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Share“How do you cope when the products you love become labelled as “hipster”? Consumers who identify with these products tend to find creative ways to remain loyal and elude derision, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“From the rebellious aura of Harley-Davidson bikes to the utopian ethos of Star Trek, iconic brands and constellations of lifestyle goods exude symbolic meanings that attract consumers in an almost magnet-like fashion,” write authors Zeynep Arsel from Concordia University and Craig J. Thompson from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But these mythic meanings can often reach a cultural tipping point where a marketplace myth degenerates into a cultural cliché—for example yuppies, metrosexuals, urban gangstas, and hipsters.”
