Journal of Marketing Management 2002,18,501-516

Avi Shankar^ and James A. Fitchett

Having, Being and Consumption

Marketing needs to recognise the changing priority of consumption. The belief that markets are secure because consumers will continue to be motivated to have an ever-greater array and quantity of goods and services is a shortsighted and erroneous assumption. Consumers are increasingly looking to the market to provide resources and technologies that will enable them to achieve rewarding and sustainable states of 'being'. Drawing on the humanist philosophy of Erich Fromm, this paper advances the case for a 'Marketing of Being', based on a detailed discussion of the changing nature of consumer identity and identification behaviour.

University of Exeter

Keywords: consumer behaviour, consumption, Erich Eromm Introduction

marketing

theory,

identity

and

"Now it might be argued that pleasure seeking is merely a form of satisfaction-seeking in which pleasure is the commodity of which one feels deprived, and that consequently one's search is for the 'satisfaction' which pleasure can bring. Equally, one could claim that satisfaction is merely a form of pleasure-seeking, in which safisfaction is the name we give to conditions produced by the experience of pleasure. Interesfingly, however, although such a juggling with words appears to bring the two concepfions close together, it is clear that a difference remains. Eor, in the one case, the stress is upon a state of being, whilst in the other, it is upon the quality of experience, and although interrelated those carvnot be directly equated." (Campbell 1986: 61, italics added) It seems to have become generally acceptable in some circles of the marketing academy to reject economic thought as ever being able to offer a ' Correspondence: Avi Shankar, School of Business & Economics, University of Exeter, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4PU, Tel: +44 (0) 1392 263233, Eax: +44 (0) 1392 264425, Email: A.Shankar@exeter.ac.uk ISSN0267-257X/2002/5-600501+15 4.00/0 Westbum Publishers Ltd.

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progressive academic agenda. This view, fostered mainly by postmodern markefing and consumer research scholars who are crifically orientated and culturally focussed, remains credible in many regards. However, all of us who live in 'developed western' consumer cultures do owe at least some gratitude to the principles of economics. For some time now governments have looked to political economy as a source of ideas and models to build and run society based on the terms and conditions of free market capitalism. As a result, we live in societies with relatively liberal social and polifical regimes. We have access to an enormous array of products and services that we can choose to use in a plethora of ways to achieve our goals. We have, at least relative to our ancestors, more leisure time, more freedom and more goods to play and construct our idenfities with, the potential to engage in a more varied set of experiences, and we also generally have more things. The problem of course is that despite what the principles of economics may state, these benefits have not necessarily made life any better, any easier or any less problematic in terms of lived experience (e.g. Gergen 1991; Giddens 1991). The ability to attain, i.e. to have, material wealth and material prosperity does not seem to resolve all of the anxieties and dissatisfactions which human beings appear to experience as part of their daily lives (e.g. Richins, McKeage and Najjar 1992). Indeed, as many critics of capitalism eagerly remind those involved in marketing, consumer society may actually heighten feelings of dissatisfaction, disaffection, anxiety and insafiable desire simply by the fact that individuals are made fully aware of what they could have. Many social theorists have discussed the idea that 'desire to have' rather than the desire for parficular things or objects defines, creates and extenuates consumer dissafisfacfion. Campbell's (1986) discussion of the romantic ethic is an accessible and well-grounded exemplar of this tradifion. Eor Campbell (1986) consumer desire is propagated by the disparity between idealised or imagined consumer expectations and the actual experience of consumption by the consumer. Put simply, individuals feel dissatisfied and incomplete, and construct idealised notions of what life would be like if these feelings were no longer present. The disparity between the current realised state of being and the imagined future idealised state of being thus creates a sense of desire for things or objects that are perceived to allow the individual to get from the former to the latter. The reconciliafion of dissatisfied states of being thus becomes displaced and transferred into certain activities of having. The system of desire is sustained by the fact that once one acquires those things or objects expected to safisfy, one soon realises that the same feelings of desire and dissafisfaction are still present and so the cycle of imagining ways to achieve satisfacfion only to experience continued dissafisfaction is continually perpetuated. Of course considerable amounts of material goods, services and resources are exchanged in the process. Campbell comments:

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"Eor there is plenty of evidence to suggest that human beings in all cultures are capable of developing addicfions. One could say that the Spanish conquistadors had an insatiable greed for gold, or that Duan Juan was similarly hard to satisfy when it came to women. Such insatiable appetites, however, typically have a single product focus, as it is the case with alcoholism and drug addicfion; by contrast, the modem consumer (although no proof against such temptation) is characterised by an
insatiability which arises out of a basic inexhaustibility of wants themselves

which forever rise, phoenix like, from the ashes of their predecessors." (Campbell 1986: 37, italics added) Markets and marketing have undeniably prospered from this continual cycle of insafiable consumer desire. Marketing offers consumers both the symbolic resources they need to construct idealized safisfied futures, and the material goods and services that offer but never deliver long term safisfaction. Indeed, if one were to undertake a strategic analysis of marketing itself, that is to consider marketing as constituting a more or less coherent industry, discourse, and social relation, such a state of affairs has a clear short term benefit. Although certain markets, or some firms in parficular markets may benefit or suffer from the forces of competition, the general status of markefing conditions has, on aggregate, prospered from a mixture of short term consumer expectations and perpetual long term consumer dissatisfaction. Over the last fifty years or so, markets have boomed and grown. Ever newer and larger markets have emerged to replace older and smaller ones. The market, together with the flow of goods and services on which it is founded, has emerged as a defining social form. But what if we were to contemplate the thought that consumers may one day get disaffected and bored with a cycle of dissatisfying consumpfion? Markets have grown because consumers have actively sought out ever more exofic ways to safisfy what Campbell refers to as the "basic inexhaustibility of wants themselves". There is a strong prophesy in the canon of marketing thought to suggest that this might one day be the case. Although Levitt's (1960) classic and oft cited tract on marketing myopia may have inifially been developed as a warning to all those product orientated, seemingly untouchable blue chip industries, its lessons are equally applicable to the paradigm of marketing itself. A time may emerge when consumers are no longer prepared to buy into a discourse of 'having' as a system to achieve satisfaction and contentment. Economic efficiencies and market democracy has meant that individuals are increasingly able to have more and more, whilst at the same time feeling equally (if not ever more) dissatisfied with their on-going state of being. It is not problematic for the market as it is currently organised if individuals recognise that life is tedious and

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incomplete as long as they also believe that having a BMW, or the latest fashion will make it less so. However, marketing becomes increasingly vulnerable once consumers have BMW's and have the latest fashions but still feel that life is tedious and incomplete. In the not to distant future, marketing interests everywhere may well have to face up to the realisation that they could be judged as guilty of short sightedness, and of failing to understand and react to consumers' rising sense of disenchantment. There are signs in our societies that could be interpreted as indicating a gradual loss of faith in the marketing logic of having. Voluntary simplicity movements, downsizing, the search for communitas (Cova 1997), and the increasing popularity of conventional and altemative religious movements can be taken as indicators of the failure of the market to deliver consumers with sustainable safisfying states of being as opposed to short term gratifications of having. One of the reasons why such movements appeal to some people is that they seem to offer a less superficial, less transient product offering than that offered by the mass market place. Nor is it only those less fortunate in terms of wealth and consumption power that are showing signs of disaffection. Even having the expensive house in a desirable neighbourhood, a luxury car on the drive, an impressive and exclusive wardrobe, and multiple photograph albums recording visits to exotic locations does not seem to be capable of guaranteeing the 'successful consumer' long term contentment and fulfilment. It is thus somewhat unsurprising that people from all levels of the consumer society have begun to contemplate the possibility of more satisfying ways of life, free from the heavy mortgage and loan repayments, and continual and ever quickening fashion lifecycies. As soon as consumers feel that the benefits offered by the social contract of the market are no longer worth the costs, or that the market is incapable of ever delivering on its promises long term, it is not individual firms or markets that are threatened but the very function of marketing itself. The logic of this proposition is quite simple: marketing pracfitioners may well find it necessary to seriously explore ways that will enable consumers to be more satisfied, rather than relying on an assumpfion that consumers will continue to accept that having more will be satisfying in itself. The dichotomy of having and being is not only of current concem. Indeed, it is a central feature of both classical and Enlightenment thought. It has a direct relation to many fundamental philosophical axioms, for example, betw^een idealism and materialism, and between existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism. Eor the purpose of this discussion where the emphasis is on the relevance to marketing and consumption, the writings of Erich Fromm are perhaps most accessible and applicable.

Having, Being and Consumption Erich Fromm: To have, or to be?

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Erich Eromm (1900-1980), a one-fime member of the Erankfurt School of Crifical Theory, has been described as a humanisfically inspired neo-Marxist, neo-Ereudian, academic and psychoanalyst. His humanist ideals - that is, conceptualising people as creative, meaning making, agentic beings (Misiak and Sexton 1973), - and his rejection of Ereud's emphasis on intemal repressed libidinal drives in underpinning our personality, led Fromm to develop theories of the mind that are externally rather than intemally focused (Tomlinson 1999). Certain parallels can be drawn between Fromm and Jacques Lacan here. Whereas Lacan emphasised the relationship between the psychology of the self and the structures of language and representation, Fromm emphasised humanistic drives, grounded in existenfial and culturally determined needs (Bateman and Holmes 1995). The ontological and methodological implications of a humanisfic perspective have been discussed in markefing and consumer research (e.g. Hirschman 1986). For Eromm, humanistic understanding demands that one considers what it is to be a human being and how people can achieve a more authenfic state of being in a given social context. This can be summed up in one of humanism's guiding principles as 'the full use and exploitation of all one's potenfialifies and capacities' (Misiak and Sexton 1973: 116). Humanism also has parficular resonance with some concepts now being frequently discussed in marketing and consumer behaviour research, especially debates about the post-modem self, self-actualisafion, and singularisafion (Ostergaard et al. 1999). Humanism is underpinned by both phenomenological and existential philosophies, and at one point (mid 1950s onwards) became important as a counterpoint to the dominance of behaviourism within psychology. Indeed many marketing scholars will be familiar with some of the leading exponents of humanism, including Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. However, although psychology came to reject behaviourism, it was not a humanistically grounded psychology that replaced it but rather one that was cognitively grounded. Humanism's implicit socio-political ideology and ideals that focused on the potential of human beings (Parker 1997), inevitably led to a waning interest from the cognitive psychology movement. Fromm's work, like Lacan's, represents a split in academic psychology between a social and cultural tradition on the one hand and a social science tradition on the other. In his seminal text. To have or to be? Fromm (1976) draws on his experience as a practising psychoanalyst and his long and distinguished academic career to propose a powerful and compelling theory:

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"... that having and being are two fimdamental modes of experience, the respective strengths of which determine the differences between the characters of individuals and various types of social character." (Fromm 1976: 26) Fromm's central premise is of course open to a general structuralist crifique (Jackson 1991) now common place in most academic communities. One could rightfully ask what is the foundafion for distinguishing between 'having' and 'being' beyond the need to establish a basic linguisfic structural opposifion for the sake of argument alone? Can the states of 'having' and 'being' really be expected to occupy discrete conceptual categories rather than constituting a common root meaning? Is it not the case that a state of 'having' is also a state of 'being'; that is, consumpfion can be understood as 'being in' a continual state of 'having-ness'? Can our call for greater emphasis on 'being' be rephrased as a statement to the effect that consumers simply want to 'have' a more legitimate way to 'be'? Whilst this conceptual conundrum is no doubt philosophically fascinating, it does not help us address the basic problem facing marketing. If these oppositions are taken as representafional modes of experience rather than implied or embedded categories then they retain certain relevance and utility. The strength of a humanisfically inspired theory lies in its ability to adequately describe and discriminate different modes of the human condition whilst simultaneously envisaging progressive conditions of existence in which we can all thrive and aspire to some form of self-actualisafion. On this basis alone the opposition between 'having' and 'being' is useful for those who are concemed about the future of marketing. The main tenet of Fromm's (1976) theory is that we are increasingly driven by our having mode of existence at the expense of our being mode of existence. Central to his argument is that for the past few hundred years idiomafic changes have occurred in the way that we express ourselves linguistically. An increasing use of nouns to replace verbs has resulted in the mistaken replacement of being by having. Grammafically speaking, nouns are the correct form of expression for things or objects with verbs represenfing acfivities and processes. Whilst Fromm is not generally included in the mainstream canon of post-modern thought, his work demonstrates clear parallels with much of the discussion on the role of language and discourse in constructing aspects of everyday life and experience. As Fromm (1976: 29, original emphasis) comments: "Yet ever more frequently an activity is expressed in terms of having; that is, a noun is used instead of a verb. But to express an activity by to have in connection with a noun is an erroneous use of language, because processes and activities cannot be possessed; they can only be experienced."

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For Fromm, the having mode implies ownership and non-ownership, or having and non-having. To 'have a good lifestyle' rather than 'living a good life' implies that ways of living can in someway be 'had' or owned, as well as the converse. For instance, the value and meaning of 'happiness' can be quite different depending on whether it is represented as something that is 'had' rather than something that is experienced; for example, 'If I have a new automobile I will be happy' rather than 'I am happier when driving my new automobile'. As a noun, 'happiness' becomes an object that is to a certain extent represented as static and fixed. One either has, or does not have, 'happiness'. As an object it can be acquired, lost, and given. It is for this reason that the 'having' mode is most compatible with commodity discourses and commodity relations. The notion of 'having happiness' is incongruous to the 'being' mode. If one wishes to be happy it is necessary to seek out and continually invest in states of being and modes of existence that create feelings of happiness. Furthermore, the state of being happy can soon change unless one continuously takes measures to remain happy. Seeking to 'have' happiness thus becomes a highly questionable project when analysed through this alternafive experiential mode, as do implied claims such as 'this product will give you happiness'. Whilst on one level this distinction may seem somewhat esoteric, it does have some simple implications for marketing when applied in the context of consumer exchange. It offers an alternafive to the potential long-term limitafions of a marketing paradigm predicated on a basis of 'desire to have', in which inevitable dissatisfaction is a necessary and implicit aspect. Located in a 'being mode', the purpose of markefing becomes defined as one involving the design, supply and support of products and services that consumers can consume with the objective of establishing and sustaining favourable states of being. The motivation to consume thus becomes redefined as an active process in which consumers seek to reinforce preferred states of being rather than a cycle of desire to have and own products that are expected or anticipated to provide an unachievable state of satisfaction. The 'having' mode also prioritises ownership of experience over lived experience. In contrast, the 'being' mode of representation prioritises lived experience over ownership. As a pracfising psychoanalyst, Fromm used his ideas to help pafients who presented with marital problems, concluding that many problems lay in the way they conceptualised love and marriage. Love, according to Fromm is best thought of as a verb - a state of being. Fromm observed that his patients more often used love as a noun, as something they possessed. The problem as Fromm sees it, is that when people see love as something that they have, they soon find they have 'fallen out of love':

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"To love is a producfive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea... It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing... When love is experienced in the mode of having it implies confining, imprisoning or controlling the 'object' one loves." Fromm (1976: 52) Fromm's (1957) Art of Loving developed this aspect of his thesis in more depth and provides further illustration of the difference between these two forms of prioritisation. Fromm observes that in most westem sociefies where the 'having' mode now prevails, greater attention appears to now be given to 'getting' and 'having' love and affecfion rather than 'being in' and 'working at maintaining' loving relafionships. For example, statements such as 'I love you', 'I love you because...', 'do you love me?' etc. effecfively constructs love as an attribute, that is, something that one has, gives, or receives to and from someone else. With somewhat of a conservafive moral undertone, Fromm suggests that love can only ever be meaningful if those who claim to be 'in love' recognise that 'being in' love demands continual commitment, understanding, compromise and work. In short, Eromm is critical of the view that love can ever be 'had' in any meaningful or lasting way because 'having' relafionships involve things rather than beings. Fromm supports his argument by idenfifying a number of paradoxes and errors in common representations of love. For instance, he argues that the process of 'falling in love' in westem societies in typically represented as a process of posifive evaluation of attracfiveness (physique, build etc.) and superficial personality traits (wit, humour etc.). Fromm suggests that this representafion of falling in love can be reduced and compared to a type of interpersonal product or packaging evaluation, the only difference being that the two parfies involved are simultaneously cast in the role of consumer and product for each other. The developing literature on relationship marketing (RM) suggests that many marketers have begun to recognise a real need to evaluate consumers in terms of on-going, life time interactions in which long term value and trust form the cornerstone of exchange relationships. Fromm's work can be read in this context. For these types of marketing initiatives to be effective, it is essential that consumers be conceived in terms of their own on going and experientially lived requirements and needs rather than in terms of a series or chain of ownership transactions. Several crifiques of relafionship marketing (e.g. O'Malley and Tynan 1998; Fitchett and McDonagh 2000) identify a number of problems with current attempts at implementing such relafional contexts between firms and consumers. One of the main areas of critique is that whilst firms profess to implement RM, the lived experience of such initiatives from a consumer perspective is less than satisfactory. For the consumer, 'being in' an on-going relafionship with an organisation is only

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preferenfial to a 'having' mode if this state of being is rewarding and meaningful. Having, Being and Identity Fromm's main contribufions to theories of marketing lie in the areas of consumer behaviour and identity. In order to develop further an understanding of the consumer as an 'agent of being' it is thus necessary to consider consumer identity, or consumer identificafion in specific depth. As Fromm clearly identifies, consumpfion is largely synonymous with having, 'to consume is one form of having, and perhaps the most important one for today's affiuent industrialised society...' (Fromm 1976: 36). Pre-empting Belk (1988), he continues: 'modern consumers may idenfify themselves with the formula: I am = what I have and consume'. As Bauman (2001) comments: "No other aspect of contemporary life, it seems, attracts the same amount of attention these days from philosophers, social scienfists and psychologists. It is not just that 'idenfity studies' are fast becoming a thriving industry in their own right; more than that is happening - one may say that 'idenfity' has now become a prism through which other topical aspects of contemporary life are spotted, grasped and examined." (Bauman 2001:140) Consumer researchers, sociologists and psychologists have all idenfified consumpfion as a means of constructing and expressing idenfity (e.g. Bauman 1988; Beck 1992; Belk 1988; Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981; Giddens 1991; Dittmar 1992; Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998; Gabriel and Lang 1995; McCracken 1990). Many contemporary analyses in consumer research can be understood as 'rehashed and refurbished to fit the discourse now rotafing around the idenfity axis' (Bauman 2001: 141). One of the reasons why quesfions of identity have become so hotly debated and contested in the social sciences and the humanifies, i.e. quesfions concerrung 'who am I?', is because the construct of idenfity has itself undergone a Fronunian conversion. Earlier academic traditions that defined and developed the study of idenfity tended to conceive it as a 'thing'. Identity was imderstood as something that individuals were either given birth or something that resided somewhere inside the mind. This representation thus constructs idenfity as something that is had, or something the individual possessed. Kellner (1992: 141) reflects: "... one's idenfity was fixed, solid and stable. Idenfity was as a funcfion of predefined social roles and a tradifional system of myths which provided orientation and religious sancfion to one's place in the world... One was

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bom and died a member of one's clan, a member of a fixed kinship system, and a member of one's tribe or group with one's life trajectory fixed in advance... idenfity was unproblemafic and not subject to reflection or discussion. Individuals did not undergo identity crises, or radically modify their idenfity. One was a hunter a member of a tribe and that was that." Although Kellner views this characterisafion of idenfity as descripfive of premodern or feudal sociefies, it can be easily transposed onto contemporary theories of modern idenfity. For example, if 'a tradifional system of myths' is replaced with 'habitus' and 'religious sancfion' with 'social sancfion', Bourdieu's (1984) theory of disfincfion is clearly applicable. The priorifisafion of reason, rationalism and cognifivism that lies at the heart of modemity first challenged and then replaced prior axioms underpinning the representafion and definitiori of identity and identity issues. In place of theological doctrine that had anointed idenfity upon the individual, modemity establishes 'the individual as a cognifive subject and the centre of the life world' (Firat and Venkatesh 1995: 261) that 'consfitutes, perceives, interprets and presents ourselves to ourselves' (Kellner 1992: 143). Moreover, a stable unitary self was a necessary construcfion for modemist philosophers if their project to undermine theological prescription as the basis of knowledge was to be credible (Elliott 2001). Throughout modemity, personal idenfity gradually emerged as a substanfial self with an innate and self-idenfical essence. Kellner (1992:142) comments: "...from Descartes' cogito to Kant's and Husserl's transcendental ego, to the Enlightenment concept of reason, idenfity is conceived as something essenfial, substanfial, unitary, fixed and fundamentally unchanging." Throughout the late modem period, later to be intensified in the postmodern period, the enlightenment construcfion of idenfity based on a transcendental, essenfialist, rafional, and unified sense of self began to disintegrate. However, as the range and scope of mulfiple idenfity posifions expanded they had to be incorporated subjectively by the individual. As Martin and Sugarman (2001:104) comment, our social identifies are those: "socially-constructed and socially meaningful categories... appropriated and intemalised by individuals as descriptive of themselves and/or various groups to which they belong." Throughout the history of modemity there is an ever-greater opportunity for the individual to refiect on and choose amongst various social categories that

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were either available to or aspired to by the individual. However, as Kellner (1992) notes, social structure, social norms and social expectations also limited and fixed potentiality and individual choice for the self. Personal identities still had to be socially reinforced and legitimised. Despite these constraints, is important to recognise the shift in modernity towards identity as a process. This shift is perhaps most clearly emphasised in the work of the Symbolic Interactionist movement (e.g. Mead, Cooley and Blumer), which emphasised identity as a 'social construction, crafted through linguistic exchanges with others' (Harter 1997: 81). The culmination of this transition from identity as object to identity as process is further discussed by Bauman (2001) who suggests that rather than speak of identity it would be more appropriate to theorise about identification. Contemporary cultural theorists such as Foucault further expanded understanding of the self and identity and have provided the basis for postmodern theories of the self. Two streams of his thinking have influenced postmodem theories of identity. The 'archaeological' Foucault emphasises how our identities w^ere crafted and created through discourse. The 'technologies of the self Foucault re-emphasises agency rather than structure in identity construction. Best and Kellner (1991: 60-61) conclude: "...Foucault shifts the focus from technologies of domination, where subjects are dominated and objectified by others through discourses and practices, to technologies of the self, where individuals create their own identities through ethics and forms of self-constitution." The development of Foucault's work characterises two different views of the postmodem self that are now apparent in much contemporary theorising on identity. The first perspective views society as dystopian and alienating, thereby creating fragmented, empty, multiphrenic consumers who seek compensation through the consumption of signs, spectacles, and the superficial (Baudrillard 1988; Cushman 1990; Gergen 1991; Jameson 1990). This is the self of the sceptical postmodernist (Rosenau 1992). The second perspective adopts a more optimisfic view of the postmodern consumer, interpreting, for example the chaotic nature of contemporary culture as a liberating force that frees the individual from conformity (Firat and Venkatesh 1995). This is the self of the affirmative postmodernists (Rosenau 1992). As traditional institutions and discourses (family, social class, work etc.) that formally provided the basis of identity are seen to disintegrate, a new consumption focused discourse has emerged to replace it (Firat and Shultz 1997). Consequently, the postmodem self is characterised as a being defined by consumption and experiences derived from consumer based activities and roles:

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"In customising oneself to (re)present marketable (self-) images, the consumer is interacfing with other objects in the market to produce oneself... consumpfion is increasingly becoming a producfive process, goal orientated and purposeful." (Firat, Dholakia and Venkatesh 1995: 52) Other research has argued that markefing technologies, such as brands, have become crucial resources through which individuals are able to creatively construct and express the multitude of identities that are open to them (Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998). This liberatory postmodem argument holds that individuality, identity and the self are ultimately and continually negotiable through appropriate consumption choices in which 'the individual is able to restructure his/her identity in the face of overpowering market forces' (Eirat and Venkatesh 1995: 255). In summary, contemporary conceptualisations of the self reject identity as an object that one is given, has, owns or possesses. Rather, identifies are created, or as Butler (1990) suggests, performed. Our identity, or who we are at any moment in fime, is simply a way of being. Eurthermore consumer researchers (amongst others) are suggesfing that it is through the consumption of symbolically meaningful categories and brands that enable the individual to construct and create identity, or rather perform
identification.

This argument is contrary to the axiom that dates back at least to William
James (1890: 291) that states that "a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can

call his"; an axiom that has consistently been reinforced in consumer research (Belk 1988; Richins 1994; Kleine, Kleine and Allen 1995). It is inaccurate to assume we are what we have, the sum of all our possessions. Rather, the possessions that consumers have and seek to acquire must ultimately be understood and valued by the extent to which they allow, enable or facilitate a positive sense of being and identification.

Helping Consumers to Be
Contrary to the wisdom offered by popular axioms and cliches, consumers do not seek simply to have more and more. Such reasoning may well have had some validity during the birth of mass consumer culture, when previously consumers had little or nothing. But today's consumers, at least in the developed west, have a great deal, and spend most of their efforts and energies supporfing and financing what they have. A markefing ethos founded on the assumption that consumers will want to have ever more things for the sake of 'having' alone must be seen increasingly as an historical artefact. Contemporary social life requires much more of the individual than ever before. The consumer must design his or her own consumer lifestyle to

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meet a plethora of requirements and expectations that extend far beyond the provision of material welfare. Individuals seek sustainable and viable idenfifies and life-meanings that have a long-term presence, and use consumpfion as an important mechanism to achieve them. Markefing activifies have an important, perhaps the most important, role to play in helping consumers to manage social life but can only perform this role if the changing nature of markets and consumption is acknowledged. Marketing efforts need to be geared towards helping consumers achieve and maintain viable and rewarding states of being by providing the resources and technologies necessary to establish and support the continual process of identification and identity creation. The conceptual basis for a 'Marketing of Being' has already begun to be developed to some extent in relationship marketing literature, experiential consumpfion literature and can even be grounded in foundafional theories such as the Marketing Concept. However, in order for a theory of markefing to be advanced that embraces the notion of 'being-ness' seriously and progressively, it is necessary to acknowledge consumer expectations and requirements of the market far beyond the point of purchase and buying situafions. In order for consumer behaviour to be responded to as a state of being, marketing activities must also be designed to be facilitative of being-ness rather than geared to towards the short-term goal of satisfying the motivation and drive to have.

References
Bateman, Anthony and Holmes, Jeremy (1995), Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Contemporary Theory and Practice, London: Routledge Baudrillard, Jean (1988), "Consumer Society", in Poster, Mark. (Ed) Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Stanford: Stanford University Press Bauman, Zygmunt (2001), The Individualized Society, Cambridge: Polity Beck, Ulrich. (1992), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage Belk, Russell (1988), "Possessions and the Extended Self", Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (September), pp. 139-168. Best, Steven and Kellner, Douglas (1991), Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Bourdieu, Pierre (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste,

London: Routledge
Butler, Judith (1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,

London: Routledge
Campbell, Colin (1986), The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell

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Cushman, P. (1990) "Why the Self is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology", American Pyschologist, 45(5),pp. 599-611 Cova, Bernard (1997), "Community and consumption: Towards a definifion of the "linking value" of product or services", European Journal of Marketing, 31, 3/4, pp. 297-316 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Rochberg-Halton, Eugene (1981), The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dittmar, Helga. (1992), The Social Psychology of Material Possessions, Harvester Wheatsheaf: St Martin's Press Elliott, Anthony (2001), Concepts of the Self Cambridge: Polity Press Elliott, Richard and Wattanasuwan, Krit (1998), "Brands as symbolic resources for the construcfion of idenfity". International Journal of Advertising, 17, pp. 131-144 Firat, A. Euat and Venkatesh, Alladi (1995), "Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumpfion", Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (December), pp. 239-267 Firat, A. Euat, Dholakia, Nikolai and Venkatesh, Alladi (1995), "Markefing in a postmodern world", European Journal of Marketing, 29, pp. 40-56 Eirat, A. Fuat and Shultz, Clifford (1997), "From segmentafion to fragmentation: Markets and marketing in the postmodem era", European Journal of Marketing, 31 (3/4), pp. 183-207 Fitchett, James A. and McDonagh, Pierre (2000), "A Cifizens Crifique of Relafionship Marketing in Risk Society," Journal of Strategic Marketing, 8, pp. 209-222 Fromm, Erich (1976), To have or to be?, London: Jonathan Cape Fromm, Erich (1957), The Art of Loving, London: George Allen and Unwin Gabriel, Yannis and Lang, Tim (1995), The Unmanageable Consumer, London: Sage Gergen, Kenneth (1991) The Saturated Self Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, New York: Basic Books Giddens, Anthony (1991), Modernity and Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity Press Harter, Susan. (1997) "The Personal Self in Social Context: Barriers to Authenficity: In: Self and Identity: Fundamental Issues, (Eds.) Ashmore, Richard. D. and Jussim, Lee, Oxford: Oxford University Press Hirschman, Elizabeth C. (1986), "Humanisfic Inquiry in Marketing Research: Philosophy, Method and Criteria, Journal of Marketing Research, XXIII, August, pp. 237-249 Jackson, Leonard (1991), The Poverty of Structuralism, Harlow: Longman James, William (1890), Principles of Psychology, New York: Henry Holt

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Jameson, Fredric (1990) "Post Modemism and Consumer Society": In Foster, H. (Ed) Post Modern Culture, London: Pluto Kellner, Douglas (1992), "Popular culture and the construction of postmodern identities". In: Modernity and Identity, edited by Scott Lash and John Eriedman, Oxford: Blackwell Kleine, Susan S. Kleine III, Robert E. and Allen, Chris T. (1995), "How is a Possession "Me" or "Not Me"? Characterizing Types and an Antecedent of Material Possession Attachment", Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (December), pp. 327-343 Levitt, Theodore (1960), "Marketing Myopia," Harvard Business Review, JulyAugust Martin, Jack And Sugarman, Jeff (2001), "Is the Self a Kind of Understanding?" Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 31(1), pp. 103114. McCracken, Grant (1990), Culture and Consumption, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press Misiak, Henryk and Sexton, Virginia Staudt (1973), Phenomenological, Existential and Humanistic Psychologies: A Historical Survey, New York: Grune and Stratton O'Malley, Lisa and Tynan, Caroline (1998), "Relationship Marketing in Consumer Markets: Rhetoric or Reality?" European Journal of Marketing, 34 (7), pp. 797-815 Ostergaard, Per, Fitchett, James A. and Jantzen, Christian (1999) "Consumption as Appropriation and Singualrisafion of Goods", Advances in Consumer Research, 26, pp. 405-409 Parker, Ian (1997) Psychoanalytic Culture: Psychoanalytic Discourse in Western Society, London: Sage Richins, Marsha, Kim, L., McKeage, K.R. and Najjar, Debbie (1992) "An Exploration of Materialism and Consumption Related Affect", Advances in Consumer Research 19, pp. 229-236 Richins, Marsha, L. (1994) "Valuing Things: The Public and Private Meanings of Possessions," Journal of Consumer Research, 21(December), pp. 504-521 Rosenau, Pauline (1992), Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads and Intrusions, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press Tomlinson, (1999), "Erich Fromm": In Cashmore, Ellis and Rojeck, Chris Cultural Theorists, London: Arnold About the Authors Avi Shankar is a lecturer in markefing and consumer research at the University of Exeter. His research has been published in a variety of joumals including the International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Marketing

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Management, Qualitative Marketing Research: An International Journal and

Consumption, Markets and Culture. Currently he is trying to finish his PhD. James A Fitchett is a lecturer in marketing and consumer research at the University of Exeter. His research has considered a range of issues involved with cultural readings of consumption, including aspects of commodificafion, environmentalism, tourism and museum visiting. His current research focus examines the changing nature of consumer culture including a critique of its moral foiindation and expression.