Understanding the Effect of Cultural Factors on Consumers Moods While Purchasing Gold Jewelry: With Reference to Brand Tanishq

Introduction

The recent times have seen a gradual but definite change in the format of purchase of gold and more specifically gold jewellery. India has always had an extremely diverse culture depending on the geographic locations of and these cultural nuances are seen in the way people dress, the food they eat and several other factors. The key to understanding the consumer behaviour is therefore to understand the cultural annotations and nuances especially in the case of jewellery purchasing.

Gold especially bought for the occasion of a wedding is seen as an investment and stems from the concept of Stri Dhan. It was given to the woman at the time of her marriage and was her inheritance. This later evolved into the concept of giving a token amount during the wedding itself. This Vedic concept spread through the Indian society and is also a part of non-Hindu cultures such as the Parsi culture, Islamic concept of Mehr and a crucial part of the trousseau in Christian weddings. This osmosis and leaching of this culture can be seen with the analogy of the Bene Israle, while the wedding traditions mainly echo those inherent to Judaism except for the inclusion of gold jewellery which has seeped into the culture and in contrast to Jews all over who only purchase the wedding ring made of gold the Bene Israle Jews have several ornaments and accessories.

There is occasion based buying and festival buying as well. Occasions like Akshaytritiya, Dhanteras are auspicious days to purchase gold. In addition to this wedding trousseaus are often put together over years and so there is a high likelihood that events such as land mark birthdays are seen as occasions to buy gold. In addition to this gold is bought as a gift item also. Given that today jewellers in urban areas have created an aspiration appeal in context to owning gold targeting working women and making gold a symbol for not just beauty but also empowerment.

The category of gold is an extremely interesting category to study in terms of the influences of advertising because there is a high amount of investment which is taken on an emotional basis and is highly influenced by cultural and regional influences especially in the Indian context. In India Gold forms an integral part of the customs and traditions especially in the context of weddings and rituals, it is also considered as an investment and has a lot of cultural significance.

The basis of this chapter is to understand the purchasing behaviour of the consumers when they interact with a brand’s communication. The purpose of the study is to analyse the different cultural and regional factors that connect with the purchase behaviour. The brand Tanishq has been an integral part of the Indian jewellery segment and has been known for its diverse communication and branding. It has been known to showcase progressive, diverse and out of the box communication and the purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of the communication on the consumer’s mood. The mood in turn greatly affects the purchase behaviour and understanding this would help a deeper understanding of consumer decision making.

The impact of this study will help understand the purchase making decisions with the case study of Tanishq in mind but can be applied to other brands as well. It also helps analyse how the mood of the consumer is influenced by the regional and cultural influences in the marketing communication.