With our program constantly growing, we are implenting changes to improve and keep up with our students. This fall, a new component is going to be made a part of the Senior Summary for BDIC students. It is going to be a Senior Portfolio where the students get to showcase some work that they have done throughout their BDIC majors. Here is some of mine thus far!
This essay was an assignemt for my BDIC course COMM397L - Consumer Culture. This class has opened my eyes and is a vital part of my entrepreneurial concentration. Enjoy!
Assignment 2
Manuel Aquiles Lopez
Since I was around the area, I decided to take Professor’s West suggestion to attend Yankee Candle in Deerfield, MA for my retail observation assignment. She mentioned that it would be the Disneyland of New England, and that is a pretty good description for it.
First and foremost, when you arrive at Yankee Candle, you are in a rural area spotting this traditionally designed building whose architecture reminds you of a colonial home. The outside landscaping with the flowers and shrubs makes it a welcoming peaceful environment. Besides that, the wood porches decorated with the occasional benches and rocking chairs invite you to sit down and relax to enjoy the scenery.
Just from that, we can almost determine who is being targeted by the retail space. But the question I had before going into this place was, is this a retail space? I mean, I knew I was at Yankee Candle but it sure did not feel like I was about to enter a store full of candles. I felt like I am paying a visit to a family member out by the country side as a get-away from home.
As soon as I walked through that entrance, I was not far off my assumption but yet I was completely blown away. Immediately I was spotted by a middle aged lady who pleasantly waved at me. Out of pure instinct I immediately waved back feeling as I knew her well enough and to my surprise, my first experience at Yankee Candle was off to a great start. Even though her exterior, red apron uniform, told me that she was a sales associate, I felt she was more like my grandmother awaiting my arrival.
Right after I was cordially greeted, you cannot help but to be consumed entirely by the environment. Your sense of smell has entered a utopia while noticing that the store is designed completely to feel like home sweet home, full of antique home décor and country style displays. Little did I know, that this was not the way the whole store was set up.
I was convinced who the target consumer was after walking around the entrance cabin-like room full of items from kitchen ware, spices, lamps, body products, sauces, dips, floral arrangements, purses, home decorations, and of course candles while under a railroad track with a constant train passing by. In my mind it was inevitable to think that this retail space was specifically for women. Women who were home owners and that probably had families to attend to.
That idea expands as I continued to roam freely amidst the tantalizing aromas and warm environment. Next thing you know, I am in Vermont? A room completely devoted to the state of Vermont and its natural attributes. It was even surprising to notice a change in the scented air that made me feel like I was in a whole different store. Here they had candles named and made after specific characteristics of Vermont and it was a room that is changed every season for a new display.
Before I can even finish to admire this new room full of different aromas, I encounter yet another surprise, a dark one. This is practically a three hundred and sixty degree shift from what I had already been exposed to. As soon as you enter this darkened section named “Black Forest” as seen painted on a wooden sign in front of an evergreen, I felt like I was lost all of a sudden. Right after that, you encounter a mountain scenery covered in a white snow yet colorfully lit with lots of little intricate decorations. After I was at one with this new environment and trying to figure out what exactly is being sold in this section, I was able to appreciate the little surprises I found. These intricate pieces were so adorable and cute that I just wanted them all, especially since the majority of them were perfectly crafted and lit up. So then the idea that struck me was that maybe this was entailed for those targeted women to bring their children to tag along. But maybe I was getting ahead of myself.
As I continued to explore the “Black Forest” I encounter a castle with a beautiful waterfall and moat. On each side of the entrance were old iron statues of knights and iron-like gates as well. This whole feel was perfect and made me feel like I was a little kid again. As a even more contemporary consumer, I was also tempted to start taking pictures with my phone because everything was just way too cool. The best part of this environment was that you could see other customers being able to sit around and enjoy being within this fantastical wonderland. As I continued to explore, I was not expecting a drastic change in forecast. It was snowing! To be exact, it was snowing every four minutes. This was absolutely breath taking and I was not the only one who was speechless, so were the four old lady shoppers next to me enjoying it as well.
With all of the Christmas ornament filled rooms, and lit up pine trees, I was bound to find Santa and his workshop. There was no doubt Santa was hard at work with all the gifts traveling about on the mechanized tracks hanging from the ceiling. Here was a room completely filled with toys and other children’s items that would make any child go off the wall. I was completely amazed by the playfulness in that room, especially since it did not only cater to little girls. There was candy, educational items, costumes, teddy bears, and even a glow in the dark room. Alongside all of that, you also were reminded of how much time Santa has before Christmas on a digital clock.
So now that it is obvious that this store is geared towards mothers and their children, the family action packed fun is still not done. Up next is a more retail feel of the store, but it still does not lose its Yankee Candle essence. There is food like a coffee shop, popcorn and snack stand, fudge counter, and other special attractions like photo booths and a customized items shop. There is also a general store and a Hallmark store. But that is not even the best part, because since you are in Yankee Candle, you have yet to enter the Candle Emporium. Here you will find Wax Works where you and your children can have fun while learning how to make candles. Also you will find associates around willing to help you determine what is your fragrance. There is an aromatherapy-like section devoted to figuring out what is the fragrance that defines your mood, your home and most importantly you.
It was interesting to see how many of the retail sections at Yankee Candle had a relationship with the consumer. For example, the “What’s your Fragrance” display helps a consumer pick out a particular aroma that is “right” for them based on things like their mood, tastes, home, etc. This idea of a product defining a consumer has been seen in the lectures and how the consumer culture depends on commodified objects to express their individuality. One example would have to be in Sharon Mazzarella’s 1999 article “Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity” on prom magazines geared towards teenage girls. Here Mazzarella discusses how over and over again the advertisements in these prom magazines emphasize “the idea of using the prom as an opportunity to express individuality” (1999, p.105). The girls are to accomplish this through “a checklist to make sure she is organized in her prom planning” (Mazzarella, 1999, p.102). The best part behind it all is that the checklist “content makes abundant references to specific product brand names” (Mazzarella, 1999, p.106). And to sum this idea up, Mazzarella agrees and refers to Judith Williamson who said that “advertisers offer us an ‘identikit’ comprised of the appropriate commodities that will enable us to create the identity we desire” (1999, p.106). This is what Yankee Candle is trying to achieve with their specific displays and over abundant selections of various candle fragrances.
Along with defining our identity comes the embodied environment of the desires. When a consumer goes to Yankee Candle they are not only defining their identity with a product brand name, they are also buying into a lifestyle. I asked a customer familiar with the Yankee Candle flagship store and their response was that everything in the store is what one dreams of our homes to be and so you want everything in the store. This idea is also seen in Malcolm Gladwell’s 1996 article “The Science of Shopping.” Here we are exposed to the fact that “the best stores all have an image-or what retailers like to call a ‘point of view’’’ (Gladwell, 1996). This is the idea that a consumer also feels affiliated with a particular brand or store due to its environment and lifestyle image. Gladwell discovered that “Armani has a house. Donna Karan has a kitchen and a womb. Ralph Lauren has a men’s club. Calvin Klein has an art gallery. These are all very different points of view. What they have in common is that they have nothing to do with the actual act of shopping” (Gladwell, 1996). Through this idea we can see that Yankee Candle has mastered its point of view by making their customers feel right at home, the dreamy one.
Since Yankee Candle has such a strong point of view, there is no doubt that they are after women. “Women always shop longer than men, which is one of the major reasons that in the standard regional mall women account for seventy per cent of the dollar value of all purchases” (Gladwell, 1996). This fact that women account for more of the spending of a home is from Paco Underhill’s extensive research with consumer videos. This idea that women account for more consumer expenses can also be derived from Thorstein Veblen’s theory of the leisure class. Veblen’s theory behind the leisure class included displaying wealth through conspicuous and vicarious consumption. One way that this was achieved was through the tradition that “says that the woman, being a chattel, should consume only what is necessary to her sustenance – except so far as her further consumption contributes to the comfort or the good repute of her master” (Veblen, 1889, p.72). This was because if you were a wealthy man, there is only so much consumption you can do yourself to conspicuously show your wealth. So in order to continue to show this power, you would have people, like your family, around you to conspicuously consume as well. This is why Yankee Candle amongst many other retail stores, design their retail spaces to specifically target women with the choice of lighter colored walls and lighting, less organization and cohesion of products, and more spacious aisles (Gladwell, 1996).
Yankee Candle is definitely a retail space that indulges in the consumer’s life full of spectacle. As soon as you arrive you are drawn in by the divine aromas and perfect arrangements that represent your dream home. All of it just multiplies the amount of desires already existent within the customer, especially the women concerned with their homes who perfectly identify with the store's image. The flagship Yankee Candle store has clearly used this retail science to their advantage by mastering it, and also making Christmas happen as early as July.
Works Cited:
- Gladwell, Malcolm. (1996, November). The Science of Shopping, The New Yorker. Retrieved June 2010, from http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_11_04_a_shopping.htm
- Mazzarella, Sharon R. (1999). The “Superbowl of All Dates”: Teenage Girl Magazines and the Commodification of the Perfect Prom. In Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity. (Eds. Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma Odom Pecora). pp.97-112. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
- Veblen, Thorstein. (1994/1899). “Conspicuous Consumption”, pp.68-101. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin Books.
Friday, July 9, 2010 ;)
Installation? Lucy is our model! She does a great job! And she's been doing it for over 30 years! 
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