How Ebay is ruining consumers desire

Everyday life to the average individual is characterised by a routine. This generates boredom, so in an attempt to escape from this, consumers enjoy the pleasures of day-dreaming and longing for something different to fuel excitement. Have you ever gazed into a shop window? Flicked through magazine advertisements for your favourite product, or even found something that you were looking for in a free catalogue? This is the consumer desire process and it has become a social norm in today’s world. It is described as the needs and wants of the consumer. Campbell (1987) describes the process as a “powerful cyclic emotion which delivers longing, pleasure, discomfort and disappointment”. This suggests that it is a cycle in which the consumer firstly wants an object, obtains the object, then starts to feel disappointed with the object / gets bored finally putting the object into the ‘displacement’ stage which later forgotten about. According to Belk et al (2003) the desire cycle can be accelerated by the “desire to desire, the hope for hope and the fear of being without desire and is further animated by the tension between morality and seduction”.

An example of how consumer desire has been accelerated is by looking at the online world. This is where you can find yourself looking for just about anything and being able to purchase it at great ease. This has been labelled ‘Digital virtual consumption’.  One of the most significant sources for this particular activity is the online auction website, EBay.

Knott D (2010) claims that desire is accelerated through 3 practices:

1. Quick achievement of receiving the desired item
2. Removal of moral consequences to purchases
3. Temporary ownership of digital virtual representations of desired goods

This suggests that an object that possibly could have been too expensive for the consumer in the past or maybe extremely rare to find in a regular shopping centre can now quickly and easily be purchased by the consumer. This leaves them ease of purchase for just about anything which inevitably leaves the consumer wanting more in order to keep their desire fuelled.

This website does a lot more than just fuel desire; Knott D (2010) describes the site as a “composite of consumer practices, including browsing, monitoring, temporary ownership of goods, actual material ownership through purchases”. I have an EBay account and through my experience I have been drawn in to certain purchases which have been monitored for days on end, only increasing my desire for the certain object only to realise a few weeks later that I have become used to it and it no longer excites me, and consecutively beginning the cycle again. EBay effectively does this by “shortening the distance between desire and actualisation through digital virtual and material consumption” Knott D (2010). This suggests that daydreaming/desire of having a product to the actualisation of having it can present problems for advertisers. Because of the speed of the cycle Campbell (1987) argues that EBay is “robbing consumers of the pleasures associated with wanting”. Consumers can no longer relate to a product that is truly special to them due to the ease of receiving it through the online world. Desire is now minimised with the consumer constantly thinking about the next object that they desire without consideration due to the disappointment after them receiving it once their desire if fulfilled.  Advertisers now have to be quicker with their messages in order to grab their attention before they simply move on.

However as an advertiser I feel that this can be a process that can be exploited. Because desire is now accelerated by the online world, advertisers can now use their messages to further fuel their desire informing and guiding them towards purchases which aim to utilise the cycle of desire.

What the future holds for UK product placement

Product placement is relatively new to the UK with the first ever example appearing on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ show only last week. The product was a Nestle coffee machine and was displayed for the price of £100,000 for a 3 month deal, which I imagine this will rise significantly in the future. Cowley and Barron (2008) state that product placement is a “combination of advertising and publicity designed to influence the audience by unobtrusively inserting branded products in entertainment programmes so that the viewer is unlikely to be aware of the persuasive intent”.  The reason why it has taken this long to for the UK to grasp product placement is the fact that Ofcom’s regulations didn’t not permit brands to do so. So I ask myself why now? We are living in a digital age where television advertising revenues are taking second place in effectiveness and value for money compared to the internet. Is this the television networks idea for gaining revenue? Allowing the audience to get distracted from there favourite TV shows due to unnecessary branding or will product placement in fact be an advantage in promoting brand awareness and products to the audience?

 Online product placement is currently on the rise with 2010 being the year that online product placements expanded by 15% to reach about $46 million. This suggests that online placement is out performing television focusing on social networks, YouTube videos and other virtual environments. Is television too late to bring this method into practice? Surly the statistics suggest that people are becoming more glued to their laptops than there television screens where they can interact with brands more than ever before compared to the tacky way in which television are unnecessarily sticking in branded products.

When it comes to television, the UK audience have been exposed to product placement through American sitcoms which suggest that there has not been any trouble with the issue in the past. Yet the UK is now introducing a new ‘P’ symbol aimed to warn the viewers that there are in fact branded products inserted onto the set.

Take a look at the 2011 awareness advert:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ctqz_zqV68

This to me will be where problems will arise. Ofcom will suggest that is in fact a more ethical way by warning the audience yet I argue that this will interrupt the viewing experience. Before the products were conveniently placed in the background, yet now the audience is told that they will be appearing, they will be constantly looking out for them rather than concentrating, and enjoying the program. An industry expert suggested that the rules will be a lot tighter than that of the US, with his example being “It won’t be like American Idol; Cheryl Cole won’t be sitting on The X Factor sipping Coca Cola.”  He goes on to talk about the consumers views on the issue claiming that “There is obviously a bit of give and take, they have to make sure the product is right for the show. Audiences are entitled to push back if they don’t like it.” And then went on to suggest that audiences have welcomed product placement.

A contradicting pole I found on the ITV website suggests that 61.7% of people questioned agree that it will be a distraction. Could this mean that consumers are likely to get annoyed, which will result in negatively affecting the brands image? The Trumen Show is a comedy film that points out the extreme ways in which product placement could occur in which if this is anything to go buy then I completely agree:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhIIPbO_6xg

 I feel that if product placement is to be successful in the UK there needs to be an element of balance. The product will have to fit in perfectly with the surroundings of the show/character in order for the certain brand to reap the benefits.  There is no doubt in my mind that the future of product placement is likely to be determined by the consumer.

 References

 -. (2011). Nescafe coffee machine on This Morning is first product placement on TV. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8350382/Nescafe-coffee-machine-on-This-Morning-is-first-product-placement-on-TV.html. Last accessed 6th March 2011.

 Clark, N. (2010). Broadcasters lick lips as product placement lands. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/broadcasters-lick-lips-as-product-placement-lands-2165656.html. Last accessed 6th March 2011

 Cowley, E., Barron C. (2008). When product placement goes wrong: the effects of program liking and placement prominence. Journal of Advertising 37, p. 89-98

 Knight, K. (2010). Forecast: Online product placement to outpace television. Available: http://www.bizreport.com/2010/07/forecast-online-product-placement-to-outpace-television.html#. Last accessed 6^th March 2011

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