Having, Being and Consumption

Marketing needs to recognise the changing priority of consumption. The belief that markets are secure because consumers will continue to be motivated to have an ever-greater array and quantity of goods and services is a shortsighted and erroneous assumption. Consumers are increasingly looking to the market to provide resources and technologies that will enable them to achieve rewarding and sustainable states of 'being'. Drawing on the humanist philosophy of Erich Fromm, this paper advances the case for a 'Marketing of Being', based on a detailed discussion of the changing nature of consumer identity and identification behaviour.