Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer by Michael J. Silverstein & John Butman

Author:Michael J. Silverstein & John Butman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2006-05-03T14:00:00+00:00

6.

WHEN THE CALCULUS SHIFTS

Lauren: A Personal Mystique

There is usually a single dominant factor in each person’s value calculus, a factor that is always more important than price and that drives each and every purchase. For Sarah Montfort, the dominant factor is family—the health, safety, and well-being of her three kids, her husband, and herself, in that order. Lauren James, a thirty-two-year-old single woman who lives by herself, has a completely different dominating factor: fear of the future. She worries that she will be unable to find a mate and will never form a lasting and stable relationship. She is afraid that she will grow old alone, lose her ability to earn money, and end up on the streets, carrying shopping bags stuffed with dirty clothes and bits of food and sleeping under a bridge.

You would not guess this about Lauren when you first meet her. She is a charming, attractive, confident-appearing young woman who seems like a quintessential trading-up consumer. She lives in an upscale section of Chicago, in an apartment that used to be a storefront, which she has converted into a unique and distinctive living space. The front door is painted scarlet and Lauren opens it, offers a warm smile, and enthusiastically invites us in. She wears her blonde hair in long, artfully-cut layers. Petite and slim, she’s stylishly dressed in expensive jeans, brown high heels, and a tastefully low-cut brown sweater. She wears fashionable, colorful rings on several fingers of both hands. There is a row of shoes and high-heeled boots along one wall—a sure sign of a trading-up fashionista.

We settle onto the couch and Lauren fetches us drinks—individual bottles of Fiji water. “Why Fiji?” I ask her. “It’s good for you,” she says, as she passes the bottles around. “It’s supposed to help with weight loss. The nutrients are easier to absorb because of the way it’s bottled or the way the water flows.” She chuckles at herself. “Or something like that.” As she curls up in an overstuffed chair, Roscoe, her little Maltese dog, jumps up and nestles in her lap. She seems very open and relaxed and, although it’s late on a Friday afternoon, she doesn’t seem particularly worn out from her work week, and is perfectly willing to talk frankly about her financial situation.

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