product, they are creating a vision in the consumers’ mind of life that particular celebrity or influencer represents.
Welcome to Admin Junkies