How Does a Product Gain the Status of a Necessity? An Analysis of Necessitation Narratives

Abstract

The consumer perception of how products gain the status of necessities is characterized by complexity, laden with idiosyncratic consumer experiences, and driven by personally relevant historical developments. This study pushes the theoretical boundaries of understanding consumer necessities by reaching beyond the classification of products into traditional dichotomies such as necessity-luxury and need-want. It focuses on how consumers experience and recount emotion-laden events in their lives whereby certain products move to being perceived as necessities over time. An analysis of narratives reveals that product necessitation encompasses five stages: familiarization, transformation in the form of redemption or contamination, memorialization, (re)integration and reconstruction, and solidification. Comprehending necessitation experiences is of great interest to marketers in creating effective marketing strategies as well as to public policymakers in ensuring that their citizens have access to life necessities.

Product patriotism: How consumption practices make and maintain national identity

“…Thus, the results of this research and the proposed product patriotism framework add a nuance to recent research on products as necessities (Braun, Zolfagharian & Belk, 2016) and propose that life experiences within the national habitus can lead to a need to engage with (but not necessarily consume) nationally-iconic products as a means to identify with the nation.…”

Gear Acquisition Syndrome: Consumption of Instruments and Technology in Popular Music

“…He stressed that he always deliberated on a potential purchase for a week before deciding and declared that this systematic routine was almost like a ritual to him. The behaviour of these two musicians fits the concepts of 'desire' (Belk et al 2003) and 'necessitation' (Braun et al 2016). Al-though the visits do not suggest any impulsive tendencies, they clearly show an element of 'self-seduction' for the pleasure that discovering and contemplating potential purchases can give (Baudrillard 1983;Belk et al 2003).…”

“…While desire mainly derives from a combination of sociological and psychological factors, necessitation is more strongly related to a tangible need. Braun et al (2016) have studied the process of an object becoming a necessity based on interviews with consumers about products without which they said they could not live. Although necessitation intuitively focuses on practical factors, the findings suggest that it might be a suitable theoretical framework for understanding some traits of irrational GAS behaviour.…”

“…Less often discussed in the field of popular music technology are consumer research, marketing and business studies, all of which can provide a different perspective on the social context of consumption around making music. Such research offers theoretical approaches to understanding how 'desire' and 'necessity' (Braun et al 2016), 'fetish' (Fernandez & Lastovicka 2011), 'taste' (Arsel & Bean 2013), 'facilitation' (Hartmann 2016) and 'use-value' (Cole 2018) can nourish a musician's urge to invest in equipment. This economic view is one way of understanding buying behaviour in a broader socio-cultural context.…”

Possessions and Self in the Identity Work of Survivors of Domestic Violence

“…Findings demonstrate these survivors were able to subtract, add, and hide elements of self via possessions; they were also able to compensate for damage to self through their use of possessions. Therefore, extending Braun, Zolfagharian, and Belk's explication (), in the context of domestic violence certain possessions should be regarded as indispensable necessities for the psychological well‐being of survivors; these are the possessions that facilitate active identity work in which survivors repair damage to their sense of self, protect their personal and social identities, and preserve their sense of personal control and competence during ongoing domestic violence.…”