MARKETING ETHICS
The use and misuse of ‘envy’ to drive sales
International researchers find that young women are particularly susceptible and can suffer with self-worth issues and harmful body images.
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ARKETERS AND SALES teams have long understood that using the emotion of envy can help to drive purchases, particularly among younger audiences in industries such as fashion and beauty. Now a study by marketing academics at Macquarie University in Australia has revealed how the strategy can be manipulated and that young female social media users may consequently see themselves in a disturbing light. Combining social media and envy can be a recipe for disaster, the researchers have warned, with marketers preying on the impressionable. This creates unhealthy measures of self-worth, harmful body image issues and pointless competition, The long-suspected fraught nature of the relationship between young women
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strategicmarketingforafrica
Issue 2 2021
and social media has been confirmed by research conducted by Lawrence Ang, Associate Professor in Business at the Department of Marketing at Macquarie Business School, and Dr Camille Singh. The research, which involved online surveys and interviews of 335 female Facebook users aged 18–25 years, investigated the effects of envy on purchase intent. “The main condition required for envy is upward social comparison, whereby you perceive someone is superior to yourself,” explained Singh. “People tend to compare themselves with those similar to them, especially friends and peers. “Many women told us the number of likes and comments they get on their social media posts were a barometer for their self-worth. They are very
