The Golden Day

Campaigns promoting gold tend to concentrate on one or more of the first four functions but neglect to tap into the conative function. Focusing on this could allow the industry to shift its attention from the product to the person who does the purchasing. There is clearly an opportunity to create a behavioural need for gold.

Several authors have analysed the different types of prestige-seeking behaviour, at least two of which are based on individual perception of a product:

1. Value in conspicuousness. This generally occurs in markets with a veblenian (positively sloped) demand curve - purchases increase as an item becomes more expensive, for example, as is the case in China. Consumers buy the item because it is expensive, and will show it off once they have it. Ostentation, materialism, appearance, wealth, status and power signalling are the keys here.
2. Value in uniqueness, snobbishness, non ­conformity, distinction and exclusivity ("I am one of the few who have it"). This group is clearly difficult for the gold industry to attract.
3. Hedonic value, which relies on aesthetic appeal, sensor beauty and gratification. This group of buyers appreciates emotion and sentiment over functional value. Products are consumed in private.
4. Value in quality. These consumers need reassurance that the product is absolutely perfect by virtue of its tradition, authenticity, style, precision, comfort, craftsmanship or country of origin.
5. Value in the product's social role. Two types of behaviour are predominant - gift givers, prone to Following a ritual and role­playing conformists seeking social approval, imitation. This group tends to purchase a particular brand of an item. It is a bandwagon type of behaviour.

These motives are interpersonal and vary on the scale of perceived importance of price:

Given the conservative dollar-gold-price predictions, it makes sense to focus on the left-hand side of the table and seek to appeal to a mix of publicly and privately self­-conscious consumers. It is the Former group that is of interest here.

Providing an occasion for gift purchasing should be the first obvious target. Choosing one special occasion - such as an 18th birthday celebration - for essentially private consumption would not capitalise enough on the mass culture potential. In a post-modern society, it should not be impossible to create a new occasion with a clearly commercial goal the obligation to buy a specific item on a specific date.

Some interesting examples of recently created commercial events that have crossed cultural boundaries are Listed in the table below.

Nobody "obliged" to purchase roses for Valentine's Day wonders how roses came to be associated with the 14th of February. He just knows he has to buy some - an example of a successful marketing ploy based on a myth. Once the myth becomes established, it no longer requires authorisation or legitimisation.

How does the myth get established? This requires a marketing campaign that focuses on the act, rather than (typical for gold) feel or sense-marketing. Signs or image may be easily used to convey meaning and thus create an ideology, often used in propaganda wars. Roland Barthes elaborated the Saussurean signifier/signified breakdown into an operational proposal, basing it on differentiation between direct denotation and contextually dependent connotation.

It is only possible to equate romantic obligation with a commercial proposition if the consumer feels strongly that he or she has an opportunity to express an emotion by buying something. It requires an imaginative campaign to disguise the fact that the process entails a purely commercial obligation to acquire a specific range of items on a specific clay.

It is difficult to select the right occasion for such a campaign. Should it be a brand-new event? This probably constitutes the costliest proposition, but one which, once established For some years, may indeed give a forgetful executive a few headaches. Or should the industry concentrate on tying gold purchases into pre-existing events such as Mother's Day - already heavily emotional but without an allocated colour or specific gift. A third option might be to transplant a holiday - such as a gold-heavy Indian Festival - into the Western world, taking advantage of the openness of today's consumer to new cultural influences. However, the idea of organising Divali in Manhattan would probably raise a few eyebrows among even the most radical marketing advocates in the industry.

Whichever option is chosen, the results may not take long. It took five years for Halloween to enter non-Anglo-Saxon European markets. Chinese New Year is currently creeping into European supermarkets during the previously slow post-Christmas period. Can the gold industry afford to miss the next opportunity?

Rather than trying to understand the consumer universe in quantum details, the industry should concentrate on fostering gold related behaviour. Enough has been spent on enticing people to perceive gold in certain ways. It is high time the industry's attention turned towards the need to induce consumers to actually purchase it.

Repositioning of generic advertising campaigns will avoid letting the gold industry run into the "dead zone" risk, whereby despite improvement in the quality and perception of a product, nobody feels they "must" have it.