Shoppers’ preference for luxury cars may have more to do with their political leanings than their taste for supple leather seats.
People who are more politically conservative tend to prefer luxury products that will help them maintain their existing status in society, a study published this week in the Journal of Marketing found.
Though Republicans are often perceived as the political party for the wealthy, researchers found there’s no difference in conservatives’ and liberals’ taste for luxury products, except in one key instance. Conservatives prefer luxury goods — and will spend more money on them — when they think the product will help them maintain their high status in society.
“It’s not that Republicans are more obsessed with luxury goods or they like to flaunt their wealth, it’s that in some ways they’re more afraid, they fear they may fall further behind, so they want to hold their ground by consuming luxury goods,” said lead researcher Jeehye Christine Kim, an assistant professor of marketing at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
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Researchers looked at data from six studies, including one that analyzed 21,999 actual car purchases by people who had provided information about their political beliefs. They found that Republicans with high social status — those with higher incomes and advanced degrees — were 9.8% more likely than high-status Democrats to buy a luxury car. “Intrigued, we dug a little deeper and discovered that while high-status Democrats spent $29,022 on average, their Republican counterparts were spending $33,216 on cars,” wrote study co-author David Dubois, an associate professor of marketing at INSEAD, a nonprofit business school with campuses worldwide.
Social scientists have explored the taste for luxury goods in other research. A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Consumer Research found that conservatives prefer products that broadcast to the world that they are better than other people, while liberals like products that signal their “uniqueness.”
The authors suggested that happens because conservatives are more likely to buy into the idea that society is a hierarchy, and those at the top deserve to be there because they earned their dominance through hard work. Liberals on the other hand tend to see the hierarchy as “illegitimate,” because even though everyone works hard, some people sail to the top through social connections and luck, the authors wrote.
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For the Journal of Marketing paper, researchers also ran smaller experiments involving buying eyeglasses, fancy headphones, and clothes. In the eyeglasses experiment, both Republicans and Democrats wanted to buy glasses that would improve their status. But Republicans were significantly more likely to want to buy glasses that would help them maintain their existing high status. In the headphones experiment, Republicans were willing to pay 65% more than Democrats for headphones if they perceived the headphones as helping maintain their existing status.
The findings have implications for marketers of luxury goods. Kim noted it’s easier than ever for marketers to zero in on shoppers’ political leanings, either by targeting people in a specific voting district, or by watching which websites and social media feeds they follow. The U.S. market for luxury goods hit $954 million in 2017, according to market research provider Euromonitor.
