Personality and Lifestyle Winter 2007

A Day in the Life… n Imagine, five years from now, you wake up, and then…

Psychographics: Segment to Life n AIO: Activities, Interests and Opinions n VALS: Values and Lifestyles n Single urban girls –Products as building blocks of lifestyle

Not So Single: Married, Professional Women, with Careers Caring Consumers: Gendered Consumption Meanings and the Juggling Lifestyle Craig Thompson

n Sometimes I go through guilt trips because I work. I’m the generation where a lot of us still carry those guilt feelings around if your family can’t come home to homemade bread and a hot meal very night. I know that’s unrealistic, but, I still sort of feel like that’s my responsibility-Sarah age 41

Informants n Share life concerns n Common set of cultural beliefs and images about gender and motherhood. n Perceive that they are forging new paths. n Supermom?

Marketers, what have we done? n We have assisted in the construction of gender roles, conceptions of motherhood, and structure of contemporary lifestyles n Brands and products play a part in defining the ideal mother

Being in Control: Staying on Schedule n My whole life is centered around trying to stay on schedule and trying to be there for everybody and be able to do the things that I know need to be done and get those things done and still be able to do any things that come up unexpectedly. You know, it’s a juggling act.

Staying on Schedule: Efficient Routines n Since I like to get up and have quiet time to sort of clean my brain, I get up at 5:30…I’ve got some time just when it’s quiet and the house is mine. That’s when I like to read the paper, assuming the paper has come, I have a constant ongoing battle with the newspaper because I feel that my paper should be delivered before seven in the morning…if it’s not there by seven, that means I have to change my routine...

Staying on Schedule: Rushing n I never walk anywhere. I run. I mean literally.

Interpersonal Focus: Negotiating Compromises n I told him, “I don’t like the example. I don’t want the boys to see mommy does the housework and daddy doesn’t do it.” I told him I wanted him to cook supper at least one night a week…But he cooked spaghetti every single Saturday night for three months. I mean there wasn’t even a salad with it, it was just blob.

Negotiated Compromises n I can clean the house up and five minutes later it looks just like it did before I started. But they’ve just got too much junk. I think that’s the problem with working mothers, you buy them stuff that they don’t really need.

More Compromises: Primacy of Motherhood n A lot of things that I do for my children the couldn’t do with only daddy working. Like gymnastics lessons and cub scouts and stuff like that, those were like luxuries that we didn’t have that I am happy I can give to my kids.

Ideals and Concessions n I ought to be able to do it all. It’s an ego blow to acknowledge to myself that I can’t do it all. I’ve learned over the years to deal with that better.

Holding it Together n Somebody’s got to hold it together. He’s got more responsibilities at work. But somebody’s gotta tie it all together and I guess I feel like, “OK, you’re the woman, children are your charge.” Dad has the number one job. And it boils down to what you’ve been ingrained for years and years and years…

Caring Consumption n Driven by feelings of responsibility for enhancing the well-being of others and a sensitivity to the interpersonal consequences of one’s actions and choices. n These women see themselves as being the facilitators and, indeed, the “connective force, that held the family together.”

And not to neglect the men…

Personality n Unique and consistent psychological makeup –How consistent are we really? n Brand personality –Dean Bexell (in the motivational research tradition)