Taste style: Consumers navigating between being desirable for themselves and others through their perfume scent

Abstract

To address the evolving phenomena of perfume content on social media, this study explores how consumers construct meanings to perfume as a symbolic product, by watching perfume content on social media where scent cannot be experienced. By examining the meanings consumers construct to perfumes, this study has sought to explore how consumers account for autonomy and conformity (simultaneously) in their meaning making processes. Consumer culture theory has served as the overarching theoretical perspective, and autonomy and conformity as the study’s main theoretical perspective to explore how consumers engage with being self-directed (autonomy) and socially influenced (conformity) in their meaning making processes. The empirical findings are based on 14 semi-structured interviews with perfume interested males and females. The findings reveal that perfume symbolically becomes a product for expressing taste and that perfume content shapes consumers’ social identities. Furthermore, consumers construct two meanings within a shared yet unstructured framework (Taste style) where they navigate between being desirable for themselves and others, thus resulting in a heavy overlap between autonomy and conformity in their meaning making processes. Firstly, perfume becomes a symbolic resource for consumer’s identity construction (their self expression and self-presentation), and secondly, to be socially desirable (through social validation from perfume influencers and collective recognition from popular perfumes). Furthermore, this study contributes with a symbolic perspective to olfactory marketing which dominantly focuses on predicting consumer behaviors rather than exploring their meaning making processes. Lastly, this study underscores the importance of marketers collaborating with influencers carrying perfume expertise, and align with the perfume influencer’s taste previously displayed within their perfume content