Hello, today we have our own Professor C. Y. Chiu. He is an expert in culture and he will tell us more about lay elitism today. Hello, Professor Chiu, thank you for coming here today. Hello! What is lay elitism? Can you tell us more about this concept? Lay elitism is a social belief about how rewards are distributed in a society. So people holding this belief tend to believe that all the good things in life come together with being in a upper social position. So if you occupy an upper social position, then you’d believe that you would also have friendship, love, very attractive spouse, reputation, respects. Basically everything. I see. So can you tell us more? How does lay elitism affect Chinese consumers? Ah, that is a good question. Now you know in China there is not much upward social mobility. So people tend to stay in the same social stratum for most of their life; but, nonetheless, they believe that if they work hard enough, then they may be able to move up. Although this may actually be a collective illusion. Now in Chinese society, well, starting from many many years ago in the Imperial era, people believe that if they receive good education, they work hard for the public examination, then they can climb up the economic ladder and then become an elite. And so if they become an elite, they believe that they can have everything good in their life. So that give them a very strong achievement motivation. They aspire to become an elite in the society. If you look at it from this angle, you can actually see that in Chinese consumer market, there's actually a big market for those consumer who want to acquire this upper social position. So if you looked at, for example, how Chinese people spend their money compared to consumer in other countries, you will find out that they are more willing to spend money in education. They spend more money on communication, including tele-communication and other kind of like Internet communication. Now in fact they spend compared to other countries they spend less money on other consumption commodities. The reason for that is because they see consumption to be a means to an end. So by investing in education, by investing in communication they feel that they will allow them to really climb up the economic ladder. So that is one effect of this lay elitism on their consumption pattern. Now of course for a lot of Chinese consumer they because they subscribe to this belief so strongly even though they feel that they themselves may not have the opportunity to climb up the economic ladder in their lifetime, they still hope that their children would have this opportunity to climb up the economic ladder. So as a result, they also spend more on education of their children and on a lot of commodity that would enhance their children's chance of success in life. So that would be another indication of the effect of lay elitism in Chinese, in Chinese society. Now, but of course, for individuals, when they consume something, when they decide to buy something, they may also be affected by this lay belief and hope that through consumption they can project an image of themselves to the people, to the social circle. So they want to project an image that, well, if they are already an elite, they are already in that social class; if they are not yet a social elite, then they have this aspiration to become one in the future. So that means to them, ok, buying something is not just for the utility of consuming that commodity or that service. Buying something is about projecting a self-image that is consistent with their belief. So, that means they're willing to spend more money on products that would help them to project this image. For example, they would like to buy products that they think are consumed by upper social class people, by people who have like achievement in the society. And so there could be a lot of implications due to this kind of, like, effects. So, for example, they would like to make sure that very clear expression of the elitist status in the goods and the services they consume. For example, the logo of the luxury brand have to be very visible to other people because they help them project this image. Now, um, there could be many other implications as well, but I think, well, I would stop here and then see what your reactions are. So what are some circumstances that Chinese consumers will buy luxury products and what are some circumstances that they will prefer something that they personally like? Ah, that is a very good question. Well, um, not much research has been done in this area but what we know is that well, you really want to project an image of yourself that is consistent with your belief. Well, you would buy something that would be consumed in public. So, e.g., if I go to buy some undergarments, okay, I may not be very concerned about whether or not the undergarments can project my self-image because nobody can see it, right? So there are some products that tend to be consumed in private settings like toothpaste, like toilet paper, ok. And when you buy those stuff, you probably may not be very careful or very concerned about expressing your lay belief about elitism. But when you buy products that would allow you to project your image publicly, then you're more concerned about it. So, it is very common to see in Chinese market that the same consumer will be spending a lot of money on luxury brand products. At the same time, they are very calculated and economical when they consume paper goods from the supermarket. So I think this is a very interesting consumer phenomenon in China. So, if to wrap up the discussion perhaps, I will ask you one last question. So can you tell us a specific example for marketers that they want to sell to Chinese consumers, so what can they do given that they know about the lay elitism concept? Okay, now that is again a very good question. Now of course the first thing that marketers would want to know is how widely shared this belief is in the target market. Okay, so there are some psychographic studies that are what business can do to assess to what extent this lay belief is widely shared in the target market. So it could be the case that in some target markets this belief is very widely shared, very popular; but in other markets this belief is not that widely shared. To give you one example, if you go to one of those coastal cities like Shanghai, Beijing and while there are lots of migrants from other parts of China who go to those cities to search for opportunities. Okay. You could imagine that these people are very driven by the potential to become a successful elite in the society. And this belief may be particularly strong in that sense. So knowing your consumer I think is the first step. Now once you can identify a market segment in which this lay belief is very popular, is very widely shared by the people there, the next step is to think about how you can make sure that the product, the brand that you sell in the market is associated with this elitism. To what extent the symbolism of elitism is clearly expressed by the product itself and the services you market. Okay if this is highly visible, well that would have strong appeal to the believer in lay elitism. Ok now how can there are other things that you can do, for example, okay, now create a brand name that signal elitism. So, for example, if you are going to open a new hotel in a city, make sure that this hotel has the name that is associated with being an elite. So, for example, well, this is a Grand Hotel, this is the Royal Plaza. So these are like names that are associated with elitism. So so other names, ok, that sounds equally good but do not convey this kind of symbolism may not appeal to believers in lay elitism. When you choose an endorser for your product, you can also think about who would be the more appropriate endorser for the product. Are they going to be some celebrities popular among the younger generation or do you prefer to have an endorser who is a recognized success symbol in the community. So these are some of the things that you can think about when you try to target this group of consumers who're highly achievement driven. Although in reality, well, we all know that in China upward mobility is very limited. But nonetheless, ok, if the consumer believe in this dream, okay in the dream that they can move upward, then they will be motivated by that belief to do something that may not be entirely rational; but to them is something that we give them hopes for the future. Not the future of themselves only, but the future of the next generation.
