Consumption Crossover and "Ethnic" Markets

Crossover Dreams, this is the title of one of few contributions on
consumption crossover. This expression describes a daily phenomenon:
the consumption by the culturally dominant group of services,
products, brands, experiences that belong to the minority group. Grier,
Brumbaugh, and Torton in the cited article, explore the other side of
immigration, and by so doing, they remind us that culturing processes
are not only about "the others". Italians increasingly consume exotic
foods, music, art, design, alternative medicine, clothing and
accessories. Only a few decades ago, it would have been unimaginable
to wear a Peruvian wool sweater (possibly signed by Prada, like in the
latest collection of the Milanese fashion firms, dubbed "Made in
Peru", eating fresh mango for breakfast listening to Macedonian music,
swallowing sushi for lunch, work with colleagues of various
nationalities, taking salsa and tango lessons, ending the workday
sipping a mojito while lying on a futon.

The presence of a larger number of foreign consumers has inevitably
enabled firms to cater to ethnic markets. At the same time, Italians
have observed and tested new forms of consumption, often being
favorably struck by the experience. In a recent research study of
ours (Factory Outlet Center: brand relations and place attachment), it
emerges that Italians attracted to exotic consumption are led by a
desire of escaping the strictures of daily life. For some, it's a form
of consumption that has high social meaning, since it differentiates
them from the crowd. If Veblen once told us that the leisure class was
imitated due to a need for social homologation, today there are people
who want to feel different, and for reasons independent from income.
On the other hand, there are embracing ethnic consumption for more
intimate motivations, as ideological act in favor of openness to new
cultures and protection of the rights of minorities. One could quip:
"I eat Chinese and I defend the right of the this ethnic group to
remain in my neighborhood".

Consumption crossover works both on the demand- and the supply-side.
Companies can enhance the appeal of "ethnic" offerings, by working on
strategies to make the target explicit, with testimonials and highly
evocative symbolic communication. The receptiveness of consumers
depend on which ethic group they belong to, the desire of distinction,
the search for variety. Also the context of public vs private,
individual vs communal ethnic consumption can alter the choice to
advertise one's consumer choices.

To conclude, a final provocation. The tendency to consumption crossover
affected Italians well before immigrants came in droves to live here
starting two decades ago. For a much longer time, we have been consuming
Japanese technology and American Food, Anglo-Saxon retail formulas,
not to mention the social networks craze. But we never qualified this
as "ethnic" consumption. Could it be that we, as consumers, are
subconsciously creating hierarchies among world cultures, by labeling
"ethnic" only consumption related to cultures that we consider
inferior? Consumption is about a lot more than just market stories.