Targeting Consumers Who Care about Future Generations

• Published in: Psychology & marketing 2015-08, Vol.32 (8), p.783-794
• Main Authors: Lacroix, Caroline, Jolibert, Alain
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Consumer attitudes; Consumer behavior; Consumers; Demographics; Social psychology; Socioeconomic factors; Studies; Target markets
• ISSN: 0742-6046; 1520-6793
• DOI: 10.1002/mar.20818

ABSTRACT Generativity, as an adult's preoccupation with the well‐being of future generations, is a well‐studied concept in the social psychology literature. However, to this day, little is known about this concept within a consumer context. This article presents two studies that aimed to better understand the attitudes and behaviors of generative consumers. A first study was conducted to develop a more appropriate measure of generativity for consumer situations. It produced a two‐factor consumer generativity scale of six items, one factor of which measures the motivation for symbolic immortality (agentic generativity) whereas the other factor measures the motivation to be useful (communal generativity). The second study showed the predictive validity of the new scale. Highly generative consumers have more favorable attitudes toward ads and products that are generatively positioned. Generative consumers intend to buy products positioned as generative. In addition, the second study presents some sociodemographic characteristics of generative consumers. This research presents a valid and parsimonious scale of consumer generativity, and demonstrates the relevance of using a generative positioning strategy when targeting highly generative consumers.