SYMBOLIC CONSUMPTION IN TEENAGERS CLOTHING CHOICES

In this article the focus is on symbolic consumption like individuals use goods as materials with which to create, foster and develop their identity. But there has been less attention given to the symbolic consumption of young people. Here the subject matter was symbolic consumption with reference to clothing in the teenage market. The research was conducted and the sample consisted of teenagers and the selection criteria for participation in the study were age, social class and sex. The results of this study suggest that cloth choices made by young people are closely to their self concept and are used for both as a mean of self expression and as a way of judging the people and situations they face. It was also found that clothing make the wearer more confident and capable. Similarly clothing was found to be useful as an aid for managing first impressions and acted as a signal that the wearer is like other people who wear similar clothes.

BENEFIT SEGMENTATION: A POTENTIALLY USEFUL TECHNIQUE OF SEGMENTING AND

TARGETING OLDER CONSUMERS
The number of older people in U.K is growing and according to the 2001 census older people will outnumber children. UK currently has about 20 million people who are 50 years old or over. This number is expected to grow to 25 million by 2021. So the older people are offering new opportunities for the marketers. Literature indicates that the existing understanding of the marketer for older consumers revolves around their personal characteristics, in terms of socioeconomic, demographical and psychographical data. Marketers tend to use traditional approach of using demographics, socioeconomics, and psychographical variables for segmenting older consumers because it is easy to obtain. In this article, the author discusses the potential application of benefit segmentation technique for segmenting and targeting older consumers because older people are more concerned with the benefits. These benefits can be in the form of product attributes, service or market offering

which cause consumers to purchase those products. The reason is benefit segmentation offers more utility than the traditional methods because it explains the reasons why consumers choose to buy or prefer particular products or providers of services.