IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jacres/doi10.1086-688218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Functional Alibi

Author

Listed:
  • Anat Keinan
  • Ran Kivetz
  • Oded Netzer

Abstract

Spending money on hedonic luxuries often seems wasteful, irrational, and even immoral. We propose that adding a small utilitarian feature to a luxury product can serve as a functional alibi, justifying the indulgent purchase and reducing indulgence guilt. We demonstrate that consumers tend to inflate the value, and usage frequency, of utilitarian features when they are attached to hedonic luxuries. Using a mixed-method approach, combining archival data (an analysis of over 1,000 online reviews of handbags) with studies conducted in the field and laboratory, we establish the functional alibi effect and show that it is mediated by guilt and more likely to occur when the luxury purchase is perceived as frivolous and expensive, and when the purchase is for oneself rather than a gift. We explore the effect of adding a functional alibi in a variety of marketing contexts, and we examine various consumer populations representing diverse demographics.

Suggested Citation

  • Anat Keinan & Ran Kivetz & Oded Netzer, 2016. "The Functional Alibi," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 479-496.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/688218
    DOI: 10.1086/688218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/688218
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/688218
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/688218?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Noël Kapferer, 2010. "Luxury after the crisis: Pro logo or no logo?," Post-Print hal-00521804, HAL.
    2. Silvia Bellezza & Anat Keinan, 2014. "Brand Tourists: How Non-Core Users Enhance the Brand Image by Eliciting Pride," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(2), pages 397-417.
    3. Scitovsky, Tibor, 1992. "The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195073478.
    4. Strahilevitz, Michal & Myers, John G, 1998. "Donations to Charity as Purchase Incentives: How Well They Work May Depend on What You Are Trying to Sell," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(4), pages 434-446, March.
    5. Silvia Bellezza & Neeru Paharia & Anat Keinan, 2017. "Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(1), pages 118-138.
    6. Klaus Wertenbroch, 1998. "Consumption Self-Control by Rationing Purchase Quantities of Virtue and Vice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 317-337.
    7. Nailya Ordabayeva & Pierre Chandon, 2011. "Getting Ahead of the Joneses: When Equality Increases Conspicuous Consumption among Bottom-Tier Consumers," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(1), pages 27-41.
    8. Tuba Üstüner & Douglas B. Holt, 2010. "Toward a Theory of Status Consumption in Less Industrialized Countries," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(1), pages 37-56, June.
    9. Kelly L. Haws & Cait Poynor, 2008. "Seize the Day! Encouraging Indulgence for the Hyperopic Consumer," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(4), pages 680-691, September.
    10. Jean-Noël Kapferer, 2010. "Luxury after the crisis: Pro logo or no logo?," Post-Print hal-00781524, HAL.
    11. Scott I. Rick & Cynthia E. Cryder & George Loewenstein, 2008. "Tightwads and Spendthrifts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 767-782, October.
    12. Ernest Baskin & Cheryl J. Wakslak & Yaacov Trope & Nathan Novemsky, 2014. "Why Feasibility Matters More to Gift Receivers than to Givers: A Construal-Level Approach to Gift Giving," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 169-182.
    13. Derek D. Rucker & Adam D. Galinsky, 2008. "Desire to Acquire: Powerlessness and Compensatory Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 257-267, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    2. Yaniv Shani & Gil Appel & Shai Danziger & Ron Shachar, 2020. "When and Why Consumers “Accidentally” Endanger Their Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5757-5782, December.
    3. Hoffmann, Stefan & Balderjahn, Ingo & Seegebarth, Barbara & Mai, Robert & Peyer, Mathias, 2018. "Under Which Conditions Are Consumers Ready to Boycott or Buycott? The Roles of Hedonism and Simplicity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 167-178.
    4. de Kerviler, Gwarlann & Rodriguez, Carlos M., 2019. "Luxury brand experiences and relationship quality for Millennials: The role of self-expansion," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 250-262.
    5. Gwarlann de Kerviler & Carlos Rodriguez, 2019. "Luxury brand experiences and relationship quality for Millennials: The role of self-expansion," Post-Print hal-02114441, HAL.
    6. Desmichel, Perrine & Kocher, Bruno, 2020. "Luxury Single- versus Multi-Brand Stores: The Effect of Consumers’ Hedonic Goals on Brand Comparisons," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 203-219.
    7. Petersen, Francine Espinoza & Dretsch, Heather Johnson & Komarova Loureiro, Yuliya, 2018. "Who needs a reason to indulge? Happiness following reason-based indulgent consumption," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 170-184.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Park, Sehoon & Kim, Chaeyeong & Park, Jane, 2023. "How power distance belief, self-construal, and relationship norms impact conspicuous consumption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Pino, Giovanni & Amatulli, Cesare & Peluso, Alessandro M. & Nataraajan, Rajan & Guido, Gianluigi, 2019. "Brand prominence and social status in luxury consumption: A comparison of emerging and mature markets," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 163-172.
    3. Dewitte, Siegfried, 2013. "From willpower breakdown to the breakdown of the willpower model – The symmetry of self-control and impulsive behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 16-25.
    4. Huachao Gao & Karen Page Winterich & Yinlong Zhang, 2016. "All That Glitters Is Not Gold: How Others’ Status Influences the Effect of Power Distance Belief on Status Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 43(2), pages 265-281.
    5. Susana Costa e Silva & Carla Carvalho Martins, 2017. "The relevance of cause-related marketing to post-purchase guilt alleviation," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 14(4), pages 475-494, December.
    6. Kapferer, Jean-Noël & Valette-Florence, Pierre, 2019. "How self-success drives luxury demand: An integrated model of luxury growth and country comparisons," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 273-287.
    7. Nagpal, Anish & Lei, Jing & Khare, Adwait, 2015. "To Choose or to Reject: The Effect of Decision Frame on Food Customization Decisions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 422-435.
    8. Chun-Tuan Chang & Xing-Yu (Marcos) Chu, 2020. "The give and take of cause-related marketing: purchasing cause-related products licenses consumer indulgence," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 203-221, March.
    9. Janssen, Catherine & Vanhamme, Joëlle & Leblanc, Sina, 2017. "Should luxury brands say it out loud? Brand conspicuousness and consumer perceptions of responsible luxury," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 167-174.
    10. Rebecca Hamilton & Debora Thompson & Sterling Bone & Lan Nguyen Chaplin & Vladas Griskevicius & Kelly Goldsmith & Ronald Hill & Deborah Roedder John & Chiraag Mittal & Thomas O’Guinn & Paul Piff & Car, 2019. "The effects of scarcity on consumer decision journeys," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 532-550, May.
    11. Stokburger-Sauer, Nicola E. & Teichmann, Karin, 2013. "Is luxury just a female thing? The role of gender in luxury brand consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 889-896.
    12. Coelho Do Vale, R.M.R.D., 2007. "Consumption breakdowns : On avoiding and embracing temptations," Other publications TiSEM 245c52fa-24eb-45e6-9c19-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Song, Jing & Cavusgil, Erin & Li, Jianping & Luo, Ronghua, 2016. "Social stratification and mobility among Chinese middle class households: An empirical investigation," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 646-656.
    14. Cesare Amatulli & Matteo De Angelis & Carmela Donato, 2019. "Communicating the luxury dream: The moderating role of brand prominence on the effect of abstract versus concrete language on consumer responses," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(4), pages 91-108.
    15. Holmqvist, Jonas & Wirtz, Jochen & Fritze, Martin P., 2020. "Luxury in the digital age: A multi-actor service encounter perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 747-756.
    16. Aaron M. Garvey & Simon J. Blanchard & Karen Page Winterich, 2017. "Turning unplanned overpayment into a status signal: how mentioning the price paid repairs satisfaction," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 71-83, March.
    17. Sooyeon Lee-Wingate & Kim Corfman, 2010. "A Little Something for Me and Maybe for You, Too: Promotions that Relieve Guilt," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 385-395, December.
    18. Van Doorn, Jenny & Verhoef, Peter C., 2015. "Drivers of and Barriers to Organic Purchase Behavior," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 436-450.
    19. Shiv, Baba & Fedorikhin, Alexander, 2002. "Spontaneous versus Controlled Influences of Stimulus-Based Affect on Choice Behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 342-370, March.
    20. Vera Herédia-Colaço & Rita Coelho do Vale, 2018. "Seize the Day or Save the World? The Importance of Ethical Claims and Product Nature Congruity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 783-801, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/688218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JACR .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.