Of the many markers of seniority, nothing is more aggravating (to the other side) than the constant critiquing of the contemporary, and the glorification of the past. Still, as a card-carrying member of the curmudgeon’s club, I have to say that I find the new generation’s inability to differentiate between want and need both intriguing and irksome.
Check out the sale reports for the iPhone 6, which arrived here on Friday. Consumers from other markets have complained that the phone tends to bend while stored and quickly runs out of juice. And yet, buyers queued up outside stores from Thursday evening to be part of Apple’s first midnight launch in India. Photos show sellers setting out bean bags and free refreshments to sustain the buyers through the wait.
It was a clever move: the freebies would have cost the retailers a few measly rupees but bought them heaps of goodwill and fed the buyers’ desire for the phone even more. Given that the product is not cheap (the basic model costs `53,500; the top-end one sells for `80,500) and not everyone waiting could have been wealthy, chances are that at least some of the buyers made sacrifices for their purchase. And it wasn’t even something they needed.
To get into the need category, a product has to qualify as an essential—like a roof over one’s head, groceries, healthcare, or clean, appropriate clothing. Want has fewer requirements. It has to only satisfy an itch, feed a desire. For those who can’t get the difference, a drink of water is a need; a bottle from Château Mouton Rothschild is a want. A car may be a need; a Mercedes GLA is a desire. A shoe is a need, the seventh pair is greed.
A marketer’s job is to ferret out people’s wants and feed them with products they don’t need. Our job is to know when to say no.
Maybe it was easier in the olden days, when there wasn’t that much money to go around in the first place. But even those who had the money then practised thrift. They thought before they bought. They treated themselves to goodies but enjoyed them as the extras that they were. Needs were sifted from wants, which were catered to largely on holidays, birthdays and festivals.
Maybe age makes the pursuit of wants nowhere as near important as the acceptance of need. As youngsters, everyone wants to be very rich, but do they need to be? Isn’t the ability to keep one’s family and oneself in comfort enough? I want to travel when and where I like, but can I leave an old parent and two children alone for that? My neighbour may want a trophy wife, but does he need the high maintenance that comes with it?
With larger disposable incomes in their luxury wallets and instant gratification as their middle names, people no longer have to buy only what they need. There’s no reason to either. It’s nice to have goals and desires. But a lot of the pleasure comes from the suspended moment of hope, from the sensation of running expectantly, breathlessly, towards—but not yet arriving at—one’s destination.
Because the minute the new car, or phone, or saree or suit, arrives at the door, you begin planning the accessories you need to make it even better. And a new cycle of desire is born.
shampa@newindianexpress.com